Stonehenge, Jundah and Windorah

The tiny burg of Stonehenge has a population of around 30 so a couple of streets it about it. A helpful person in the information centre which was also the council office, the store, the library and internet centre, chatted to us about the local area's attractions which amounted to a lookout from a jump-up and a waterhole (dry at the moment). The lookout did indeed afford excellent views to the horizon all around and also offered free camping but it was too early in the day to stop.

Down the road a bit is Jundah, a bit bigger with a population around 90 but with not much more in town to see. A Settlers' Scenic Drive was suggested so we took the mud map and went to find the turnoff from the blacktop. A rough track with no signposting running beside a fence behind the racetrack seemed the only likely way in. And so it was. We criss-crossed paddocks and crossed over the main Longreach road. A few trees were signposted with their names and then we came beside the Thomson River, or rather waterholes of the river. Here was some wildlife: pelicans, herons, ducks, kites. And people taking advantage of the free and extremely attractive campsites all along the waterholes.

Along the road we were again surprised by the number of feral pigs out in broad daylight. Stands of lignum, a spikey bush is their favourite food and wherever there was lignum in profusion, there also were the pigs. If there were this many to be seen, then just how many are there hiding in the bushes and trees?

The third town of the central far west region of Channel Country is Windorah, another mighty burg of 90 people: a general store, a service station and an information centre/library was about it. Just outside town is a solar farm of five huge dishes supplying the town with its power. Out here, there's plenty of sunlight and the diesel generators are for standby use only. This saves the town about 30 000-100 000 litres of fuel a year - quite impressive.

Also outside town is the most easterly desert sand dune - the most easterly dune of the Simpson Desert dunes. We did see a few more as we headed east out of town but they were small individual dunes rather than the long parallel dunes of the desert.

Just north of Windorah, the Thomson River (the one flowing through Longreach) and the Barcoo River join in a hundreds of channels to become Cooper's Creek. Now the maps and the Geographic Names Board want this to be Cooper Creek in accordance with their guidelines about no punctuation in place names, but the locals are vocal! They insist on Cooper's Creek and all their signs and information proclaim it as such. History, they say and its name should not be changed.

Fortunately caravans were put off by a deep dip in the road over one of the river channels and so we camped on the banks of Cooper's Creek, again finding a secluded spot all to ourselves.