Visiting Fred (and Louth and Fort Bourke)

Bird of the Day:  Variegated Fairy Wren.  Spoonbills and Dotterels poked their noses in but didn't really compete.  Mass flock of the day was clearly the 40 Black Kites over the wharf at Bourke.

Plant of the Day:  Coolabah gets the tick, although a couple of photos at Louth provoked some interest.  If only we knew what they were!

Scene of the Day: Wetland at Fort Bourke.  The Celtic cross in Louth Cemetery had a red hot go.

Art of the day.  Cow in Rabbitohs colours on Shindy's pub in Louth

Typically Australian thing of the day: Sporting grounds in every settlement. 

Maximum Temperature  15 Minimum temperature  5

Distance traveled  with camper 120 without camper 50

So we packed up the camp and headed off towards Bourke.  Our first stop was the village of Louth. Shindy's Inn seems to be a popular venue although I didn't establish why the cow is in a Rabbitoh's strip.

These are the buildings of the Louth race course.  This is claimed to be the second biggest Outback race meeting (after Birdsville).

It seems strange to think of Louth, several hundred kilometres inland being a port.  However it is about 200 river kilometres downstream from Bourke which was a very significant port back in the day. The obelisk in the centre of this image is the Louth War Memorial.

The significance of this shot is the stone embedded in the site.  A Mrs Murray (not Liz)  brought it back from Gallipoli.

This Celtic Cross marks the grave site of Emily Louisa Pearson who became the 3rd wife of T A Mathews, the main developer of the Louth area.

As her parent's surnames were Raey and Wilson presumably there was a further marriage along the way. She is described as an "ancestor of the Bourke, Doohan, Pearson and Wright families who all settled on this river."

In the cemetery were many plants with flowers like this.  I must find out what it is!

On the Darling River Run towards Bourke.

On arrival in Bourke we drove past the courthouse where many family and friends of the villains (I guess that should be "alleged villains" as I don't know what the beaks decided) were sitting in the street outside the courthouse.  They must be efficient in there as when we drove past again an hour later everyone had vanished!

Confusion then reigned about the location of the visitor information centre, which seems to have migrated North to a commercial site.  I also got confused about directions and took some time to find "our" caravan park - the Mitchell caravan park (dog friendly unlike the one outside town).

Having done so we went to check the town. I commented above about Bourke being a major port.  This the historic wharf as it now looks

Many Black Kites were perched in the trees over the Darling ....

... and even more were circling in the skies.

We first went to check Fred Hollows grave, as it is a very good work of art,

We then took ourselves off to Fort Bourke established by Major Mitchell in 1835.  Brachyscomes were flowering here

This is meant to be the actual stockade he built, although there seem to be several contradictory records of its dimensions.

There was then a period of confusion when I realised that I had managed to lose my notebook (a paper job, not a mini-computer) somewhere.  Bugger: there goes some of the detail of my birding.

Back into Bourke where we found the official War Memorial.

Our evening meal was take-away from the Chinese restaurant located in the bowling club. (This is following the example of our previous trip to this town, when we stayed in a small Motel and the restaurant was in a main stret.) They were extremely busy both with seated patrons and continual phoned orders coming in.  The grub was very tasty and with the heater running we were very comfortable.

On our previous visit we were warned - by a local - about not walking around, especially after dark.  That may still apply:

• noting the comment above about the courthouse, 
• recalling recent media stories we have seen opining that crime rates in Bourke are the worst in the world; and 
• observing that the town centre car park is walled in with security screens  and the cars are parked out of range of incoming house-bricks.

However, we had no grief whatsoever.

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