Last night my sleep was punctuated by the sound of barking dogs. I lay listening to it for a while wondering why the owner of the dog didn’t stop it from barking and also very proud of The Captain who was remaining in his bed quiet as a mouse and showing true leadership skills. 

It crossed my mind that the locals that we had been forewarned about could have arrived to “shop” from our belongings and then would turn up in the morning to sell them back to us. I didn’t mind the vicious sounding barking so much, but tuned my ears to any other noises as well. 

Suddenly, I heard a woman yell, “Can you shut your bloody dog up!”

This didn’t get a response from the caravan next to us where “Bob” was barking but if there was anyone lurking around outside, I bet they scurried off quick sticks. 

I tried to go back to sleep and had just dozed off when about 15 minutes later barking started on the other side of us a few vans down. This was short lived as I imagined the owners didn’t want to be the recipients of a torrent of abuse, so they calmed their dog quickly. 

If there were any opportunists hanging around they didn’t take anything from our van or car as everything was intact the next morning. Maybe we can attribute this to barking dogs. I’m happy to give up a little sleep to ensure this is so. (Note: Ray slept through the whole night and didn’t hear a thing. My protector!) 

I was so proud of Henry who wasn’t tempted to join in the barking. 

We packed up early and left the park by 8:30am. Our normal set off time is 10:00am but today we needed to be early for the amount of kilometers we had to cover. 

We hope to make it to Bourke today. Also known as “Back of Bourke”. Also known as “The Middle of Nowhere”. If someone is describing a place that is literally so isolated, they might say “It’s out the back of Bourke.” 

The road to Bourke for us is the Barrier Hwy. Ray said it is his highlight of the day because the condition of it is so good to drive on. Initially he said it was the scenery, the beauty of the trees against the skyline and the straight road disappearing into the distance. After driving for a while, he moved that to number two on his list. 

We stopped for morning coffee at a roadhouse where we met a bus load of travelers descending for a scheduled stop. The Captain became roadhouse attraction number one as he went from lady to lady for his pat and ear rub. They “ohhh” and “ahhhhed” over his cuteness and shiny coat (?) and he lapped it all up. 

We met another Crusader Prince Caravan owner there and spent a little while talking about our vans and how pleased we were with them. It’s always nice to compare rigs with people on the road. We also compare places to stay, visit, things to do etc. The travelling community really is a sharing caring group of people. 

Back in the car Ray commented on the amount of different animals we had seen today. He thought we could grab one of each and create the travelling wildlife show. 

The number of wild goats on the side of the road is just unbelievable. Ray had to repeatedly toot the horn to make them run off into the scrub to make sure they didn’t wander onto the road in front of us. They always moved in packs of 3-6 so there was always worries that some would dart across the road to be with the others. 

Then the ever present kangaroos. Ray was good at spotting them in the grass and the horn came in handy again but you just never knew which way they would jump. Plenty of people had misjudged this going by the amount of road kill that we saw or more likely, had no idea they were coming, and were upon your car before you knew it. This morning one jumped in front of us in the car and we would have missed it by about 40cm. It would have made a sensational photo. 

Wombats are ever present on the side of the road but they are usually waving with all their paws in the air. (aka dead.)

Emus aren’t as common and it’s quite a thrill to see them in the wild. I think they like the warmth of the bitumen because they congregate on the road and only move when you toot the horn up close. More than once Ray mentioned he should have put air horns on the car. 

We’ve seen wild brumby horses looking majestic in the middle of nowhere, mangled looking sheep, eagles and grey leathered donkeys. 

Quite a menagerie of animals.  

There’s no doubt that pulling your bathroom along behind you has its advantages. Some (not all) of the public toilets along the highways definitely need a strong stomach to use them. I’ve defaulted to using the van but Ray always, always uses what is on offer beside the road. 

Today I was feeling brave and decided to use the public loo beside the road. There were two to choose from. The first one I went into someone had left their lunch in there, (if you know what I mean) the second one was my only other option. 

Toilet paper, tick. Lockable door, tick. Relatively clean, tick. Basin, tick. 

I proceeded to use the amenities, feeling pretty good with myself (no need to flush in this drop toilet – I could stop holding my breath after I had washed my hands…)

I washed my hands and left. 

As I walked back to the car I noticed a smell. A bad smell. A really BAD smell. I mentioned it to Ray. It smelled like something dead. We assumed it must be a poor dead animal coming from the bushes somewhere. 

I got back in the car, reaching for the hand sanitizer when I suddenly realized the stench was coming from my hands!

Of course I had to share the realization with Ray (Sharing is caring) thrusting my hands under his nose, and immediately knew what I had to do. 

Into the van I rushed, washed my hands with soap twice and then sanitized twice until they smelled normal again. 

When I emerged, I looked up to see the water tank that fed the hand basin in the toilets. It had a swarm of insects and flies covering it and flying around the top of it. It was obvious that the dead animal that we assumed was in the bush was actually in the water tank. 

We will contact roads maintenance and let them know. 

Back of Bourke is all it promised to be. A quaint little town in the middle of nowhere. The last time I was here I was 9 years old and had a run in with an emu. I’ll be avoiding any trouble with these locals this time around. 

Pulling into Bourke we hoped we would get a site at the only pet friendly caravan park in town. When we rang them we were told we couldn’t book ahead it was first in best dressed after sites were released at 12noon. If you know me. you know that I was on edge all day, asking Ray more than once what our Plan B was if we couldn’t get a site there. Mr Chill wasn’t perturbed, confident that we had no problem and we’d be right.

We turned up at the caravan park and…Ray was right…we scored a site. Actually we were one of about 6 vans parked up for the night. Lush green grass and $36 for the two of us for a powered site. The Captain is free again. Score!