April 12-21 travelling between expeditions

We ended our Mungo journey with a wander alongside the river at Wentworth, NSW where the Darling and Murray rivers meet. This is all part of an ancient landscape of upheaval and quiet subsidence - or is that newness and adaptation. Quite a magnificent spot where you can see the waters of the two mighty rivers slowly mingle – they are different colours (lots of mud in the Darling) so you can see the distance it takes for them to properly merge – on the surface at least. 

I added this photo for no other reason than I love the structure of this plant I found growing by the river.

This sojourn so far has been a fascinating journey through time, across mixed heritages, cultures and geography and had me thinking about our relevance, about the almost mindless churning of the ‘days of our lives’ which seem irrelevant against the ancient backdrop we had been exploring. Then it was back to earth! And of course joy oh joy that meant preparing for our next expedition – Lightning Ridge and searching for opalised fossils.  Preparation of course meant the usual – washing, shopping to stock the fridge as we had left home with a fairly empty freezer (the reason? we were leaving our van parked unattended for 5 nights and if there had been a power failure in our absence – well I’ll leave the possible consequences to your imagination), and a heap of cooking. 

Once back on the road, we stuck to backroads as is our preferred travelling style. We were traveling through relatively settled farming/cropping areas of central NSW so the roads were OK – or so we had hoped. But no! they were pretty rough actually, rougher in fact than some of the dirt roads we’d driven last year. In one area in the vicinity of Griffith tall columns and dense clouds of smoke billowed skywards to our right and left. No cause for alarm – unless like us you are concerned about atmospheric issues! Sacre bleu. The old practice of burning stubble survives out here it seems. Not entirely sure what the origin of the ‘stubble’ was; could have been chickpeas, sorghum, or perhaps even cotton.

En route between expeditions we drove through fields of, and passed trucks piled high with great reels, of cotton and were quite keen to see the cotton plants up close so we stopped and got out to inspect.  The seed buds, popping with cotton, are quite beautiful. The last time we had been this close to cotton growing was on a self-drive through Portugal in 2004.  I know we all scoff at the growing of cotton – and other crops that use water and other pursuits that eat up and down into our land but don’t forget we have to feed the hungry beast called our economy, fuel our GDP. Fine when you live in the city with a healthy/comfortable job helping to keep the wheels of our moderate wealth churning but that wealth, like milk, comes from somewhere. And yes I know there are more sustainable ways of cropping but watch ABC Landline to see what is happening in the rest of the big chunk of land we call home. So stepping down from my soap box , sorry ……  

You might like to know that cotton, a member of the Mallow (Malvaceae) family, is related to hibiscus of which Australia has 150 native species. One, Gossypium austral, is commonly called Native Cotton but has not been bred-up to produce commercial quantities of cotton for a demanding market. Incidentally Australian cotton has the highest yields in the world, it is a plant well adapted to our climate. Perhaps we should look at …… NO I’m going there but it’s interesting to contemplate our many native species and what and how we should be using them. So back to the purpose of this story. 

Three days later we arrived in Goondiwindi to spend a few days with friends who were there to help me celebrate having reached three-quarters of century. Never thought I’d get so old but thank goodness I have! That was a delightful time, a talk and food fest with delightful friends dating back to our Caloundra days (not going there!). We started the celebrations with totally loaded paella for lunch which we cooked while sipping French champagne. For dinner we had a delicious entree of gozleme followed with slow cooked goat curry and cake! Goondiwindi you ask? Well, it was the halfway point between where they live and where we were heading, Lightning Ridge.  Goondiwindi is lovely spot, but we weren’t there for sightseeing, it was all about catching up on lost time.  And we did, big time! It was wonderful.

People have asked whether we encountered any flooding on our travels – we did but not sufficient to box us in. We were diverted along our way to Lightning Ridge with a 300 km detour which meant we travelled dodgy dirt roads after dark, but we made it to Lightning Ridge in one piece albeit well after dark.  So what of the next 10 days?  I am still unpacking all that, chewing over and trying to digest a mountain of new, interesting and exciting experiences and information.