TUESDAY

A red sunrise after a calm night, but by 8.30am the wind is blowing strongly from the West and the heavens are clouded over - the rain is coming.

We head into a Northerly wind and then turn East and buffet our way towards Thargomindah. The cloud cover is patchy and shafts of light dance on the raw escarpments and then as the heavens shift their allegiances, the warms earth colours retreat to cooler greys.

Wild flowers decorate the road sides and patches of water reflect the sky.

In Thargo, we stop to refill with water and also wash the car a bit. A tall country man stops to use the loo. He works for the council - ex property owner who had to sell up following a divorce. He tells me he has three grown up children, he is my age. The three kids moved to Thargo, so he moved back out west after having them schooled in Hervey Bay - his ex wife lives down that way.

He told me about the changing world where he could not compete in a chain saw competition in Hervey Bay because he didn't have a ticket - he asked a ticket for what?

Reminds me of Jeff Betts sharing the incident where he had a young fellow out working for him on work experience. The permanent worker Greg cut railway sleepers for a living for 30 years - so he knows about chain saws. Jeff said to the young buck, "Greg is going down to sharpen the chain saw, you should tag along you could learn something from him"

Our young friend replied, "Naw, I already have my certificate 3 in chainsaw operation".

Well I guess he knew it all!!!

We had lunch and filled up at the new servo in Thargo and headed East. We reached Lake Bindagolli about 3.30pm - found a good campsite on the Southern side of the road. Sue went out for a walk and Mal had a camp. In the evening we built a fire, roasted potatoes in the coals, sat around and time slid by easily and we woke up to rain pattering on the roof of the camper sometime later that night.

WEDNESDAY

The rain pattered away from the middle of the night when a car which had driven past our campsite late in the afternoon, could be seen wending their way from way down the side of the lake. Their lights lit up the night sky full of rain and ranged across the sky like anti air craft lights as the vehicle came up steep pinches in the road. Eventually they drove slowly past and were gone.

We packed up in the morning and drove East towards Eulo, the rain trying hard to wash the thin layer of tan clay from our vehicle. In Eulo motorbike riders were trying to regroup after a night of rain and we ran from dripping clouds to a more composed overcast sky in Cunnamulla where we stopped for smoko.

The clouds cleared to some extent as we drove through lush green pastures North Of Cunnamulla. We stopped to rescue a tortoise that was stranded on the road too scared to move. We relocated him to a small dam.

We stopped in to Wyandra for lunch - well for tea and scones at a funny little Post Office come café come caravan park. It was an interesting place but some dark tales may have to be told eventually because he was selling up after his wife committed suicide five weeks ago.

We did not want to arrive at Gidge and Cameron's place before Gidge arrived home from work so we spent some time down at the river where the water was running strong and brown.

Gidge came out to meet us with a cheerful greeting and warm hugs - well it was a flurry of conversation, campfire conversation, lamb roast, Gillie the Galah's circus tricks, and long conversations between Sue and Gidge long after Cameron and Mal could no longer hack the pace.