“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” from On the Road by Jack Kerouac, American novelist

It is an easy 2050km drive over four days from the Sunshine Coast to the start of the Eyre Highway at Port Augusta with overnight stops at marvellous Moree, captivating Cobar, beautiful Broken Hill and pretty Port Augusta. Then west across the Nullarbor. In just over a week, we hope to be Way Away in WA (Western Australia).

Crossing the Great Dividing Range at Toowoomba

We stopped at Millmerran on our way home last year and photographed this metal object which I called a bucket at the time (there was no accompanying sign). I have since found out it is the Big Camp Oven as Millmerran is the host site for the Australian Camp Oven Festival every October. At the festival, some people tried to cook with reduced coals in their fire but it turned out to be a half baked idea.

The Gore Highway – entering cypress and brigalow country

Sculpture at the Goondiwindi Botanic Gardens

Grey teal at the Goondiwindi Botanic Gardens

The MacIntyre Cod Fossil Sculpture at Goondiwindi – it has great sedimental value.

MacIntyre River

The Goondiwindi Pelican. A wonderful bird is the pelican…… I ate out and had roast pelican the other night. The food was ok but the bill was enormous.

The Goondiwindi Customs House was built in the 1870’s and established to collect customs duties for goods coming in and out of Queensland prior to Australian Federation in 1901. The customs workers here found the job very taxing.

A female superb blue wren having afternoon tea.

The McIntyre River Bridge was built in 1914 to replace the original timber structure from 1878. For engineers and those interested in the riveting details: the 6 metres wide roadway has two 40 metre spans of hogbacked steel-lattice girders, braced overhead with steel lattice bracing.

For the love of cod! The Mighty Murray Cod commissioned by the local Lions Club. It is much bigger than the real thing – it is a scale model.

Soon we crossed over the MacIntyre River into New South Wales then down the Newell Highway to stop at Moree for the night. Moree was isolated for a while last year by floodwaters and even ran out of beer at one stage. For some it was un-beer-able – the locals were bitter! There was more wail than ale.

These Indigenous Art carvings are in a local park at Moree. There are several highlighting the animals on Country. The second image is a representation of Aboriginal camps linked by waterways.

Moree Historic Lands Office – colonial architecture from the 1800s. One of its claims to fame is that Charles Dickens’ son worked here from 1900 to 1902. I can’t tell what the dickens his reason for being in Moree was.

Emu Count today:4 (our first emus off the Gore Highway after the Captains Mountain Range west of Millmerran)

Good night from Kamilaroi country.

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