We had two options of travel from Longreach. The A road which would take us south to a few little towns and then back East or the B road where we hit even littler towns and headed further west and south before heading East. We didn’t know when we were going to be out here next so we decided to take the B road.
Leaving Longreach the road quickly narrowed to a one laner though still bitumen. You had to be on your guard as there were unexpected dips, bumps, potholes, cattle grates and very narrow one lane bridges. Also if a car came you had to slow down to a crawl to find a decent part of the road to edge your tyres off. The biggest threat/obstacle were kangaroos. I think every 10 metres there was a dead carcass in various stages of decomposition the whole way. There were live ones as well on the side of the road lying in any shade they could find. So it certainly wasn’t an easy drive but it was by no means tough.
The fencing on the side of the road also changed from the usual cattle 3 string barbed wire to a higher tighter mesh. We had a guess and were correct that it was for dingos/wild dogs. More on that later. The country side changed from treeless plains to red rocky dirt and spindly bushes/trees. It doesn’t do it gradually either. It seems you crest a hill and then BAM trees!
We arrived at Stonehenge which consisted of a pub, camping area, community centre, school, cricket pitch, tennis court, airstrip and a few houses. Apparently it houses a radar detection system for the Pacific coast but we didn’t see any evidence of that. Secret squirrel government business. The campground was the usual around here of an open area of gravel but it was nice enough. It was pretty quiet with only three other caravans there and a bus that looked like it had been there for a while. Once it cooled down we went for a walk around town with Griff and that was about it.
During the night there seemed to be a bit of commotion over at the pub with cars coming and going and dogs barking at about 10pm but it all seemed to settle down and it wasn’t until the next day we discovered that the girl who lives in the bus lost one of her dogs to a bait. A sad but common occurrence out in this area if you let your dog off the lead outside of the dingo fence that rings the town.
Talking to the owner of the pub about it the next night who also happens to own a station just out of town, was explaining that they use 1080 baits because dingos/wild dogs decimate their lambs and worry their pregnant ewes to the point where it can ruin their season. Unfortunately the baits are lethal to anything that eats them and they are not very effective against the older dingos who have wised up to the fact and will only eat meat from their own kills. Recently they have introduced the new fencing which is very effective at keeping them out if there are no holes. Hopefully the use of the bait becomes obsolete as it seems like a pretty horrible way to manage dingo populations.
We were pretty lucky as we had Griff off the lead walking around the town and he said that although it should be fine as they don’t bait within 3 kms of the town there is a chance that a bird could pick one up and fly it anywhere. Needless to say Griff was on a very short lead after that. It was really interesting talking to him as we were asking why you couldn’t just hunt them instead of baiting and the answer was simply the dingos are too sneaky and due to the rocky outcrops and trees they are almost impossible to see. We were also asking about how many head of cattle per acre he would have and were flabbergasted to find that his was 1 beast to 50 acres whereas Oondooroo was 1 to 25 acres. To the untrained eye the country side at Oondooroo looked more inhabitable but not to cows it isn’t. Also he said Oondooroo got a lot more rain at 16 inches to their 13 inches. Just crazy that he thinks that is a significant difference considering we can get that in a few hours on a good downpour on the Sunshine coast.
The other difference was we were now in channel country. So instead of relying on the bore for water, the area was covered in channels or rivers branching off from a big river. When it rains, because the area was so flat the water travels into all the channels and watering holes and fills them up and then the water subsides. All along the drive you pass floodways which could be kms wide. When we passed through though everything was bone dry. They are just waiting for the wet season to start.
Stonehenge is most famous for its address book. A km long address book along the side of the road apparently started by the mailman many years ago who was broken down by the side of the road and wrote Jundha (next town over) in stones by the side of the road. Now everyone who passes writes their name in stone. It was actually pretty cool. If your ever out this way look up 24.35663 degrees South, 143.33562 degrees East and you should find ours!
Right near the address book is XXXX hill which is a tiny hill where you can view the surrounding country side. It was a pretty lovely view. We then drove out to the Thompson River, which is the big river that floods all the channels around here. In places it still had some water in it but not much. After that we had seen the sights of Stonehenge.
Once back at the campgrounds we found ourselves the only ones there. So after a few beers at the pub where we had the great conversation with the owner, we then cooked up a feast, watched the sunset and settled in for a peaceful night in the bush. S
