Wunjunga Beach (Home Hill) 15 6 05

Drove to Ayr, which is a very prosperous sugar town. Walked the shops looking at a few old wares. Ayr has very nice parks where we had both morning tea and lunch. It even got too hot for a bit until we got into the shade. Bought fresh barramundi for tea. Went to Home Hill - a cute little town on the Burdekin River. Very friendly tourist centre that suggested the next camp spot. Camped at Wunjunga, which turned out to be a pretty ordinary campsite and at the end of a bone-shattering dirt road of about 15 kms. We probably should have turned back but we did enjoy the desolate empty space. The road wandered through a saltpan, which was the first time we encountered that sort of country. We thought that it was probably a little taste of what we will see in central Australia, so it was special.
The little village was at the end of the road on top of a rocky outcrop and consisted of a dozen small vacant houses (no shops), all made of besser blocks. The houses seemed to be built all over the place (including metres from the sea), and reminded us of an abandoned Greek village. While a fantastic place to visit, you wonder what people could do there except to fish – between the sharks, crocodiles, cyclones, sandflies and stingers.