Chapter 5: Epsilon Station to Nockatunga Waterhole

The next day I had breakfast at 6 with several hands and then read in the morning sun for a few hours. Then, in mid-morning, I asked the “girl” about laundry.

“You gibbit me, I do good job.”

“That’s not necessary. I can do it.”

“Not job for nungungi.”

“I’m not nungungi.”

“Nungungi dad’s nungungi.”

I had clearly lost the argument. I appealed to my hostess.

“Not a chance,” she said. “Better give in graciously.”

So I did. Underwear, shirts, pants, socks. It was a decent-sized bundle.

Lunch was fried chops and bread. In the afternoon I tried to work out where the aborigine camp was. It was near the Oonagie Sandhill about 200 kilometres from the Station. I could see it taking three days to get there on foot. The Outback guide said just over nine hours by motor bike.

The weather continued quite fine. There’d been no rain to speak of and the overnight temperatures hovered around 20 C and the afternoon highs were just over 30. But we were in Spring and it would get hotter and hotter over the next two months.

When I went to my room to wash up, all my clothes were neatly folded on the bed.

I enquired of Sharon about giving something to my “laundress,” but she thought I was too generous at $20, so I decided on $10. At dinner I enquired about the route to Innamincka. “No problem,” I was told. “North on Moomba Road, left to stay on Moomba as you cross into South Australia. Then you’re on Bore Track until you hit Strzelecki and follow that till you see the Hotel on your right. It’s really a whole complex of buildings. You goin’ tomorrow?”

“I’m still unsure. It’s so relaxing here.”

“Well, there’ll be a lot more folks in Innamincka.”

“I’m not certain that’s a plus.” Everyone laughed.

I left around nine, having checked my tires, my fuel and my coolant. The drive to the fence was fairly straightforward, and the next hour was a succession of dry grooves in the reddish land. There were shrubs along the edges. But when the Bore Track intersected the Strzelecki Trail, the amount of traffic increased, what appeared to be a large convoy of trucks, throwing up a plume of dust. I made my turn and fairly soon I saw the Innamincka Hotel. It really was a complex.

I parked and got out. The first thing I saw was a covey of overweight ladies a bit younger than me, each wearing a too-small t-shirt reading: “Innamincka Hotel – Burke and Wills never had it so good”. Rather bad taste, I thought. [Burke and Wills died, short of supplies, on or about 30 June 1861 near Cooper Creek.]

I got a single room for the night and saw a signpost for Cooper Creek. I stretched my legs by walking there, discovering several concessions renting kayaks and such, shuddered, and walked back to the Trading Post, which contained a vehicle service area, a restaurant, a supermarket, a laundry, etc. From what I saw, the t-shirts were quite popular. Innamincka was the traditional home of the Yandrumandha, Dieri and Yarrawarrka Aborigines. I saw none. All the visible natives were Europeans. I looked at a large map posted near the service area and realized that I could get to Durham in Queensland in a bit over four hours. I’d be following Cooper Creek upstream. I’d stop in a few places to view the land. And the Creek runs north-south right through the town [In the 2006 census Durham had a population of 79].

I sat for a bit with a can of beer, had a decent dinner in a noisy room, and went for a shower. I’d be off to Durham in the morning. The Innamincka Reserve had become too popular for me.

On the Innamincka Road heading east into the sun, the landscape seemed to switch to a lighter, brighter red before crossing back into Queensland, and the vast rills and braidings of the overflowing rivers were quite apparent to the right. (“Anastomosing channels,” my Fluvial Geomorphology of Australia [ed. R.F. Warner, 1988] called them. An anastomosing river is composed of two or more interconnected channels that enclose floodbasins.)