Day 56: Kamakaze emu
Leaving Currawinya National Park the intention for today was to make it to Nyngen. The dirt road was in reasonable condition for most of the way allowing us to pass quickly through small one horse towns such as Yantabulla and Fords Bridge. We soon reached the dog fence and crossed the border back in to NSW. The trip was coming to an end.
Before leaving on this trip there were certain statistics I wanted to keep a record of. Things such as most expensive fuel, best camp site etc. I also jokingly commented about the number of kangaroos I hit.
Luckily, unless tomorrow changes things, I have not gone anywhere near hitting one. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the other animal on our coat of arms. Yesterday I commented on the kamakaze emus darting along the road in front of us. Well it turns out NSW emus are obviously not as smart as those in Queensland. Heading along the road a dark object appeared from out of the bushes on the left of the car. The emu in mid stride saw the car and in a moment of indecision it will regret decided to try to stop and turn. As I hit the breaks the next thing I knew was a cloud of feathers and the unmistakeable thud on the front bullbar followed by that speed hump feeling. I knew this was not going to turn out good for one of us.
Looking in the rear mirror a motionless lump sat in the middle of the road. Luckily there was no damage to the car or trailer despite the signs of impact on numerous parts. My only consoling thought was the circle of life would continue, where the numerous eagles and hawks feasting off road kill we had seen previously just got another feed.
Reaching Bourke there were other tell tale signs our trip was coming to an end. Most noticable we saw the last of the dirt roads and were finally back on to the black top for good. These even had strange white lines down the middle that I had forgotten about. With more people on the road I tried to continue the one finger wave to passing travellers but I had obviously reached the threshold were this was no longer done. The weather also changed with large clouds forming in the sky and a strong cool wind blowing. We moved in to low rolling hills with the surrounding vegetation turning green and crops of yellow conola lining the road.
While we were expecting to take another 2 days, the pull of home was strong so deciding to try to make Sydney tomorrow night we pushed on to Narromine and found our last bush camp and camp fire by side of Macquarie River.
As this was the last night the aim was to use up as much left over food as possible. We timed our rations much better than Burke and Wills with just enough to see us through. Tonight was not as extravagant as previous nights but the tins of soup went down even better as we were able to have an extra beer that was meant to be for tomorrow night. We also got extra Tim-Tams which never happens in the our household.
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