Day 84 Jundah, Windorah

 Today has been a pretty cruisy and relaxed day. I am writing this as I sit by Cooper’s Creek, just outside of Windorah. The wind is blowing gently through the trees, trees that still show signs of the immense amounts of water that flowed through here, only a couple of months ago. Budgies flit and fly about, chirping and chattering to each other; whilst whistling Kites float in the thermal air flows above, occasionally whistling as they do. The creek water is flowing steadily and has apparently returned to its normal levels. Matt may drop in a line to see if he can grab a catch, or not. A pelican flies and lands with a splash as the momentum of flying perpetuates the Pelican, until the water slows it down, and then it paddles away.

Today was a chilly start in Longreach, and the warmer clothes have been pulled out from the  back of our drawers, dusted off and worn. We headed out and watched the scenery change to flat plains with golden dry grasses and a scattering of trees amongst the paddocks. There was the occasional burst of bright colours, as the wildflowers are appearing. In places you could see new fencing had been installed and the road had been patched up from the flood damage. Some fences had debris caught up in them, revealing how high the water reached. We climbed up a few ‘jump ups’ as they are referred to out here, in other words, a small, rocky mountain range. Up here you could see everything, it was a great place to appreciate the vastness of the area, especially if you had your glasses on (getting old😜) to see that far! We stopped for lunch by the Thomson River at Jundah, after a brief drive around town (didn’t take long, it’s not very big). Matt spied some budgies and we were finally able to film and photograph the tiny little colourful birds, so we can share with our niece who loves Budgies. Matt was also having a go at trying to photograph the whistling Kites, soaring above in circles, occasionally swooping down to the river. fun fact, this council area , the Barcoo shire, covers 61,974 square kilometres and has a population of 462. Today was about 320km of single lane bitumen road. The etiquette for the single lane is as follows.. if you’re bigger you get to stay on the road, caravans and cars have to move onto the dirt verge to let the large vehicles pass on the bitumen without throwing rocks. So usually I get to stay on the hard stuff but there are still plenty of road trains and large trucks on the road that I have to make way for ( in the video )

We are in the thick of the channel country now, and the channels are as green as they get due to the recent floods. Seeing the country at its best . 

We ventured on to Windorah and stopped in at the Visitors information Centre and checked out a couple of sites they had with museum displays. There was an old slab hut set up with items that would have been in there for a family living in it, back in its day. Matt found an old Austin A30, in mint condition, (more original than mint, it was rough but original)
no rust and original very old Queensland number plates. He reckons it never left town after being registered. On another site, was an old Cessna plane that had belonged to a member of the community that had used it for anything from rounding up cattle on properties to rescuing people in floods, or taking people to access urgent medical care. We did the obligatory lap around town and headed back out to where we have camped up for the night. Our big adventure is quickly disappearing, and I wonder how well we will readjust to normal life and work, after all this freedom to explore and relax and enjoy our beautiful country.