Days 50, 51, 52 & 53: 'Charlotte Plains' station stay

Day 50:
It was a beautiful fine day when we woke up - yippee!!! - with not a cloud in sight.

After a relaxed pack up this morning we headed into Boulders Cafe in Cunnamulla for coffee to wait for a call from Robyn at 'Charlotte Plains'
By 10.00am we had not heard from her so I called again a few times - without success and left a message for her again (she had recommended to me to call several times as she was not always a near the phone and she has no mobile coverage).
By 11.00 we still had not heard from her so we decided to head off and call again along the way. However we quickly lost mobile coverage and that was not going to be possible.

About 30km out of Cunnamulla we reached the first turn off for the property and sat contemplating whether we should just go in any way. We also tried to get her on the UHF radio (it stated the UHF Channel on the sign at the turn off from the highway). We also had no success raising her on the radio.

We decided to go to the next turn off into the property - another 10km up the highway. Here we stopped again contemplating whether we should just go in anyway and also trying to raise Robyn on the radio.
The road in here did not look so inviting so we resigned ourselves to just go on to St George today.
Lucky for us I moved a few metres and tried to raise her on the radio again and was this time successful.

Robyn advised the first turn-off from Cunnamulla was ok but she had not checked the second one and expected that it could be boggy. So back we went the 10km to the first turn and travelled the 20km into the homestead.

We saw heaps of kangaroos and emu and a couple of Brolga along this road.
And we did collect a fair bit of mud!!

We had no problems with the road in and when we arrived Robyn was not hard to locate at the homestead - despite the sign at the gate to come to the house and "Call very loudly"

She is a lovely lady and we chatted for a short time and then headed off, with mud map in hand, for the "bore-head" campsite - another 10 km into the property.

We arrived to a magic sight with the hot bore water flowing out of 3x elevated pipes into the bore drains at the campsite.

There were only 2x other campers at this site and we were able to select a spot overlooking the bore and quite a bit away from the others.
There is also heaps of firewood here as well which meant we could do all our cooking in the camp oven and boiling the billy for cups of tea.

We were "stoked" with this campsite and before the night was out were planning to stay 3x nights (we had originally planned to stay only 2)

After setting up camp, lunch and building a fire - we donned our swimwear and headed over to fill up the "old bathtubs" with water from the bore.

It was soooo!!! hot and you had to ease yourself into the bath - but it was just lovely when you got in. I had a glass of "red" to top of the experience - whilst lazing in the waters.

Tonight we had a camp oven dinner and enjoyed relaxing by the fire.

Day 51:

This morning we awoke to a perfect day - with the steam rising off the bore drain in the coolness of the morning

Stoked up the fire for a cup of tea and cooked brekkie.
Then we headed over to the bathtubs again - and enjoyed another relaxing & soothing wallow in the hot bore water.

I decided to take advantage of the hot water and the weather to do some washing

- and with the only job of the day completed we set off for a walk along one of the bore drains (we figured if we followed the bore drain we could not get lost). It was a lovely walk and we saw many birds and roos and emus - and of course cattle.
We even saw a couple of turtles in the bore drain and also a dead feral pig.

Back again we lunched and enjoyed sitting around relaxing and also another sunset soak in the bore. We also spent part of the afternoon chatting with the other campers.

Tonight we had a camp oven dinner again and enjoyed relaxing by the fire. Gosh this lifestyle is tough!!!!

Day 52:

This morning we awoke to another perfect day in paradise!!!

Stoked up the fire for a cup of tea and cooked porridge.
Another load of hand washing was my only job of the day and that was over by 9am.

By this morning we had already decided we would stay a 4th night - as we were feeling just so relaxed and loved this campsite.
You just got to love a campsite with a "Single Seater" long-drop dunny!!!

Not sure why you may need more than a "Single Seater" - interesting!!

Today we went on a tour of the property with the owner Robyn and a couple of other campers that had pulled in last night.
We really enjoyed this tour as it was a very personal tour of the place and some of her experiences growing up there and the history of the property.

We went through the shearing shed - a small section of which is still in use today to shear the sheep on this property. In its hey day this property was running many more sheep and there is quite a large section of the shed that houses the unused shearer stands.
We also went to visit the cemetery - it was common on these bigger properties for people to be buried in a property cemetery.
Another highlight was going to the old homestead house and seeing all the memorabilia that Robyn has for visitors to view. She has a substantial collection of old magazines on display that are pretty much mint condition - don't know where they must have been stored all this time but I think if she keeps them out on display in the open they will surely now detonate - which would be such a shame.
There was just so much to take in that I quite forgot to take photos - it was just an amazing array of memorabilia of times past - with the magazines, her mothers old special occasion dresses and much more that chronicled the history of this property that was obviously once an extremely prosperous venture and was a show piece of the region.

Another swim in the bore at sunset - with new arrivals and a walk the other way this time - we saw some cute little zebra finches on our walk this time.

Another camp oven dinner - spaghetti and very spicy meatballs - this was a spectacular success!!! - very scrummy!!

Day 53:
Today consisted of bathing in the bore - and another walk along the bore drain for hour and half.
Looking after the fire and watching the cows wandering around the campsite may sound a little boring to some - but we have whiled away another day feeling like we are just so much closer to the simplicity of living this life and being so much more a part of the landscape we are absorbing here in the outback.

So So tough this life!!!!
We spotted some gorgeous 'Crimson Chat'birds on our walk today around the property.

I wanted to cook a damper tonight - but have not done for a long time and was not sure of the quantities - so i got a recipe from some of the other campers that were now here with us camping at the bore. These new arrivals are from Lake Macquarie - what a small world!!!
I added a few extras to the basic damper mix and we enjoyed a lovely damper with our leftovers tonight for dinner.

We are again impressed that the dual battery setup has lasted so well keeping the fridge running for 4 days without any charging of battery.

Very cold wind all day today - just as well it was sunny.
This was our coldest night here, and even though we had a fire to keep us warm, we were off to bed earlier tonight.

The full moon came up and was red - coming up as sunset was not yet completed.