Exploring Bourke (20.10.2008)

Hanne and me had stayed in some sort of a caravan hut, with Martine and Frøy. There were several of these scattered around the camp, and a sanitary building across the road.

We woke up relaxed and rested... Well, not really. We had both woken up numerous times during the night, and quite far from being relaxed and rested. We were both sick. I ran from the mosquitos and bugs into the bathroom building. Which didn’t really help, as they were quite present in there as well. There was amongst many other things, a cockroach who had taken up residence on the soap-dispenser and a spider was keeping a close watch on the flush button in one of the cubicles. We got some food in the food room, where a giant ‘pinnedyr’ (can’t remember the English name) had claimed the microwave. I just had toast with jam and orange juice for breakfast, before we shuffled our bags to the bus. The flies were very friendly, and were constantly approaching us. We took off in the crowded bus to Bourke, as we had been staying a little out of the town, in ‘Northy’ (Nourth Bourke). We had driven all the way to Bourke from Brisbane in a full bus, with luggage everywhere, so we had gotten quite used to climbing to the front of the bus to get out, but when we arrived at the Council Chambers, it was decided to leave our bags in their boardroom for the day. We shuffled bags, and got back into the bus. The little bus, with driver Peter and his load of students were left behind to do a Cultural Awareness course, and we headed off with our driver Earle and our guide for the day, Stuart. We went for a drive around town while Stu was talking about the city and pointing out places of interest, and we stopped at the tourist office for a complimentary beverage. We headed out of town and visited a few recently abandoned farms. They were abandoned because the government removed about 2/3 of the (already small) amount of water the farms were receiving. They could therefore not water the food they were growing, and went bankrupt. One farm had invested 30 million dollars (about 140 million NOK) and were growing large amounts of food in a very water-efficient way. Australia needs this food, since they currently have to import most of their food, and the government took the water away, so now the farmer is bankrupt, the state owns the farm, and all the fruits are falling down and rotting, and everything dies. It was just very sad.

We drove to another farm who had the same problem. This farm had dropped all its food production and were just growing jojoba, as it was the biggest moneymaker. We stopped at the orange trees on the farm and picked as much oranges as we wanted. It was quite nice. We also drove up to a dam and looked around. Dams in the middle of Australia seem to be just a few meters high, and otherwise quite large. We drove to the wharf in Bourke, which is like a quay quite high above the Darling River. It is high because once every blue moon, the river floods and the water rises to just under the quay. We were served lunch here, sitting outside in the sun.

After lunch, we went to the Council Chambers for our Cultural Awareness session. It was held by Bruce and Melissa, who come from two different Aboriginal tribes in the area. They talked about Aboriginal things in general, and we saw some films. One of the films was kind of interesting, documenting a historic view of one of the last tribes to be ‘discovered’ in the 1930s.

We shuffled bags once again, into the bus and off to the wharf, where our new ‘parents’ would be picking us up. Hanne and I met Carole Simmonds, which we were staying with. We drove to her house, not too far from the city centre. Here we met her husband Frank, who has the local hardware store. Carole has the store next to it, the local antiques shop. They were both very nice. We also met two of their friends who lived 120km from Bourke which is not really that far in Bourke-distance. Hanne fell asleep in a chair in our bedroom, while I was conversing with people. Unusual.

We had a lovely dinner, which even Hanne liked. We were served Corned Beef and Shepherd’s Pie, with bread, salad and Bechamel sauce. We went to bed in our fancy bedroom, which was a ‘newer’ edition to the house, it being outside the kitchen and one of the lounges, so there were windows from these rooms into our room, with no curtains. The lounge had windows covering the entire wall into our room, so it was kind of spooky. We were still not feeling any better, rather the opposite. I fell asleep right away because I was so tired. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?