After spending the past 6 weekends redesigning and rebuilding the interior of the Landy (yes again!... post to follow) I was keen to get out and about exploring my surrounds in my Landy camper.
Destination: Culgoa FloodPlain National Park.
The drive there:
The official directions from the website tell some of the story of the journey:
"Directions: From St George, travel 160km south to Hebel on a sealed road then 45km south to Goodooga along an unsealed road which becomes impassable after rain.
From Goodooga, turn right into Brenda Road then take the left fork after the cattle grid and follow the 'Byra 7km' sign. A 4WD is essential."
Look at that sky! How fabulous
No rain for some time, so roads were open and park was accessible. Yah for me.
The communities that live out this way are remote.
Huge distances between properties, between townships.... and the 'towns' are pretty damn small.
53 metre long road trails, wow that is long
No keeping pet rabbits out here, not unless you fancy a $30,000 fine!
Check out this roadside art/historical piece in the video clip below.
The iconic Hebel Hotel in pic below.
And stopping to allow the locals to cross the road....
Wipeout:
I was not far from the park entrance when a young local boy riding his 125cc motocross bike ‘wiped out’ in front of my eyes. !!!
Not sure his age, but I am guessing 10 -12 years old at most. He must have been so embarrassed about his wipeout, but he was not afraid to ask me to help lift the bike off his trapped legs.
We got his bike upright, he crawled out from under it.
Thankfully no major damage to either boy or bike: scrapes and some bleeding cuts, nothing broken (phew) and almost as important, his bike started 1st time and he was able to ride off once he had gathered his wits.
The Culgoa Floodplain National Park is STUNNING, in a floodplain sort of a way.
Large open spaces, sparse trees full of bird and insect life.
In addition to lots of birds, there were also a lot of suck-the-corner-of-your-eye flies.
I had heard rumour that there were a lot of flies in the outback, but this was my 1st encounter with them personally.
I found the getting into my eyes part was not as annoying as them trying to crawl into my ears, that I did NOT like at all. I combatted this by wrapping a strip of fabric around around my head, accomplishing two things – stopped the sweat dripping into my eyes and stopped the flys crawling into my ears.
Another not so memorable encounter was my 1st experience with Goats Head Thorns
I meant just look at those things!!!
Evil is what they are, pure evil.
Not possible to have bare feet.
Even jandals are not sufficient protection.
Oh, for the Aussies reading this a jandal is what you call a thong.
P.S. in NZ a thong is not something you most certainly do not wear on your feet!
However don’t let this put you off – the flies and thorns are normal for anywhere out in this part of the country.
The park is gorgeous.
Flooded Road & an unexpected detour:
Travelling through the park towards the western entrance/exit I came across some shallow flooding across the road.
One thing I have learnt in this part of Aussie is where there is water over track, even if its only 1 cm deep, its probably not safe to drive into = instant bog.
To verify this I placed one foot into the 1cm deep water, sunk up to my ankles in boggy mud and almost lost my jandal attempting to extract my foot.
Driving a truck into that would be a sure recipe for absolute disaster.
I had just made the decision to not proceed when another vehicle arrived. After getting over my initial shock at seeing another vehicle (its pretty remote out here) I was pleased to see it was the park Ranger with his wife.
First thing he said when he saw I was turning around from the flooded section, rather than driving into it was “good decision”.
Yah, vindicated.
Park Ranger Andy and his wife Shireen were friendly, informative and helpful.
They had to get to the other side of the Nandine River for work purposes and to do so they would detour through the park.
They very kindly asked me if I wanted to follow them, YES please!!
The detour effectively became a guided 4x4 tour through the park on trails I would normally never have ventured down – loads of fun.
Andy explained how in 2020 the park had 53mm of rain in total for the year.
In Jan 2021 they had 41mm of rain, as a result the drought-thirsty park had greened up and was looking beautiful and healthy for my visit.
If you enjoy the sight and sound of abundant birdlife,
like remote wild places and
nights under massive sky with unlimited stars ......then add this park to your to-do list.
But – not when it’s wet as I am pretty sure it is impassable if the tracks are wet.
Good thing is everything dries out pretty quickly.
There are some fantastic resources and guides online if you want to learn more about floodplains, wetlands: I found this link to be very interesting:
My encounter with some very sticky mud:
Driving out of the western access of the park to head north took me through several massive 'stations'. Massive fields that roll on for kilometers, sparsely scattered with native trees.
Red dirt, white pumice, gravel, red dirt.
Long straight roads, cattle grids and wild-dog-proof fencing.
Back on the 'road' I spotted some horses off in a paddock in the distance, needing a rest from driving I pulled off the road onto a side track to find some shade, eat lunch and say hi to the horses. Turning under a tree for shade I made the mistake of driving into a bog.
A sticky muddy slippery bog.
Watch the video here as I share my attempt to free myself from the mud.
Note - mud doesn't have to be very deep in these parts to cause issues... even an inch or two can result in loss of traction and getting 'bogged'.
As I mentioned at the end of the clip, the mud was not deep, but around here it doesn’t have to be.
More gear
I was very happy to have such a relatively easy extraction process and I will be buying more self-rescue gear:
· Another 2 Maxtrax (just in case I get all 4 wheels bogged)
* Install a UHF radio – I have been debating this and just hadn’t got around to it. Out these parts there is no cell signal at all, and all the locals have UHF, do maybe a local station owner might hear a distress signal
* My two rear tyres have low tread – replacements were ordered last week, I look forward to when they arrive. I needed that tread today.
* 2nd spare tyre: I wanted to avoid carrying the weight of a second spare wheel, but I also don’t want to have to deal with two flat tyres, which is not unheard of our here. So I will buy a second spare as well.
All that costs money, so good thing I have a some employment at present where I can earn, spend, save and experience this “where country meets outback” part of Queensland.
All in all a fun weekend and once again a great introduction to the outback.
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