Old Cork

From the Lillyvale hills a track winds for around 90kms across country southward to the Old Cork homestead. Here there are the ruins of a once apparently impressive homestead (by the standards of the day), but a somewhat modest sized dwelling by todays standards. Some weathered info boards outside tell the story.

The track took us through more hills similar to the Lillyvale Hills and others of differing colour.

Occasionally we had livestock to contend with as well as reasons to stop to stretch our legs or simply gaze & feel.

Reaching the sign saying Diamantina River had me feeling pleased to have ticked an item off my bucket list.

Old Cork sits just up from the banks of the iconic Diamantina River, alongside an old Southern Cross windmill which once pumped water from the ’never run dry’ waterhole. The windmill still spins & does so remarkably quietly given it is no longer maintained, but it’s shaft is disconnected so it no longer pumps water. A pleasant spot with a lovely outlook, but plagued by flies. Unless you have experienced them it is hard to convey the relentlessness of their onslaught from a little after sunrise until the flie free bliss of sunset. However just before the flies take their leave, the mozzies turn up, although thankfully not in similar numbers. When the wind blows it disperses both these irritating little buggers somewhat, but replaces them with a swirling dust storm. This is the Aussie outback! Somehow amongst these distractions we managed to bake on the camp fire & to catch a number of good sized fish. Looking forward to a baked fish supper, our disappointment was as much as my verbal responses were loud. I had finally caught sufficient fish for a good feed, rather than just an ‘hors d’ouvre’. The fish, not Yellowbelly, but Welch’s Grunters, were disgusting. The taste was fine, but the texture was vomit inducing. The chicken sausages from the Winton butcher weren’t much better, in fact MrsTea thought them worse, but we bravely soldiered on & lived to see another day!

Here are a few photo’s which only go to prove that photos don’t always tell the whole story!

What we did enjoy at Old Cork (always two sides to the story) was our interaction with the birds. In particular a couple of families of Butcher birds, who were very ‘friendly’. We had heard the most beautiful singing amongst the dawn chorus but had not realised it was the Butcher birds until MrsTea started whistling to them & they responded in kind. The dates on my map are slightly out of synch (tech problem) but we stayed at Old Cork for 3 nights, mainly thanks to the invitation from these lovely residents!