June 23rd 2017

Yapunya trees showing their copper trunks

We were late leaving our camp among the
 Yapunya trees on the Paroo River flood plains.

The day has been very warm after the cool
 morning. Our trip north to Quilpie was quite uneventful
apart from the large number of emus we saw. Probably 30 or 40 of these huge birds which are the largest in Australia. They do not fly but can run at 40km per hour. The father emu takes complete responsibility for the eggs, the hatching and care of the young birds. We did not see very young chicks today although some families appeared to be made up of 'teenagers' so to speak or half grown birds. The small flocks of birds seemed to be enjoying the green feed available.
The scrubby bush looked quite green nearly all the way from Eulo to Quilpie. There must have been recent showers of rain.
We are camped on the Bulloo River on the eastern
 side of the Quilpie township. Last year when we came through here these areas were flooded with a fast flowing stream. A different very dry scene this year. Thankfully this allows us a lot more freedom to choose our route.


The Super Market here is much superior to any we have seen over the last week. We will be away from towns for several days so we are stocked up in preparation for this.


I could not resist including these photos of emus. I did not take them myself. They are amazing birds which are unable to fly. In many ways they are expressive with their actions of panic when a car is near. They rush unexpectedly from one side of the road to the other, but appear very calm when feeding. You can see from the tiny photo of an emu 'face' that they can really look you in the eye! I have not been that close.