Quilpie THURSDAY 12th May

Well a heavy dew overnight and the weather has cooled off. We all discuss our various plans. Jeff and Wendy are heading home, Bruce is going back to Brisbane and we are going to Bendigo and then we will decide what next. Maybe a second bash at the three corners.

We make a slow start and head South towards Toompine. There would be some yarns from this remote country pub. The sign on the front fence says, 'Angle Parking - any angle'

Just South East of Toompine is a small range of hills that look very interesting - maybe we will return some day. The traffic is light, a few cars come towards us and only when we reach the Thargomindah Road does a car come from behind to overtake.

We run through to Cunnamulla, we have seen Brolgas, many many Emus and of course kangaroos. We refuel in Cunnamulla and buy fish and chips for tea. Two water cooled R1200gs are circling looking for a nest for the night. We head South. We find a spot off the road about 50k South of the town and pop the roof for the night. The road is quiet and here we are on our own again.

FRIDAY 13th May

The sky is brilliant orange before sunrise, not a cloud in the sky, just a lone gum tree on the edge of a wide buffle grass plain. The air is cool and a few birds welcome in the dawn. Good morning Australia.

We are up early and hey presto on the road by 9am - this is early for us. Somehow we always take time to get moving.

The emus are out but the patches of water are less as we head South. The country fluctuates and by morning tea time we are parked up in New South Wales, next to no flies bother us and the sky is cloudless.

We stop just out of Bourke at the old bridge across the Darling River. The old gums remember the days of paddle steamers, when wool was shipped down river to the Murray when the river had adequate water. Now the farmers, miners and towns along the river drain the life from the river and it rarely if ever floods and runs strong. The vein of life has a hundred tourniquets that muffle it's feint heartbeat.

The tourist information centre is magnificent with large sun sails above the buildings to shade them in summer when temperatures of over 40c are regularly experienced.

The town looks fine but the legacy of bad behaviours is manifested in the wire mesh covered windows and doors and high level fencing. A lingering problem of dissatisfaction and unemployment and racial tension seems to lurk in the shadows.

We ponder the thought of going to Gundabooka National Park about 50k South of Bourke. Eventually we say, why not and thump our way in the 20 odd ks of corrugated road to a small campsite. $12 to camp for the night. We have a cup of tea and then take the walk to Little Mountain. The recent rain has laid a fine carpet of green beneath the Mulga forest and the Mulga ants have built beautiful front doors like small volcanos decorated with the fine mulga leaves.

Ring neck parrots can be heard and seen as we walk, the afternoon is cool and we eventually ascend some lovely sandstone steps up to a hill where wild goats bleat before departing leaving their fragrance to remind us of who owns this spot.

There is a small raised lookout where we gaze out at the range to the South that is raked gently by the low afternoon light. The range is really just a long low hill (500m above sea level) that has been pushed up from below and then weathered to soft curves with a few exposed bluffs. The orange rocks show through the dark grey green foliage.

We catch up with our neighbours Robbie and Moina from Yandina in Qld. We chat as the light fades and then we retire to Vicki for tea, showers and a quiet evening in our mobile eco resort. Just beautiful.

SATURDAY 14th May

We drive the 16k of dirt road into the aboriginal rock painting walk. The car park is surrounded by vertically installed I beams of about 9 inches and solid wall thickness. The area has been established with a fair budget.

We walk the 1.4k into the caves. The creek is flowing and the water is sweet. The caves are little more than an overhang. The paintings are interesting. Interesting for what they contain and what they leave out. Emus are included, but no kangaroos or other native wildlife of the edible nature.

Men are represented but it is not obvious if any women are included, though there is a figure which is part design, part humanoid which is difficult to decipher. Many of the men seem to be holding what could be boomerangs and standing in a warlike stance. There is also an interesting abstraction or diagram of concentric lines which is the largest and most intriguing. We walk back with lots of discussion.

