Up around 6:30, not long after some mongrel in the next van up thinks it’s fine to start his generator. The missus must have wanted her expresso…. Selfish bastards….
Anyway, It’s a beautiful morning and the creek looks wonderful. We see another bunch of turtles come up, at least four. They must be used to being fed as they seem to close to bank where we are.
Up the hill and to the intersection of the Strzelecki track and Adventurer highway. Seeing the Strez as bitumen seems somewhat sacrilegious.
We first take a stop at Burke’s Grave about 10k’s outside of town. The Cooper is so wide here, it’s amazing. There are some storyboards here, but I’ve read the stories. When Burke died he was in the company of King, but his instructions to King where to leave his body unburied, I’m assuming he knew the toll it would take on the very weak King. The rescue party some months later did bury him and Wills, but sometime later both bodies where exhumed and returned to Melbourne for burial.
It’s sad to think they died here of malnutrition, when in reality there is so much food here. They just didn’t know how to catch or collect it.
It’s another 70odd k’s drive to the Dig Tree. Once we turn off the Adventurer highway, it’s about 15ks to the Tree site. This road is rough and nearing the end I hear what I think might be the roof rack rattling again. I’ve been listening out for it for the last 5-6 days. I’ve been hearing all sorts of sounds!
We’re about 1k from the tree so I slow right down and figure I’ll just drive till I get there. Then I hear Nick over the radio say, “Hey, I think you’ve got a flat”. Sure enough that’s the noise and my rear passenger tyre is flat as a tack.
Warm, at least not 40°, but with plenty of flies for company we change the tyre and keep moving.
We drive in, park up and walk over to the Dig Tree. We see a ranger’s car and at the Tree is the Ranger, Penny. She asks us if we know much about the story. I indicate I know a bit, we start taking, then I’m sure she starts testing me on my knowledge, how cheeky! Fortunately I know the answers to the questions she’s asking!
Sadly however, you can’t see the “dig” emblazonment any more, the tree has grown over. But it’s still amazing to be here, and to think about that story and how so many things went wrong to contribute to their deaths.
We take a look in the visitors information shed, and I think George gets a bit more information out of it than he normal would have. It’s was great having Penny there to realty help bring the place and the story alive.
Not one to like returning on the same road, we think we can turn this into a loop drive. I must admit not having a spare is a bit concerning, but we decide to travel north up the Arrabury and see if we can find this loop road, where about 10ks in and still no sign of the road. We pull out the paper map and it seems to indicate it’s 15ks up. At 15ks we see a track off to the left. Kinda right location, but the sign just says “bypass”, not real helpful. It doesn’t seem to show up on our GPSs. What the hell, we figure we’ll drive a few K’s up and see. Like other tracks it’s too well used just to be some random track, so it must be it. A few K’s later our GPSs catch up and call it the Dig Tree Loop Route. So 40 odd Ks of quite rough track and where back on the Cordillo Downs road a few Ks north of town.
I’ve got to say, the scenery on this road is really impressive. Incredible that it’s so close to the main highway road, but the view is so different.
We drive back up the to store. I ask about tyre repairs and they say they do them. The sidewall looks like it might be damaged, so I get the spare tyre down from the roof too. They can’t look at it straight away, fair, so we go back to the camp site for a rest.
While I was at the store, I see written in chalk on the board that there is a Ranger Talk at the Dig Tree 11am QLD Time. So Penny wasn’t just there by accident. We were! What great timing. I thought she was being over generous with her time if she was there to do maintenance.
Around 4ish I go back up to the store, the tyre still hasn’t been looked at. But surprised by the time they stop the other job and have a look at it. Yep, sidewall stuffed, they swap over to the spare tyre I’ve been carrying, so not a waste after all.
Dinner at camp and another fire by the Creekside