Augathella to Cunnumulla

What a great little town! They had a camp ground right in the town, near the Ellangowan Hotel. There was a lovely mural painted on the wall of a building in the town.

 We got talking to the manager of the pub and when Randall said that he used to manage an hotel he was handed the financials to see if he would take it on!! (Don’t worry - he loves retirement too much!)

We walked around the town each day and noticed that most of the houses were occupied. We heard that the town is supported by the sheep stations all around. 

We had a few delicious meals at the pub including on our wedding anniversary. The pub wine was only ordinary though - Gossips was the best on offer!! 

Randall took some Keno tickets and got one number off the jackpot!

One evening a young bloke called Andrew pulled up near us to camp for the night and came over to say hello. The next morning Randall got talking to him and during the course of the day became his life coach! He was supposed to be leaving in the morning but headed off late afternoon. I think he enjoyed our company as much as we did his!

The bagpipes came out for a session, which was good.

The day we left we stopped at the local butcher and bought some sausages for tea that night. They were absolutely delicious! We wished we could drive back the 100 kms just to get some more!!

We also needed some more wine, and the options were limited - so Gossips it was!

Our next stop was Charleville. The road kill was horrendous - way worse than home. Every 100 metres there was something on the road or by the road, even emus. It was quite distressing.

We headed to the Charleville Bush Camp - our only option there. It had camp hosts, John and Pauline. It was $10 a night and you had to be totally self contained. Happy hour was around a big camp fire. The second night we were there we got damper made by Pauline which was delicious! Pauline recited some poetry and another couple pulled out their guitar and sang some country music songs, which was very enjoyable. 

We left Charlevile via the local butcher. He was not the most friendly young fellow on the block, but we bought some delicious crumbed lamb cutlets from him - not sure about what these sausages would be like!!

Our next stop was to be Cunnamulla. We stayed behind the pub - there were 4 camp spots there and we were the only ones that night. We were happy to be on grass rather than dust. We went in to have a drink, as we were staying for nothing. The drinks were quite cheap - $3.50 for a glass of house wine that was not too rough! The pub was very quiet, and we got chatting to a local who ran the laundromat. We thought that that would be a good little business to run in the right place, so it was interesting talking to him. We had a nice meal as well, and even though we were the only ones there we were asked to eat it in the dining room.

The town was made famous by a song by Slim Dusty called Cunnamulla Fella and there's a big statue of the fella in the centre of town.

Randall liked to think he was the fella!!

The weather was beautiful, not too hot and we did a nice walk around the river. 

There were emus everywhere - even in the school grounds. I've never seen so many emus in my life as on this trip. (In fact, we had to knock them off the spotto list as there were so many!)

The second night 2 caravans arrived. They were travelling together and had just come up from the Birdsville races. One of the couples had been on the road for 5 years! That night the pub had a few more customers. We don't know how the publican made any money, apart from his travellers out the back.
There was a lovely full moon while we were there.