Camping by the Paroo River , just outside of Eulo is so good we have stay a few days to make it worthwhile. The river is graced with Pelicans, dark clothed blokes fish for yabbies and walking up-river in the remoteness makes you feel you’re the only person on earth. At night the fire – using wood cut by Ted’s new chain saw – warms us and the Milky Way is bright and clear.
Eulo is charming, a short bike ride into town. The local shop sells fossils along with coffee and groceries and they’re very proud of their diprotodon past. Diprotodons, just in case you missed it at school, as I did, are the ancestors of wombats and koalas, the largest marsupial ever known to have existed and roamed Queensland and New South Wales among other places from about 1.5 million years to 45,000 years ago. Stood two metres tall and were three metres long. Wow!
Next town is Wyandra, 26th July, which seems to have just one shop and a lock-up and they have a bigger variety of goods on sale than Coles, Bunnings, Kmart and Big W combined, all contained in a tiny dusty store – also includes the Post Office and a cafe, where we lunch happily.
Now it’s time to visit Charleville where we stay in our first CMCA bush camp – first time for everything – run by the grey nomads themselves. Conversations is about – well, grey nomad stuff – where are you going, where did you go last, what stuff broke, scrapes you get into -AND the coronavirus!.
Today we go by Augathella, an idiosyncratic, charming small town, dominated by a water tower which, like every other vacant wall in the town, has been painted in striking colours. Thanks Augathella, you’re lovely – maybe we’ll stay here next time round!
Now we set off for Blackall and a find a caravan park where they put on a nightly fire pit and even provide dinner for a small price. Great fun and the conversation is – as usual – about types of vans, good spots to stay and where they want to go next, AND coronavirus!
A bike ride into Blackall finds a proud town but now there is a phone call from the husband from one of the women I have most loved in life from our time in Sydney. She has not long to live, so again we make a right hand turn in our travels and go south to Brisbane, making it in three days, arriving at Baden Powell Scout Camp at Samford on the outskirts on 1st August, and here we are still – once again, not where we thought we would be.
Blackwattle Roaming 
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