2019/11 Australia trip - Walcha |
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We’d plotted a route between the existing fires. The coast road was surrounded by fires in the Port Macquarie area so we took the A1 road north towards Gloucester. Along the way we spotted this 
blue-faced honeyeater; the first time I ever saw the species I called them Disney birds because they behaved like cartoon characters. There were also these beautiful jacaranda trees, originally from Argentina, but now all over Australia’s east coast.
In Gloucester we bought some rolls and found a park for a picnic lunch. 
Centerpiece for the park is this beautiful mosaic platypus. Our biggest surprise though was when a tiny kangaroo came hopping around our picnic table.
The owner explained that Violet was an orphan she’d been feeding and raising. In a few months she would be weaned and then released to the wild, as adult kangaroos are difficult to manage. The lady was concerned because the roo kept going back to a pile of French fries that someone had spilled. 
Junk food is bad for kangaroos.
She asked me to hold Violet still while they got packed up. She opened up a tiny bag and 
Violet hopped in, folded herself up, and sat on my lap with just her head and one leg protruding. They were heading north like us but they were going back to their house; they’d been evacuated because of the fires. They didn’t know yet if their house had survived.
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Violet Joey (0.56) |
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After that encounter I was thinking about whether we should even try to get into areas where people were losing their homes. But we continued north on the Thunderbolts Highway. The countryside looked dry, yellow and brown, and rivers were either dry or just a set of puddles; it looked more like the end of summer than the beginning. We were seeing smoke over to the east and then we came to an area that had burned in the last few days, with smoking debris on both sides of the road.
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Thunderbolt Way (1.09) |
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We came to Walcha, looking for the visitor’s centre but it was closed. We stopped in the park to eat some cake that Carolyn had given us, and decided Walcha was a reasonable place to stay. We rented two rooms at the Walcha Motel which turned out to be typical of the motels we’d use for the next two weeks. For about 100 Australian dollars ($90 Canadian, 70$ US) we’d get a room with a TV and a queen bed, small bathroom, tiny kitchen, fridge, toaster, tea, coffee, milk and WiFi. Things had changed; in this area in 2010 we’d had to use libraries to get an Internet connection; few people even knew what WiFi was.
John and Edna had come home this way from their Queensland trip and they remembered they’d seen platypus nearby, so we set off for quick look, but we were slowed down by parrots and magpies and kangaroos, even a flock of ducks on the road. This river still had water but it was barely flowing, so we hadn’t much hope. Sandie and I didn’t see any but John and Edna spotted one in the distance; it dived as soon as we got back. And then the light faded. On our way back a kangaroo hopped into the side of the car, without damage to either we hoped.
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MacDonald Ck pm (2.36) |
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There were few places to eat in town, even fewer open late, but we found a restaurant at the back of the New England Hotel, a classic Aussie pub, with a real bunch of characters. They’d stagger into the restaurant from the bar to pick up their Chinese take-aways – yes, we were having another Chinese meal! The characters ranged from the tiny guy with a tiny head and gigantic hat to a bunch that looked like extras from a Mad Max movie. The cook looked to be Chinese but none of our meals tasted as we expected; not bad, just different.
The map said we were still around 600 miles from Fraser Island, depending on how many parks we stopped at on our way. But things were getting worse and I had to add a couple more fires and closed roads to the map.