Day 69 Calliope River

Thursday 24th June, 2021 17km

The road this morning, a bit of traffic and I
had to jump into the grass a few times

1817.4 / 3281.5km

Today was a short day to Calliope River. The road is a narrow country road that is busier and I have to pretty quickly get off the side when traffic passes.

Not much to show for the effort, a tunnel of spear grass to walk through. Only 17 kilometres and I'm almost there when a lady in a Ute stops and starts a conversation. She is a horse person and knows about the trail. She offers me a lift and I automatically decline. She continues talking and continues to offer. I've only a couple of kilometres to go and in the end I say ok drop the pack into the Ute and we drive about 3 kilometres to the Calliope River crossing.

Twinings Australian Afternoon Tea, just the shot
after a hard day walking and talking

Calliope River crossing

It's amazing how much information people are willing to part with in a short space of time. I knew within 10 minutes that she had horses, her sister in law was a "bitch" who had made her and her partner leave and find somewhere else to live and they were working hard to get their place up to scratch, the dual cab ute should probably be scrapped as it was falling to bits. All the while the baby slept in the back seat. She pulled up at the river crossing behind a large camper shakes my hand and disappears in a cloud of dust. I was exhausted.

As I drop the pack on the ground the camper in the truck appears and I go to assure him that I was just another camper. What followed was a couple of hours of discussion.

The river was just running

Don is a retired University lecturer who came over from the USA in 1973 and settled here. He travels the winter months from Victoria and this time is looking at the Fitzroy and Don River catchment areas which he says is the second largest in Australia. He drives and camps and stops in towns occasionally to fill supplies. Never in a hurry by the sound of it.

The windmill being made redundant with solar

We have a good yarn on just about every subject that naturally follows when two old farts get together including our health. He is looking for the source point of the Calliope and Dee Rivers some of the maps and notes I have may help him. Tomorrow was going to be another short day but myself and Don arranged to have a chat in the morning on the offer of a lift to make up for the time I might lose. I've decided to relax in the morning, he is not an early mover. I'm normally on my way by first light but I can breakfast first and see what happens.

The Calliope is still running at this point and the water is much better than what I had so I load up and filter to cook and have a couple of cups of tea. One being a tea from Don called Australian Afternoon Tea. It's not a bad brew. Very smooth not bitter (wish that was a paid endorsement)

I can hear the Dawson Highway from my tent. Busy traffic noise in the background makes me homesick,...........not really.

An old grain silo

The old gates that were in line with the old crossing