Day 15 Sunday July 6th
Hughes Crossing to Chillagoe (225km)

We were awake at first light....around 6.15 am. Then we heard the kookaburras...but only in the distance. It had been a warm night, and it was a lovely morning, except for the first time on this trip there was few overnight and our chairs were wet! We had breakfast standing up!!
Back on the road again we saw lots of water birds at the numerous road-side waterholes, as well as birds of prey, cattle and wallabies. Our first river crossing, which had a single lane ford, was over the Lynd river. We stopped on the far side because just as we approached a Jabiru, (black-necked stork), flew over, and I was hopeful of a photo. Unfortunately he flew too far along the river. We took the opportunity to take some photos though, and have our coffee.
We then passed a dead feral pig on the side of the road.....Dave was adamant that we weren't stopping to photograph it!!!
The road was in great condition and we were managing 80kph easily. We passed a pretty lagoon called Longreach Lagoon, and then came across another single lane ford over the Walsh River (W). Soon after this we saw our first vehicle for the day, two hours after setting off. We then entered the property of Wrotham Park Station. This is another huge cattle property, and of course we continued to see cattle.
Our next stop was at the picturesque crossing of the Walsh River (E). There were some nice bush camping spots here, but as with the areas near the previous river crossings, all manner of rubbish had been left behind by inconsiderate visitors. This senseless pollution of a bush environment makes me very upset.
Anyway......we had a long stop here for an early lunch and also to empty the four cans of diesel into the vehicle's tank. This went well until Dave didn't realise that the tank was full and spilled diesel all over his shorts!!! We got some river water in our bucket and did a quick wash of the shorts......they dried in no time since it was so hot,..,and fortunately there was no-one around to see Dave eating his lunch in his undies!!!!
From here the environment became more treed and then we began to see the huge limestone outcrops of the Mungana-Chillagoe Range. The whole drive today, and yesterday for that matter, has been very scenic and interesting.
We camped in the fancily-named 'Chillagoe Village Resort', but it was really just a very basic caravan and camping park with motel units too.
We were pleased to have a nice hot shower though, to wash the dust off, and we also did some laundry. We walked into town and had a beer at the pub and looked at a couple of historic buildings. Chillagoe was once a thriving centre for the mining of such metals as copper, zinc, lead and silver, and as such had a smelter, which is now in ruins and a tourist attraction! In fact it was suggested to us as a great spot to watch the sunset, so we took a bottle of wine and did just that! As we sat there watching the rocks and the old smelting chimneys glow red, we mused that it would only be in Australia, where there is plenty of land, that these places would be allowed to remain as historic ruins, rather than being bulldozed to make way for new buildings of some description.
Back at camp we did all the usual evening things and tried to plan for tomorrow .....should we stay, or should we go???
Dave was very tired and fell asleep easily and early! I could not settle until some fairly noisy people in a motel unit finished their 'party', round about 10pm. After that it was very quiet, which, according to some other campers was a great improvement on the previous night!!!