Min Min Adventure - Day 5 - Betoota to Birdsville.
So…we had a dreadful night bush camping. We had not bothered to put the flysheet up and just had the tent inner because it had a lot of netting, we thought, to allow in any available breeze.
It was still 38 degrees at 10.00 pm! We were sweltering with no breeze at all. It’s a wonder I fell asleep but I did, I suppose because the previous nights sleep had been so broken. I awoke just after midnight to find the wind had picked up and it was now very windy indeed, in fact it seemed to be constant gale force.
I was worried about being smothered by the dust that you cold feel crunching between your teeth or that the tree we had pitched the tent under, for shade , would fall on us. I retired to sit inside the car for a few hours but eventually decided the fumes from the petrol canister, we had brought with us, was probably doing me more damage, so got back in the tent. I did fall asleep again for about two hours before being woken by the dawn cacophony! It sounded like every bird for miles around had landed in the tree above our tent and was screaming, panic stricken, about the terrible wind which was still blowing!
We just got up and battled to stuff everything in the car without it blowing away first and we left as fast as we could.
Will drove again and we headed towards Birdsville. There was more dirt road than sealed on this leg of the trip so again that was tiring.
Our first stop was to look at The Dreamtime Serpent on the side of a hill beside the road made from rocks collected locally.
The scenery was again flat and sparse and at times reminded me of the vast empty moorlands of the pennines. It was about a good two hour drive from Betoota to Birdsville so we got there pretty early on in the day.
We had a drive around (it’s not very big), went to the Information Centre, got a few supplies and then decided, beacuse the wind was still blowing and the caravan park had very little shade, to book a room at the Birdsville Hotel for the night. After all Birdsville is as far west as we are going on this trip and from tomorrow we will, in a round about way, starting to head back home again.
We visited the local Burke and Wills tree, took a peek at the Diamantina River and the billabongs at Pelican Point before finally being able to check into our hotel room.
“Are you going to Big Red later?” asked the receptionist. Big Red is the first sand dune of the Simpson Desert and is about 38 kilometres west of Birdsville.
“We are.” I said.
“Could I ask a favour?” she asked. “We have two guests staying from the Flying Doctor service who flew in today. Would you be able to fit them in?”
Zooey was packed with all our stuff but unpacked a lot of it and the upshot was we went out to Big Red in the evening to see the Sun set with Dr Helen and ‘Trigger’ the pilot.
Big Red was amazing. We had it all to ourselves and the dunes looked pristine with no other footprints. (Obviously the wind had helped with that). I did feel a little guilty to disturb the rippled sand scape with my footprints but we had to explore. It was the slowest sun set ever and I think it was because we had to be back at the hotel for dinner at 7.30.
We saw a flock of budgies and a hawk with a snake in its beak and a beautiful sunset on the very edge of the Simpson Desert.
Helen and Trigger were interesting companions. He flew for the Flying Doctor service now and Helen was over from the UK on a two year contract to work for the Flying Doctor service. They were on holiday and Trigger had borrowed a friends plane to fly Helen on an Outback Tour of Australia, as you do! They had flown in from Alice Springs and Birdsville was their last stop before heading back to work. Previously Trigger had flown company jets and had flown former Australian Prime Ministers on trips.
Helen had been all over the world and was an emergency trauma doctor. She had been the emergency doctor on various different car rallies around the World and now she had her own aerial chauffeur taking her on a whirlwind trip of the Outback. They were both lovely and I hope Trigger gets his gal.
