Cunnamulla to Charleville

The sealed Mitchell highway northward took us to Charleville. Whilst the bitumen hinted at civilisation the drive was far from civilised. This was 200kms of carnage worse than we had seen on the the Eulo to Yowah road. This was ‘Death Alley’. A consistent stench of death remained with us for virtually the entire journey. MrsTea took a ‘random sample’ …. counting up to 100 slain kangaroos & emus. 100 was reached in just 5 minutes (@80kph) & this density was far from the highest we saw. I was angry. We were both angry. It seemed so senseless & unnescessary. We understand that roads & wildlife do not mix well & that animal casualties in the outback are an unfortunate fact of life, but this seemed excessive. The factors responsible for turning our sorrow to anger were twofold. It became obvious that the kill density was far greater when there were fences close to the road, & on this stretch there were a lot of fences, some just metres from the road, some set back a little way behind a line of trees. Compounding this apparent ‘funnelling’ of wildlife onto the highway was the ridiculous speed limit of 110kph. In our view it borders on criminal to combine a 110kh limit on a 2 lane road with so much wildlife obviously at close quarters. There must be better ways to manage the situation.

We stopped for morning smoko at Wyandra, the only town between Cunnamulla & Charleville, if the tiny handfull of dwellings, a pub & a general store could be considered a town. (Smoko, for the non Aussies reading this, does not mean I have fallen back into the clutches of the evil weed I’m sure you willbe pleased to know. Smoko is Aussie lingo for a tea break). It was once a thriving railway town complete with market gardens supplying Charleville & Cunnamulla, but those days are long past, & many of the buildings alongside the now disused rail line are gone or in the process of falling down. Signs optimistically attempt to attact folk to stay the night in the tiny caravan park but we thought it unlikely they would be very effective.

 

Another stop along the way was at Angalalla Creek. This was the site of Australia’s worst ever transport explosion. I recall seeing news footage at the time when a truck laden with Ammonium Nitrate wiped out a rail bridge & caused an enormous crater, not footage easily forgotten. It is now a site of remembrance, paying homage to the firefighters & rescue workers. Much work has gone into the crater site with top soil being laid over the red dirt & grass planted. A tanker was there watering the grass, presumably a regular chore in such arid country.

 

Charleville struck us as quite a vibrant country town, with a few buildings hinting at a prosperous past, & remains an important regional centre. It is by far the largest town that we’ve been in since we left Victoria, & we made good use of it to restock our supplies from the large supermarkets. Although having only been away for around 4 weeks, we had become accustomed to small outback general stores with very limited choice. Standing in the aisles of the Supa IGA felt akin to visiting the ‘big smoke’ …. even though it was far from that. Now we didn’t have to decide whether wanted to buy a bar of soap, we had to decide which of a couple of dozen brands to choose! Walking around the main & back streets was a pleasant experience. The Tourist information centre offered us free wifi which we took advantage of, & whilst sitting using it the ever helpful staff enquired whether we might like to avail ourselves of the free tea & coffee they provide along with the info on all the local free camping & fishing spots. The butchers shop did us proud, replenishing our stock, all cryovaced at no extra cost (which compared well to the supermarket) but it was their ‘finishing touch’ which we loved. Attached to the entrance door was a rope, running to a couple of ceiling mounted pulleys, & terminating at a shoulder high handle, a wooden handle which looked like it may have once had a saw blade attached to it. As we reached the door to leave with our bags of meat the door opened ‘automatically’. It was only when I looked back I realised the young chap who had served us had just opened the door for us from behind the counter by pulling on the rope. Nice touch!

An overnighter 10kms out of town at Rock Pool, an area of scrub between a large excavated water hole & a rail line. We imagined that the water hole may wellonce have been to replenish the boilers of steam locomotives. Embossing on the still used rail tracks showed a date of 1915. Multiple dirt tracks through the trees had a number of other campers doing the same as us, this being the closest free camp to town. Plenty of firewood for a cosy evening.

The following three days & nights were spent on the banks of the Ward River, a river previously unknown to us, but nevertheless quite a large & deep river, a tributary to the Warrego River, reputed to provide good Yellowbelly fishing. The directions we had took us in via a 4wd track with some short but steep, narrow & off camber gullies to negotiate. I finally got to use our diff lock & was pleased we had it! The Patrol pulled the Tvan through the obstacles far easier than I would have imagined, albeit with a fair bit of creaking & groaning from the rear leaf springs.

Unfortunately no Yellowbelly chose to fill our bellies, in three days best I could manage were 2 large European Carp. These, like the cane toads & rabbits were introduced & are now considered noxious pests that have displaced many native species. Apparently introduced in the late 1800’s as a ’sportfish’. Dunno what they were thinking back then as they are as far from a ’sport’ fish as I can imagine. They take your bait, & sit on the end of the line for ages with no indication they are there. Both fish, around 5kg by my estimation, felt like a snag when reeling my line in, only giving a half heated ‘flap’ when near the water’s surface. No-one (except apparently some eastern europeans) eats them, & regulations insist they are destroyed & burned, not returned to the water.

Plenty of birdlife, & the serenity wasn’t bad either making leaving a toss up decision, but we chose to move on as we had had no phone reception & wanted to hear from our friends Al & Lorelle to ensure we wouldn’t pass each other on the road somewhere.