Rose Isle

About 70 kilometres south of Bourke on the Loath road is the sheep station called Rose Isle. The road is dusty and corrugated for much of the way. We were met on our arrival by Samantha Mooring. Samantha is a fifth generation western NSW lass. Despite the parched, grassless pastures extending in all directions she was still cheerful and very welcoming. We met Pippa and Arabella, two dachshunds. Pippa is the informal meet and greet for any guest. She would run up, ears flapping, tail wagging, and after a brief pat rolled onto her back for a full on tummy scratch.

Gary, her husband was our host for our three day stay as Samantha had to go to Sydney to collect furniture. Fortunately she has Gary well trained. He brought us delicious scones for morning tea the next day. He stayed to chat about the drought and farming life on this stretch of the Darling River. He explained that though the lack of rain is a problem, a bigger and far more persistent one is how the water is divided up. Cubby, a cotton grower has huge water requirements, and has a dam upstream that holds the volume of Sydney harbour and half again. The introduction of European Carp to control water grass that choked canals has lead to the complete loss of water weeds and grasses, a massive number of carp and the explosion in nutrients causes regular Blue green algal blooms: its impossible to swim in many of our inland rivers due to this problem.

Each morning of our three day stay I would walk along the Darling River all the way up to the bush camping area. I saw the river in different moods; the warm orange light and stillness of later afternoon, the fresh light glittering trees of the opposite bank reflected in the river of morning and the windy swaying trees and rippling water of mi day. I passed an old shearing shed of coolabah and corrugated iron walls and roofing. There were the shearers quarters, small green painted cottages with bedside made up, television and kitchen facilities. There are not many sheep wandering the pastures. If pastures conjures up an image of verdure, of waves of lush green grass with sheep and lambs cavorting in the sunshine, forget it. There is no grass, none for nearly twelve months. All feeding is from hand delivered hay, lying in blocks of straw behind metal fences. There is enough water for the sheep to drink but not nearly enough to irrigate or use sprinklers to make this land truly productive again. Goats trot about, oblivious to the harsh landscape. A decent size goat earns a farmer like Gary, $60 a head now. Gary has moved most of his stock to another property and like most of the farmers in western NSW and QLD, he is loath to sell his sheep because when the drought finally ends from where would he buy more sheep? In most droughts large areas of the eastern seaboard are spared, well enough to enable restocking but not this time as the dry extends not only in time but in geographic extent. He is pretty stoical about the whole thing but there is a sense of his frustration with large businesses who monopolise water to a scandalous level.

Each night we set up our telescope. We had lugged it all the way north and been pretty frustrated with it to be totally honest but at Rose Isle it all came together. The telescope worked brilliantly. We explored globular clusters, galaxies, stars and planets in what was perfect sky conditions. What a great night! The next evening high level cloud came in but it did not matter, we were confident we could do it again if the sky was right.

We spent time just resting and reading. It was beautiful by the river when a raucous brown bird landed on the table beside us. It’s brown spots and bars on its back and it’s typical cry indicated it was a spotted bower bird. We saw mallee ring necks, a magnificent green parrot, on the grass of the camping area. Kookaburras laughed as they called out of the forest at dawn. When the afternoon cooled approaching evening, Jennifer lit a fire in the fireplace. We sat in comfy chairs as darkness gathered outside and read our books, Jennifer a detective novel and me consuming SF.

We drove from Rose Isle to Billabourie. This is a station on the Lachlan river and it’s a mixed farm. It’s about forty kilometres from Hillston. Josh is a young miner from Cobar who arrived at Rose Isle with his wife and young son. He told us about this farm stay. It’s a pretty spot by the river. We parked the camper trailer adjacent to and overlooking the river. I played my guitar in the afternoon while Jennifer read. No luck with a telescope as the trees, the river gums and coolabahs, blocked unhindered access to the sky. A very relaxing afternoon.

From here, we drove to Deniliquin, then to Melbourne via Echuca.

Jennifer and I have just spent a wonderful few hours with the kids in Carlton. We will spend a few more days in Melbourne before boarding the ferry for a trip home.