After morning tea we roll off down the highway heading for Cobar. The emus have been replaced by goats, there is lots of green pick and puddles of water in places. The small twins are cute and scamper after their mothers. The sky is clear and the traffic surprisingly heavy for Saturday afternoon. We see a number of utes with 4 wheel bikes stacked on the back. Some sort of event????

We have lunch just outside Cobar.

We stop at a rest area well short of Hilston where an older gent is there in his caravan, he is heading for Port Douglas for the winter. He goes every year but his partner has declined to travel this year. He says they all know each other in the van park and he says it is a great time. I leave that to your imagination what we thought of the idea.

Another ramble from Mal

Re superannuation in Australia

Mals thoughts are in brief.

Everyone should be signed up for superannuation once they leave school.

At the unemployed end of the market people could have part of their unemployment benefits paid into a government superfund - maybe just a token amount but savings towards retirement in any case.

For those who get a job they could have their super paid into a superfund which would be obliged to advise the Government of the annual balance. Even if it is not a Government superfund like Q Super.

The critical change I see is that any money put into a superfund by either the Government (part of unemployment benefits) or a private employer would not be able to be taken out at any stage prior to death as anything other than as a pension - no lump sum payments at all (except money that a person has chosen to put in voluntarily).

Then those who have a huge super contribution could pay tax on the earnings over a determined amount and this would help to offset those at the bottom of the heap who would have insufficient funds to pay a basic pension.

So the pension as we know it now would be integrated with superannuation.

There are still issues of means testing those who get a top up. For instance someone who has never worked but inherits a large sum and could well afford to pay for their own retirement.

Undoubtedly some large companies would avoid paying their higher paid employees the super they should be paid but the tax office could look at ways of estimating super as a percentage of total remuneration rather than just the salary package.

SUNDAY 15th May

The sunrise is at full noise when we wake up. The clouds are on fire from horizon to horizon. No good foreground so an interesting experience but not a great photo op.

Small red rumped parrots dart and flit across the road as we drive South. We turn West at Hilston and head towards the Lachlan River way. The run along the Lachlan Way is rough but we stop in to the river for morning tea. The property across the river runs Dorper sheep like Jeff and Wendy Betts. It's a sign. We stop by the river which seems to be running - but in a land of endless weirs what does that really mean - it is certainly not a flood event. Blue Bonnet parrots fly up as we depart.

We reach Booligal, on the Northern edge of the Hay Plains. Probably not a place we would choose to move to. Broken caravans and junk in a landscape that is featureless - one expects faceless people to emerge, but nobody can be seen.

One Tree is just a pub, well it was a pub, and it used to have one tree back in the 1860's but that too has moved to the city or the beach.

The drive is not boring it is sort of soothing; we bump along with scarcely a tree, just faraway dark lines of trees. Hay has a beautifully restored old railway station and inversely unrestored old goods shed. Mal heads for the shed.

We have lunch near the pool as the trucks loaded with large yellow rolls of cotton pound through town on the way to the gin.

Then back out onto the Southern Hay Plains as we drive down to Deniliquin - where the famous ute muster takes place.

We divert onto Gulpa Island and fine a spot beside a billabong with water the colour of army green mixed with Khaki.

Large gums ignore us because they have seen so many blow throughs, here for a few hundred years and then gone. We sit by a fire that screams Fred McCubbin and listen to the cockatoos. The stars come out and a half moon. We bake potatoes in the coals. What a perfect night.

MONDAY 16th May

Mal is up early and stokes up the fire. He plays flash photography with the trees and then makes a small damper for breakfast. He has his paints out and is slopping away so we are slow to get away. The clouds are settling in and the sun has little punch. We drive through Echuca and recall our trip there a few years back when we were on the motorbike.

As we head towards Bendigo we get a few drops of rain and they never really go away. We settle into the Caravan Park and listen to the rain. We have also checked on the desert roads - some say open, others say still closed. We are not sure what to do - we will do more homework before making a hard decision.