​We visited Stonehenge - 26 September 2017

The colour is Kharki! The dirt, grass and trees are all shades of kharki. Soft and subtle. The gidgee trees forming clouds of silvery green-grey along side pale curly Mitchell grass.

And always the trucks! What happened to rail!? Wide road eh!?

No we're not in the UK but still right here in Oz. We're in The Barcoo - look it up!! We spent an hour or so on a much too quick visit - a deliciously icy cold drink in the pub talking to the publican, then a visit to the community/information centre - the people there were a mine of information.

The Stonehenge bar.

What drew us to Stonehenge? the OTH (Over The Horizon) radar system which was installed in the 1950s as part of an early warning radar system. There are three installations - here, Laverton and The Alice. This sophisticated system was evidently invented by Australian physicists! Did we know this?! The totally off-limits base 10 or more Km out of town is now controlled by the UK and the US - I ask you!! I am constantly gob smacked at how much I/we simply have no idea about and what we seem to have let slip from our grasp.

Eau de Nil. Gorgeous colour of the Mitchell Grass downs.

You've got to like big skies and distance horizons to appreciate this country, part of the Lake Eyre Basin

Love this. A car looming on the horizon looking disproportionately and ironically big in this vast setting

Aaaaanyway ..... there we were in the heart of Barcoo country, a Shire bigger than Tasmania but with a population of less than 500 residents.
Temperatures soared to over 40 today - not my kind of weather! The publican told us that the aircon is now on and won't be turned off until Easter and it's not even summer yet! Their temperatures are in the mid to high 40s in summer - note to self 'Do NOT Visit Here in the Summer'! Step aside Marble Bar, I think you've got a challenger.

The wind has been hot and bone dry (stop - where did that phrase come from? as a biologist/physiologist I have to tell you that bones are not dry but ...) and in the words of a local, enough to blow your freckles off. Love it. Hate the heat, but I have found a place I want to come back to.

This poor little female kestrel looked so heat-stressed. A few other birds fluttered in after she took off when I got out of the car with water. But she came back. Birds - you wonder how they survive in temperatures like today but not far down the road we saw gorgeous little orange chats and then flocks of crimson chats. They are so tiny but perfect.

On the way here from Longreach, we saw lots of wild willy willies picking up 'tumble weed' and hurling it into the air. Hop out of the car and the heat - and beautiful silence - rush in and engulf you. This is dry country! When we pulled over for lunch at one of those 'picnic' stops, we found a nankeen kestrel sheltering in the shade beak open trying to cool itself. It took off as I took a bowl of water over to it, but it had returned by the time we took off. Summer has come early! 41 degrees today as we pulled into Windorah - in aircon relative comfort close to sunset. I reckon the car was working a bit too hard though.

I captured part of the solar farm as we mozied on by. Plenty of solar energy out here!

And just another sunset to finish the day. Believe me it got more brilliant as the earth swallowed it up. Such are outback sunsets.