Cacoory Homestead, abandoned in 1906

It’s strange but after all this time sleeping in the roof tent you’d think that a motel room would seem like luxury. Strangely though we both said this morning that we missed sleeping in the tent and would be glad to be back in it !
Anyway, after checking out this morning our first port of call was the Birdsville Bakery for breakfast. There is a real danger that between the bakery during the day and the hotel at night we’ll both be putting back on all the weight we’ve lost.
We topped off the main fuel tank, giving us our first opportunity to find out how much fuel we used crossing the desert as the fuel gauge is stuck on full at the moment. As it turns out we used 75 litres for the crossing which equates to 19.73 MPG or 14.32 litres per 100km. That is a lot less fuel used than we’d expected for the crossing as most of the “experts” reckon on a lot more fuel being needed.
Our plan after the bakery was to head to Bedourie where we’d spend the night before heading back to Birdsville tomorrow. The road to Bedourie was good with very little in the way of corrugations and some bitumen sections as well as gravel. As a result we covered the 190km in 3 hours with stops, arriving at around 1pm.
Bedourie is a strange place and on arriving it soon became apparent that the town is closed on a Sunday. The information centre where you pay for camping and get the key to see the “free” artesian spa and pool is closed on Sunday so there really wasn’t much to do or see. As a result we decided to head back to Birdsville !
At least on the way back we stopped at a few of the interesting spots we’d seen on the way there such as the abandoned Cacoory homestead. Built in 1877 the ruins of the homestead are a bit of a testament to the reality of living in this area. The homestead was abandoned in 1906 after years of drought and the cattle dying off as a result.

Monumental table and chairs, positioned in the middle of nowhere

Travelling the roads of Australia we’ve come across some strange sites at the road side. Some of them are simply surreal or comedic and others you suspect must be used as a signpost to enable people to identify the correct turning to a particular homestead. The first category includes things like the various bottle trees and termite mounds dressed in T shirts, hats, dresses, and hard hats etc…
The second category can be even more surreal and you can imagine how much easier it is to give someone phone directions when you tell them to turn at the mailbox that looks like a mouse or the mailbox made from an old fridge. Today’s examples include a stone garden chair and table set and a Private Road sign adorned with hundreds of pairs of shoes…

A signpost adorned with pairs of shoes… And a hat

Sadly, if we stopped and photographed every incident of this kind of bizarre roadside adornment we’d get nowhere but as we had a bit of time to spare today it seemed like a good opportunity to snap these not untypical examples of surreal roadside markers.
Tomorrow will be a day off and I’ll potter about underneath the Land Rover but mostly just chill and read a book. We’re now staying at the Birdsville Caravan Park and will be here for at least 2 nights depending on when Mal and his group arrive.