Prologue
Several weeks ago, courtesy of the remnants of a tropical cyclone that had crossed the coastline a couple of thousand kilometres north of us, much needed heavy rains were dumped over the parched grazing lands of northern and central west Queensland as it (the tropical low), blew itself out.
In the weeks that have passed since those rains up north, that sunburnt ground has soaked up as much moisture as it can take, the excess water flooding across the land, filling creeks and river channels. The land for as far as the eye can see has sprung back to life.
Unfortunately for the folks in north western New South Wales, where we currently find ourselves, not a drop had fallen here - this part of the country is still in the midst of a prolonged drought. The ground is dry and barren of grass. Livestock, mainly sheep and cattle, are struggling to survive.
However, despite no rain having fallen here, the flood waters from up north have been flowing ever southwards. The volume of water surging through the creeks and river channels is often still enough to break the banks and flood the surrounding flat land many hundreds of kilometres downstream from where the rains actually fell. This is known as a ‘Dry Flood’ and that water was coming! At least the farmers have had plenty of time to get prepared.
Now, our story continues…
As mentioned in the previous posting, we were just about to leave the Warrego Hotel at Fords Bridge to travel to the 160 km or so to the next hotel on our pub crawl (The Royal Mail Hotel, at Hungerford QLD), when a road crew pulled into the pub. We were told that the road we intended to use to get to Hungerford had, “just gone under” at the Cuttaburra Creek crossing. They then proceeded to show us pictures they had taken that morning showing water to be flowing swiftly across the road at a depth of ~0.7 m (more than 2 ft). They said “it came up pretty quick but will go down just as fast”.
Fortunately for us, there was a sheep station only 20 km from our intended route that allowed camping on their property. Rather than take any unnecessary risks we decided to make a slight detour and spend the night there to wait until the surge of water had passed through.
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| Not far of off our intended route to Hungerford from Fords Bridge was Comeroo Station |
The station is called Comeroo Camel Station. To supplement their primary income, derived from sheep farming, they have opened up a part of their 100,000 acre land holding to tourists wishing to do a ‘Station Stay’ or for travellers looking to spend a night or two bush camping for a small fee.
We stopped at the homestead and asked about camping for a night.
“No worries. There is plenty of room - you are the only ones here! Feel free to come up and join us at the end of the day for a sundowner and a chat. There is a hot-tub under the stars out the back that you can use - just fill it with bore water. The water comes out of the ground at 46C so you might want to fill it on the way in for a drink so that it can cool down a bit before getting in”.
Sounds great! Where do we go to camp?
“Go through the gate over there and park yourselves anywhere you like down near the creek” were the directions received. “It got up a bit high a couple of days ago - over 8ft deep, but is on the way back down now. It won’t come up any higher”.
So, towards the creek we went. The name of the creek, for anyone that might have been wondering, is ‘Cuttaburra Creek’.
The creek had indeed been high. It had actually broken its banks - part of the station was experiencing a ‘dry flood’. The ground within 20 or 30 m of the main channel on our side of the creek was flooded but we could not see where the water ended across the other side. We set ourselves up well away from the ‘high tide mark’ then walked to the depth indicator in the channel near our camp. It showed the water to be 7ft 10 inches deep. We were happy to see that it was indeed receding.
That evening, as sunset approached, we packed a bottle of wine, a couple of beers, our swimming gear and towels and walked up to the homestead for a drink and a chat with our hosts, Bruce & his wife Chris. We filled the hot-tub on the way. While enjoying our drinks we talked about all sorts of things:
- Flies (which were thick during the day);
- Mosquitoes (which were busy at night);
- Drought and farming in general, and;
- We asked about the camels.
To make a couple more bucks they decided that tourists staying on the property might like to ride a camel while out there (not our thing but I suppose some do). Not enough folks by the sounds of it - the station no longer provides camel rides as “the exorbitant liability insurance premiums don’t make it worth doing anymore”, but he still has a herd of “about a dozen camels out there somewhere”.
After drinks we soaked in the tub for a while before walking back to the caravan for the night - very civilised!
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| Enjoying a hot-tub under the stars! |
The first thing we did next morning was check the depth indicator in the creek. It had dropped 6 inches overnight.
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| Depth marker near our camp Shows water to be 7ft deep (but it was receding) |
We asked Bruce what level the creek needed to be here at the station in order to be able to safely use the highway crossing 20 km downstream. “About 6’ 6” would be my guess” he said. Looks like we could be here for another night (or two). We drove to the crossing to take a look for ourselves. The water was still flowing swiftly across the road at over 0.4 m (1ft 6”) deep. Not only was it still fairly deep but it turned out to be about 500m across and there was no way of knowing exactly where the edges of the road were. Yep, we will be spending another night at Comeroo!
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| Cuttaburra Creek crossing. ~ 500m across and over a foot deep… Maybe tomorrow. |
With more time to be spent in the area we went to explore a nearby ghost town - Yantabulla. The place had been abandoned in the 1980s/90s and looked like a rubbish dump to me. Heather, on the other hand, saw it as a metal detector’s ‘dream come true’!
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| One man's trash dump is another woman's treasure chest! |
She worked the place over for hours and just as she was getting tired and frustrated by the amount of trash she was finding, she unearthed one of her most prized treasures to date - a New South Wales Police helmet badge stamped during the short reign of King Edward VIII (in 1936, he abdicated the throne after less than a year as King). Due to the short reign (326 days), and some errors contained in the badge, it is considered to be ‘Extremely Rare’.
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| 'Extremely Rare' New South Wales Police Badge with Edward VIII cipher (click on image to enlarge) |
It was only because we were here for longer than planned that we went to Yantabulla to do some detecting!
That evening back at Comeroo, over our evening sundowner, we talked to Bruce about the find and he told us all about Yantabulla. Another hot-tub to wash the dust from digging off and back to the van for the night but Heather was so excited to return to the town the next day that it appeared that a third night at the station was on the cards! Inspection of the depth marker the following morning indicated 6’ 3” so, according to Bruce, the road should be passable. A visit on the way back to Yantabulla confirmed that it was, but, as you may have guessed, we would not be leaving that day. We returned to the scene of Heather’s magnificent find, however, the ground yielded no more treasure so it was back to the station we went. In the afternoon we went in search of, and found, the camel herd, and ended the day getting ready to depart the next morning. Sundowners, a final hot-tub under the stars, and that was it.
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| Camels are well suited to this desert-like environment! |
In the morning we hit the road towards Hungerford and an easy hour and a bit later we arrived at the the NSW/QLD border to find a closed gate across the road.
WTF? - Where are The Farrows? wondered if it was installed by the Queenslanders to keep the New South Welshmen out or by the New South Welshmen to keep the Queenslanders in?!
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