June 16th 2017

This morning we travelled about 30 kms before reaching the boundary of Mt Murchison Station. There was no signage on the roadway so we followed our GPS mapping devise. The country is covered in salt bush and other low growing desert shrubby plants. Eventually John found Ian Marr at the Homestead. Ian is a very welcoming host to this property which he now owns. He grew up on the property but was, to a large extent, educated in Sydney. Mt Murchison has been owned by the Marr family since about 1950, after World War 2. It was originally about 120,000 acres but is now only 10,000 since part of  the land was purchased to form the Paroo National Park. Interestingly the actual mountain called Mt Murchison was named by Major Mitchell.

In the Cactus garden at the Mt Murchison Homestead

At the time we arrived Ian was busy battling, on the phone, endeavouring to regain his Internet services. Peter is the only employee, a chap who has lived in the area all his life and mostly on this property. He led us down to this camping ground on the Darling River. He is very familiar with the surrounding country having been here for 46 years.

Signage at Mt Murchison Homestead

Our afternoon was spent relaxing on the river bank watching birds and reflections in the waters of the Darling River. These waters are like Chocolate milk at present. At first appearance the river seems to be still but actually it is flowing quite well. 

Soon after 5.00 pm Ian arrived from the Homestead and we enjoyed chatting with him over a glass of wine.

While the evening was still light a pair of black cockatoos settled into one of the nearby network of red gum branches. I guess we will hear their chatter early in the morning. I cooked a lamb stew in the camp oven over a small fire. It was delicious....something to do with being outside and sitting by a fire.