Hello from way out west,
The “first week of the rest of our lives” has been very eventful and pleasant indeed. We have ended up in our chosen venue, one “Pump Hole” camping area in the most beautiful National Park in the world! We have certainly managed to evade all the hordes of holiday-makers, as we share the camping area with a few evasive kangaroos and emus, half a dozen resident pelicans, and the ever-present feral goats, but we have not spoken one word to anyone but each other for the three days that we have been here.
This is a time for healing and this place has always been good medicine for us.
This time, getting here was definitely half the fun, as the three overnighters in our big push to arrive were all memorable in their own way. The first night we stayed at a wonderful free camping area in Karara, near Warwick. It was pretty wild as soon as the sun went down, as the most raucous cacophony of bird life you can imagine made conversation impossible. Apart from that, there were two or three other groups in the camping grounds and they all elected to stay toward the entrance near the road. Go figure.
The next day we headed for familiar grounds (free campgrounds, that is). Dirranbandi has a lovely area just outside of town and we were able to secure our “usual” spot (for the 3rd time). We spent a bit of time chilling out and fiddling around with our new digs, as we decided to take an additional day to reach our destination, only travelling a short distance to the next night’s accommodation.
It was a lovely drive to Culgoa National Park in NSW, adjacent to the confusingly named Culgoa Floodplains National Park in Queensland, where we chatted to a lovely young ranger named Rowena, who should be the national spokesperson for national parks.
For hundreds of kilometres from Goodooga, near Culgoa NP, we encountered a mere handful of other vehicles. Typical of the outback, this is one of the myriad of bewitching qualities that draw you in and draw you back again and again until you become hopelessly addicted to the wide open spaces and lack of civilization.
But I digress.
Once again, we were one of only a handful of campers at Culgoa NP and had a lovely quiet evening, after a late afternoon bike ride out to the waterhole before heading off to Eulo, the gateway to Currawinya National Park and the Pump Hole, early-ish on Friday morning.
It was such a rush to discover that we were the only people in sight or sound of our favourite outback destination, and that our new set-up would have no problems negotiating the track down to the banks of the historic Paroo waterhole.
We made it. For the time being, this is where we are living. (Except we may have to move to a safer place tomorrow, as there is rain coming, which would completely cut us off from any help.)