No, not camels, kangaroos, wombats or koalas but emus were the first and only wildlife I have seen on this journey of now nearly 4,000km. A great flock of them had taken over the wheat stubble but by the time I located my camera it was only the brave that remained and stared me out whilst I took the photo. The rest had run away.
I was however travelling through the land of the long paddock and there were lots of areas with signs saying cattle on road for next 5 km, they seemed to come in 5 km stretches so that in fact there were cattle there for 20 km or more. Thousands of them. The first ones I had to stop to let them pass the road and later thought, I should have grabbed the camera, but I was too busy making sure that they actually crossed and didn't stay on the road to block my way. This lot had already gone through.
This is Lake Cargelligo where I stopped for lunch - as I say, lakes abound!
No lakes today, I am at a tiny place called Caragabal which is about 70 km south of Forbes in NSW and will be at Dubbo tomorrow. I stopped at another camping spot earlier but it was so noisy with huge interstate trucks whizzing by. Another van pulled up to use the toilet and told me of this spot about 24 km off that road and it is very quiet so far although I am next to the railway line. Last night I camped at a tiny place called Tillibegeal next to the railway line where there were not only clean toilets but showers and water and power all for free. That all looked pretty good but a a train which was some freight but 3 big diesel engines pulled up about 100 m away and the engines kept running and running and running without moving and that went on for FIVE hours, I am not kidding. I was so annoyed and wanted to know what the hell they were doing, but one of the drivers came and used the toilet and he looked like what Myles and Richard call boguns - shaved head and big bushy beard and very big and I thought better to leave well alone. Eventually another train went by and then they took off. So it seemed that they were waiting for this other train all the time, but they could have turned the bloody engines off - I cant imagine how much fuel they wasted.
It started to rain when I arrived here and it continued until about 2 minutes ago. Its not a problem with rain and its better than heat. I haven't actually seen any for about 2 weeks now. I have been cooking a beef stew in my dream pot so I hope it is cooked by tea time. It should be, I got it together at about 12.30pm in the noisy spot.
When I drove into Tillibegeal there was what I thought a very odd sign. It asked trucks to stop to dislodge the dust from their tyres before proceeding into the town. Along the stretch where trucks were to stop there were piles of red dust. I didnt understand how this could be, all the roads are bitumin. This morning there was a very high wind, in fact it was so fierce I had trouble pulling the pop down in my van but eventually on the third try got it down and had to hold it tight while I put the straps it because it kept blowing up again. As I drove out of town, I got the gist of what the dust thing was about. The wind had whipped up quite a dust storm from all the rich red soil that was bare after ploughing for miles around and the dust was thick in the air. I reckon this must be a fairly common occurrence.
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