Homeward bound - this time!

What could be more wonderful than sitting out under a strawberry moon so close to full no one would notice, kicked back around a camp fire, drinking red and telling stories?  

Not to be entirely denied a last stretch of travel on outback roads, we took the road from Cobar to Ivanhoe – all dirt and not in very good condition due to rain - which let us live our dust/mud dreams a little longer!  We stopped half way along the road just on dusk at an organic sheep station – Belaradon Station.  We camped by the shearing shed and the owner was over in half hour with a 6 pack to share our fire along with a backpacker from France who is staying with the family learning some of the ropes. She had some great stories having been travelling and working around Oz for 2 years – what a magic existence. Made me wish I were young-er again. Next morning we rugged up and headed for their warm kitchen ½ K way for cappuccinos before packing up and continuing our southward journey  to Ivanhoe.   

Ivanhoe which, unlike its romantic historic Saxon links, albeit fictional, with the crusades and the  Knights Templar, is a pit stop for many travellers, but one we seem to pass through often as it is the hub of five ways heading east, west, north and south and in between.  We decided to head SW to Balranald on the road we had try to drive back in January but which was closed because of rain.  It was open this time and OK but for a few dodgy short stretches.  By now as we got closer to Victoria we were really looking hard for excuses to drag our heels and prolong the end of our travels so halfway to Balranald we pulled up and made camp by the side of the Hatfield pub now abandoned and derelict.  It was another magic night around the camp fire alone in the vast plains with their flat horizons, except for a dozy stumpy tail lizard and rather large spider sheltering under a sheet of roof iron near our camp. Rain drove us inside halfway through dinner and the rest of the night was beautifully quiet albeit punctuated every little while by rain and wind gusts and the bleating of a lone goat somewhere around midnight. We have seen more mobs of goats (and families of wild pigs) along the road in that area than ever before – they say the gathering of goats heralds rain.

By the time we rolled into a powered camp site, we were a bit feral after a few nights under the stars, minimal showers and many days of red dust in our ears. We spent half a day washing our intrepid van which has proven to be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to off road adventures, but which then stood slightly embarrassed and naked gleaming white and shiny but for a few, quite a few, hidden caches of red, reminders of our months eating dust along some of the best dirt roads in eastern Oz. 

Where to next!?