Day 99 Thursday 2/9/21 Wyandra to Barringun, warm 32

We’re up at 6:00 after a lovely night with most of the van open. While Woody goes for a walk I wander over to the old cricket pitch and breathe the sweet morning air as the sun starts to rise.

We feed apostle birds while we eat breakfast, they seem to prefer their bread chunks tossed in red dirt and give them a good dousing before eating. We’re in no hurry today as we don’t have far to go but, while we’ve got phone reception we fill out our Victorian Border Pass forms online, ours are Green Zone permits as Victoria considers Qld a green zone. We’ll be crossing through NSW which is considered of Extreme Risk (worse than red). We wonder what Victoria considers its own state to be?

It’s an easy drive south to Cunnamulla but with so few tourists the town is looking dreary. A few locals are about but it is dispiriting. We buy meat from the butcher, thankful that they’re still operating. Heading out of town we find that the highway servo has been boarded up so it’s a U turn back to town and a tight squeeze to get into an old servo that is doing a good trade in fuel and hot food.

We take off through flat terrain fringed with gums far away on the horizon. We see two lizards on the road with cheeky heads up in the air and many dead emus.

The Barringun rest area on the Qld side of the border is a large flat clay pan with a couple of spindly trees and drifts of beige dust. It’s hard to decide which way to face the vans and whether to shade the fridges or shelter ourselves from the breeze which is swirling dust through everything. Even our teeth feel gritty. Perhaps we should have chosen the treed rest area on the west of the highway to our north.

This camp is rapidly rising on our ‘worst of all’ camp sites list. Flies, did I mention the flies? And when I resuscitate the vegetables for dinner I’m sure a couple of ants crawled out for a slurp of moisture.

For months we’ve talked of little else but how we’ll cross the ‘Extreme Risk zone that is NSW and still, now that we can almost see the border it’s all we can hear people talking about and whether or not we’re meant to risk our necks crossing it. Still the flies buzz and we try to get some rest while chasing the shade around the van.

As we sit contemplating the dust the Qld Police roar up in a 4WD with a trailer on the back. They scoot along the fenceline behind us and return with firewood. It’s so quiet out here I guess the poor buggers will be having a campfire tonight.

As evening draws in there are only 9 rigs parked here with room for about 50. When you guessed it…a whizzbang zooms in and parks right beside us. We can hear the rest of the campers laughing at our misfortune.

El Prado cooks steaks on the Weber but we have to eat inside to avoid the bugs then return outside to watch the stars and search for the International Space Station.

Accom: 0 (it’s level, that’s a plus)

Towing Kms: 185Kms