Yes we have stayed a night at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse.  We are headed to Julia Creek and it was just a bit too far to go through to there in the one day.  We were in no hurry to leave Karumba this morning.  We did arrive at the Roadhouse before 2.00pm, so it was a lazy afternoon before having a drink over in the bar of the roadhouse at 5.30pm.  Our lunch stop was Bang Bang rest area, the area we had stopped at on the way up.

I have decided this blog can be a small one about the 'Burke & Wills Expedition'.  A little history lesson for me to go with some photos that I have taken during our 2014 travels and at the Cloncurry Unearthed Museum.  This area of Australia is all about the 'Burke & Wills Expedition' and we could have gone out 32kms from Normanton and visited the last site that Burke & Wills got to before they died on the return journey.  They were nearly to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The expedition was in 1860–61 and the expedition started off with 19 men, led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills.  O'Hara was chosen as the leader of the expedition by the Exploration Committee and this was a strange choice as he had no exploration experience.  But there was factions within the Exploration Committee.   Wills was recommended as the surveyor and navigator.   The objective of the expedition was to cross Australia from Melbourne in the south, to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of 3,250 kilometres.  At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-indigenous people and was largely unknown to the European settlers.  The party took eight weeks to get from Cooper Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Although they reached the Gulf, they failed to see the sea because mud and thick mangrove swamps blocked their path.

The expedition left Melbourne in winter. Bad weather, poor roads and broken-down wagons meant they made slow progress at first. After dividing the party at Menindee on the Darling River, Burke made good progress, reaching Cooper Creek at the beginning of summer. The expedition established a depot camp at the Cooper, and Burke, Wills and two other men pushed on to the north coast.

The return journey was plagued by delays and monsoon rains, and when they reached the depot at Cooper Creek, they found it had been abandoned just hours earlier. Burke and Wills died on or about 30 June 1861. Several relief expeditions were sent out, all contributing new geographical findings. All together, seven men lost their lives, and only one man, the Irish soldier John King crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne.  In all, six expeditions were sent to search for Burke and Wills.  After 257 years  the story of Burke & Wills is still being told and in this part of Australia, there is the constant reminder of the expedition.  I guess it is still within the educational curriculum and more and more tourists are definitely visiting the tracks of Burke and Wills.

And here we are 'Miles from Nowhere', finishing off that bottle of red wine at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse Caravan Park.  And guess what......We have power....but no water!  You have to have your own water!

It is now four months since we arrived home from our 'Trip Around Australia' and Peter and I have just finished reading a book Wendy knew we both would enjoy.  Peter's sister Wendy had picked this book up from the library and was reading it when when she was following our travels through Mt Isa, Cloncurry and up through Normanton to Karumba.  The name of the book is 'Back of Beyond' written by Jenny Old and the further that I got into the book, the more determined I became to add to this blog, before the book was returned to Wendy.  Thank You Wendy for getting the book from the library for us.  We have both enjoyed the read immensely. 

'Back of Beyond' is the story of one woman's remarkable story of love, adventure, disasters and wonderful times in the Gulf Country.  Jenny's motto is:  life throws many curve balls at us, but it's how we deal with them that counts.  

Jenny was 22 when she followed her heart to the vastness of the Gulf of Carpentaria, to be with the man she had fallen in love with, 12 months before.  At the time she was about to go on an overseas holiday with friends, following the completion of her training to be a nurse.  After a whirlwind romance of only 10 days, Rick insisted that she still go on her trip to the UK and beyond.  He did not want to be responsible for her missing out on the experience she had dreamt about and worked so hard for.  He promised to write and be there when she returned.  

Whilst Jenny was overseas Rick bought a partnership in a property called McAllister in the Gulf Country of far north Queensland.  This was a surprising choice of career for a young man brought up on Sydney's North Shore.  Rick's love of a life on the land had been ignited when he was a child, following a year spent of a family friend's property whilst recovering from asthma.  When Jenny met Rick he had been a jackaroo and overseer on properties and stations throughout Queensland.  He was actually about to travel to Western Australia in search of his dream property when fate intervened and his friend Paul phoned him.  Together they invested in McAllister.  Jenny's grew up on a farm outside Deniliquin, in the Riverina of New South Wales, with her parents, brother and sister.

