Welford National Park

Saying goodbye never gets easier, but goodbyes were said to our old friends.

Our route took us back across Coopers Creek & east for a few kms before turning north onto the Hammond Downs Rd, a station road taking us through Hammond Downs Station, an exceptionally smooth dirt road all the way to Retreat Station where we once again found sealed road briefly before entering the Welford National Park. The Little Boomerang waterhole campground was our home for the night, &  unable to find a ranger, we left a note with our contact details – in case they want to seek reimbursement of the $13 camping fee. The drive into the camp took us across grasslands & extensive clay pans/sand plains. These, with the backdrop of the clear blue sky were dramatic & impressive,made all the more so by the large numbers of kangaroos – hundreds of them. As yet we are still unable to distinguish the different types, but here there were smaller greys, & reds, large reds & larger dark greys with orange shoulders. The latter generally alone, whilst all the others were commonly in groups of up to a couple of dozen. What we loved about all of them was just how curious they were. Not like the relatively tame roos seen at popular tourist haunts though. Approach the ‘Welford roos’ & they watch you approach, with what looks like an interested & inquisitive pose, finally hopping away when within 20 metres or so. Even then they tended to only move away a short distance, stop, turn & resume the pose. At times we watched up to 100 roos bounding at full pace across the ground which allowed us to see them clearly. Our conversation at these times dominated by comments of joy & agreement that the view we were witnessing must be perhaps THE most iconic Australian view possible.

The campground was at the top of steep banks down to the water. It was also somewhat chilly & windy & resulted in our decision to stay only one night. In hindsight that was a mistake. There are 3 ‘drives’ through the park that visitors can take. The first we took was the desert drive, a 4wd track away from the clay pans & into red dirt & dune country. The ‘mild’ 4wd driving was fun & the vistas around us were stunning. Stopping at a sand dune to climb it gave us 360 degree views. Beautiful. The second drive, the following morning before leaving was a shorter one for 2wd vehicles, the ‘River Drive’. It was ok, but we have spent a fair bit of time on riversides lately & it simply didn’t compare to the desert drive. The third drive, the ‘Mulga Drive’ was described as taking you through the most diverse range of country, but at more than 70kms we gave it a miss as we were uncertain if it would leave us sufficient fuel to reach Blackall, given that we also wanted to visit the Idalia NP en route. This was our mistake & Welford is now on our ‘return to one day’ list. We suspect that it’s an under utilised park as most folk would not realise it’s accessibility by 2wd. Our view was that it should be considered by the many caravanners & motorhomers who make it to Windorah, even though 4wd was needed for two of the ‘drives’, given the excellent access, with the possibility of then travelling on eastward from the park as we did. Of course wet weather would change that recommendation.