Oz Trip - Day 5

Day 5 – 6/5/2012 – North Bourke to Trilby Station

Because Trilby Station was only just over 100km away, we didn't really need to get up in hurry. It did end up being a cold night. It got down to 3.8deg over night. We still didn't have to crank up the diesel heater at all yet. We are saving it until it gets really cold!!

Liz, (the owner from Trilby Station), asked us to pick up a Sunday paper for her on our way out. She doesn't normally get the Sunday paper until Tuesday so she was pretty excited to get it on the actual day. We had to wait until at least 10am before the papers arrived in town so to fill in time we went for a walk back down to the river. This time with our camera to get some photos of the birds.

Pelicans inland

After we picked up the paper we hit the road for Trilby Station. This is where we hit the dirt for the first time (wahoo!).

The roads had only just opened and at Trilby Station they were in the process of just re grading their own access as they have only just started being able to drive in and out of Louth. On the station they had been flooded in for about the last 3 months. They have an air strip so they were just able to fly in and out to Louth. Liz had left her 4WD at the Louth airport. From there she could get to Cobar. They were pretty self sufficient. Only on 1 or 2 occasions they had to get the SES to chopper in some drums of Avgas so that they could refuel their plane.

Neighbour flying in to go to the pub that night and flew out the next morning.

On the way in just after the Louth turn off, we in saw the strangest thing. There was a very big log in the middle of a T intersection that was smouldering with a few empty cans of Jim Beam. I joking mentioned to Jodie at the time that the people at Trilby Station will probably know who did it. Sure enough when we mentioned it when checking in, Liz said that it was an old practice of having “Turn off” parties. Basically when everyone was heading off from a function at someone place, they would all leave together and then as you came to a turn off and someone was leaving, you would light a fire and have a few final drinks around the fire. This was because it was most likely going to be a fair while before you saw that person again.

Turnoff Party

At Trilby Station we found a nice camp site down by the Darling River. It was about 1.5km away from the homestead and past the end of the runway. It was so peaceful. You could hear the birds, and the fish jumping in the river. Our nearest neighbours were camped at the Billabong about a kilometre away.

Our nearest neighbours (The white camper on the tree line)

Our camp beside the Darling River

Or camp from 1/2 way along the runway

We ran into our neighbours a few days later at Silverton and they said that they were catching huge yabbies in the billabong bordering on the size of small crayfish. They were throwing the normal size yabbies back and just keeping the larger ones.

That night we also had our first camp fire. We were able to drag as much wood out of the bush as we liked so we had a raging fire.

Campfire beside the river

Sunset over Trilby Station