On her return to Australia, Jenny flew to Mount Isa in April 1969 to meet up with Rick, carefully dressed in her pale pink ensemble.  I smiled when I read that line, reflecting on the book I read whilst travelling down the middle of Australia in 2014.  It was written by Terry Underwood and was entitled 'In the Middle of Nowhere'.  Jenny and Terry's stories are not dissimilar.  Terry arrived at her airport in a white crimplene ensemble from memory.  Jenny often writes of being in the 'Middle of Nowhere' and we did finish that bottle of red at the 'Burke & Wills Roadhouse' with the label 'Miles from Nowhere'.

McAllister Station was 40 kilometres off Beef Road and the turn off is on the left if travelling north.  It looks to be about half way between the Burke and Wills Roadhouse and Normanton.  Today the road is named the Burke Developmental Road and it is part of the 'Matilda Way', the 1,800 kilometre trip from NSW to the Gulf Country.

Jenny and Rick arrived at 'The Shed' in the middle of the night after turning down the overnight hospitality of Rick's friends.  This was Jenny's first lesson learnt.  Never do that, particularly in the Gulf Country!  There were two bunks at the end of the shed and she was to learn in the morning that a 44 gallon drum was her stove and a shower rose and a bucket in a tree was the bathroom.  Not forgetting the 'long drop toilet'.  Her life in the Gulf Country had begun.

For 18 years Jenny and Rick battled flood, drought, cyclones and personal hardship, but their world was as big as the landscape in which they lived.  It was filled with generosity, wonderful characters and the joy of life.  At McAllister they established an oasis for their family and friends and they had lots of friends.  Jenny and Rick had so many visitors to the station each year and the number of people Jenny cooked for, even in the early years with primitive conditions, was amazing.  

Often her only contact with the outside world was through her two-way radio.  She was stretched to the limits on so many occasions and she achieved far more than she ever thought she was capable of.  With every setback she learnt to dust herself off, find a smile and just keep going.  Even when at times the odds seemed insurmountable.  Her garden was her solitude.  It was lots of hard work and to have her first little patch of lawn she cut it on her hands and knees with shears.  Understandably she was extremely proud of the homestead and garden she and Rick developed.  They actually made every brick for the homestead themselves.

During the 'Beef Crash' of the 1970's the Old's actually established the Burke & Wills Roadhouse.  Rick had always believed it was the perfect place for a roadhouse and there was a need for a travellers rest at the junction of the Cloncurry, Julia Creek, Normanton and Burketown roads.  And of  course he was right.  The story of their determination to work through the bureaucratic jungle to lease some land at the junction of these roads and then to build the roadhouse is another amazing story.   

In early 1976 Jenny lived in a small caravan at the site of the Burke and Wills Roadhouse.  The plan was to finish the roadhouse before Easter, the time when families would be heading to Karumba for the Easter break.  At the time their second son was just six weeks old, Anthony was five and needed to be home schooled, it was the wet season, they had two labradors and one was heavily pregnant!  With all these challenges 'They Did It' and opened for Easter.  Serving pies, chips, chocolates etc and pumped fuel from 44 gallon drums.  The story of the Burke and Wills Roadhouse didn't end there.  Much of it was actually lost in a fire, but Rick and Jenny rebuilt.  Many successful fundraisers were held at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse and many dollars were raised for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Jenny & Rick Old now live on the coast in Queensland.  Jenny published her book in 2016 and sold them at the ICPA stand at the Cloncurry Show that year.  I have found this info at this link https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3947330/jennys-old-memories/    Jenny was able to write her McAllister story as her parents and Rick's, had kept all the letters she had written from McAllister.  One fully appreciates what mail means to isolated families when you read stories such as Jenny Old's memories.

As I have looked over the book once more before I return it to Wendy, I have noticed that Jenny has dedicated the book to Zanda McDonald, son of their dear friends Don and Chris McDonald.  This was the couple whose hospitality Jenny had turned down on her first evening in the Gulf Country.  Zanda was the best mate of the Old's eldest son Anthony and there are a number of stories of these two boys in the book. They were inseparable when together.  Zanda was tragically taken too soon, but will always be remembered....is written in the front of the book.  He died on the 4th April 2013 at the age of 42.  I did find the tragic story of his death at this link  https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2013-04-05/zanda-mcdonald-remembered-as-beef-industry/6141192