Should ever I go back…

…to Camooweal. Thanks Slim Dusty, I couldn’t get that classic country song out of my head the entire week before visiting  that particular dot on the map.

The attraction wasn’t so much Camooweal, more the chance to cycle 13 kilometres to the west and be in the Northern Territory for the first time.

That we did, but we also found some fun photo opportunities.

So here is a photographic essay of Camooweal, a town with more dead cars than live people.

Freckleton’s General Storekeepers is a group of shops which are a tourist institution out this way, but like the majority of tourist attractions in summer, is closed. The Freckleton’s general store itself only closed in 2009.

 

 

The cobbled pavement was apparently a big deal when it was laid in the 1950s

Remember when you could fly TAA? Signs on the window of Freckleton’s

The town is proud of its drovers’ heritage, and has a tourist attraction just out of town dedicated to it. Unfortuately it too was closed

The Camooweal Caves National Park sounded great. Even though the websites said no public access was allowed inside the caves, there was a photo of some people at the mouth of an expansive entrance. However, when we got there, we found the only access was to the top of two sinkholes, and you couldn’t get close enough to see the bottom.

So we moved on to the Nowranie Waterhole, which again was nowhere near as picturesque as the website photos – thanks to drought and pigs eating the waterlilies. But we spent a pleasant hour communing with the cows and the birdlife. I may have accidentally started a stampede.

Look at me, look at me…

…run away

…fly away

We rode out to the border early the next morning. I now know what it is like to be overtaken by two road trains in a row. Bit blowy.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Once was cow

How fast?

 

As we have travelled west, we have discovered a new “thing” – dressing up termite mounds. Google it, it’s real.

There are hundreds wearing mostly rotted old clothes, but every now and again a bright, freshly-attired one pops up.

So I joined in, and took some photos of my cycling gear on a termite mound and posted them on Facebook alongside the photos of me riding over the border – not realising everyone would assume that I took the clothes off and photographed them naked.

For the record…I didn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

No outback blog is complete without a photo of a dead cow, and a windmill.

Once was cow

Should ever I go back to Camooweal
‘T’would be in the spring when desert flowers bloom
Oh, the spinifex I know would still be there
And the desert pea would brighten up the gloom

Should ever I go back to Camooweal
One thing is sure I’d not be twenty-two
As on that day when I first wandered there
But mem’ries stay with me as mem’ries do…’

Thanks Slim.  And thanks Camooweal.