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Published: July 12th 2015
Winnie the Poo - always helpful
Winnie shows the way to the water management centre at Cunnamulla.Well Cunnamulla was further away from our last stop of St George than we wanted to travel in a day, so the little town of Bollon (still don’t know how the locals pronounce that) beckoned with an enticing free camp beside the river. The little rascals at Bollon promoted the free camp area as having free shower
s(plural) and toilets, but when Geoff walked to the free shower (singular) it was about 350 mts away from the main camp area and incorporated the free dunny! Oooh they do play with the truth in the country. At the end of the day we are self contained (sort of), the facilities were not required and the location was very good with the river just a couple of mts. from the door. Geoff saw some other travellers putting in some yabbie nets so after some discussion he decided to do the same with the help of Spam as bait, and in the morning had 2 good specimens. As two are really not even entre’ he donated them to the folk that had their nets in the day before.
As most other travellers had their satellite dishes out, we decided that we would use ours.
Charlotte Plains farm stay
No, it couldn't possible rain - this is QLD! No reception again. It was not long before fellow travellers came to offer assistance, although they could not give Geoff any advice that he did not already know. It became a real exercise in diplomacy. We gave up and reverted to the terrestrial service, which sufficed for the one night. Next day we headed for Cunnamulla. Don’t think you have heard the end of the Sat TV yet...!
We had to go to a caravan park in order to catch up on washing in particular (6 loads) and charging battery operated appliances (computer and modem) and we found quite good one not far from the centre of town. I say centre of town, but in reality Cunnamulla reflects quite vividly what is happening in so many country towns, and that is that they are dying on their feet. I got very sad seeing the closed shops, the minute IGA supermarket, the near defunct rail yards and just about everything else that makes a country town. Times are changing and the things that gave some of these towns a reason for being is being overtaken with more efficient ways of doing what they did. I am concluding that the Great
The bore complete with mermaid
Just after the rain and time to warm up. Grey Nomad phenomenon may be their best bet.
Anyway, back to the caravan park and Geoff has decided to give the sat TV another go, especially after seeing another vanner with his dish set up. Try as he did, there was no resulting picture on screen. As this had been a developing problem, equipment was suspected to be the issue and off into town Geoff went with the very hopeful aim of getting a new LNB -it’s the thing that collects the signal from the dish and send it to the set top box (decoder). As luck would have it there was still someone in town that sold them and full of confidence he returned and fitted it to the dish. No bl**dy change!!! (Another $70 down the drain). We reverted to the terrestrial service (cut and paste is handy when writing this). As fate would have it, a traveller who had been happy to provide advice at Bollon arrived in the C.P. so Geoff asked him to hook his satellite set-up to our system. This also failed to produce a result. He retired to his site to set himself up. Geoff spoke to the other vanner that he
had seen and was informed that he had been trying for 3 days without success (it pays not to make assumptions). So now we have irrefutable evidence that it has to be the location...maybe.
Trying to put the TV issue behind us, we moved on (actually back-tracked) to a station stay some 40 kms back towards Bollon. Marg has never been thrilled with the idea of station stays since an unfortunate stay at one bordering Lake Mungo several years ago, so it was quite something to get agreement to try this place. The station is some 74,000 hectares in size and has 2 access roads into it. We took the first which was gravel and a bit corrugated, (read very corrugated and full of large grooves – up to ones knees- where other vehicles had nearly become bogged) but not too bad considering it was someone’s ‘driveway’. It was only 25 kms in to the homestead via this route! Met the owner, paid for 2 nights and headed off for another 12kms to the artesian bore camp area. This is a great spot to believe that you are the last/only couple on the planet. And hot running water as
Sundown over the bore
The mood was just right after the rain had passed. well; this really is a slice of heaven. Until...a bunch of locals turned up with their trail bikes, kids and tents. This is not looking so good now; however we must say we were pleasantly surprised that they made the minimum of noise and did their biking well away from the camp site – in fact so far away we could not hear them. This was also an ideal location to set up the sat TV, so out it came but try as he did, Geoff was not able to get anything to appear on the TV. Very frustrating as the sat finder shows a good signal, but the TV is showing no signal. The dish is now back in the car and we will not mention the subject again! And we will not get the bloody thing out of the back of the truck again. Ever! (Ed).
As many may know Marg and water are inseparable and it wasn’t long before we were in our bathers and into the ‘bore channel’ just a couple of metres from the bore head. The water coming out of the bore head is around 43 deg C so it is best to
let the water cool a little as it flows down the channel or risk ending up as a lobster. The channel is not deep, but enough if you sat down in it, the bottom is sandy, but has a coating of algae that makes it a bit squishy. We sat there for some time enjoying the experience as it should be and then moved up to one of the 2 (domestic) bath tubs that have been put there for those who don’t like the idea of sitting in a hot algal soup. Geoff bucketed water into one of them, and just as Marg (doing the heavy lifting) was about to say that there was enough in the tub, one of the young bikers came over and asked if we would like to fill it with the 3” hose... Anyway, we had a good soak and felt so much better for it afterwards.
A little later a storm front came through and we had to furl the awning – quickly, and got thoroughly wet in the process. There were very dark clouds to the North, complete with flickering lightning so we hunkered down inside. It was a good thing that
What was once a strong and trusty wagon
Charlotte Plains farm stay at 'Jack's shack' we had been on power for the previous 2 days as there was not much in the way of solar assistance for the batteries. The storm cleared and by the time we were retiring the sky was crystal clear with an amazing show of stars. In the morning we made use of the bore for our morning shower – or bath in Margaret’s case as we now knew how to fill the tub effortlessly.
We declined the chance to do a tour of the station (at a cost of $20/p.h) on the basis that we were going back into Cunnamulla for the Saturday markets. Well we did the 100km round trip (one of the things you do when in the bush), but found that the markets were finished, the supermarket was closed and even the Information Centre had only 10 minutes before they too were closing.
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Ron A
non-member comment
Are you missing Neighbours and Away?
Your Sat TV issues reminded me that because we only have free to air at home; when travelling on business I often curiously surf the hotel Cable channels; only to find an extra 30 channels filled with stuff that I do not want to watch anyway. Normally I end up watching free to air. I imagine that the terrestrial options would be a bit limited at Bollon however. Hope you are managing to keep up with family feud and meouwllion dollar minute; not to mention neighbours and away.