South Warlock 18 July 2006

Had a look at the remains of Newcastle Waters settlement. This is a deserted village that was an important town for the local cattle industry. The original shop, pub and bakery are preserved by the National Trust and it was easy to go back in time. The resourcefulness of building materials is fascinating. The shop included bottles in the walls as fill. Seen it before but here it is pure practicality. Stopped at Gorrie Airfield with the intention of staying the night and went for a long walk along the old tracks. Saw large areas of beautiful bright pink bushes, gum trees with leaves 20cms long and really fat, termite mounds 3 ms high. The remains of the largest WWII airfield are here being the longest airstrip in Oz. There is little that remains of the massive effort put into the airfield but we later drove around the overgrown tracks and remarked that the very long straight road we drove along must have been part of that airstrip. The sense of hidden secrecy was strong. We had seen the first of many little grass fires on the side of the road - totally unattended and in surprisingly large numbers. They had no fury but seemed to be of a burn-off nature. We found was a number of these in the area we were in so we decided it was not prudent to stay. So even though it was getting late, we ended up driving to just outside Mataranka at South Warlock and stopped at a pretty bush camp for the night already occupied by at least 10 other groups. Lots of camp fires which seemed ironic when we had seen so many fires. No firebans despite the high fire danger. Camp fires seem to be regarded as a right up here. If you take into account the Aboriginal use of camp fires it is best not to make law against them.