The Woodies Travel

I managed to miss the boredom of travelling the 130 or so km of the Hay plain by knitting! What made this part of the trip even worse was that it was very windy and so it was hard to get the speed to much above 80km hour. Did this part of Australia always look like this or were the trees all cut down? There is the occasional tree dotted around which is why I wonder if there were once a whole lot more. As we approached Balranald the first change I noticed were the number of trees and then as we travelled past the town more plants could be seen along the road verges including grasses of different colours, acacias, other small flowering bushes. The roads continued to vary from flood damaged to reasonably good until we passed over the border into SA where the road so far is excellent. We also saw sheep grazing, as we did yesterday for the first time since leaving SA ten weeks ago. They don't have sheep in northern Australia. Once we arrived at Berri I went for a walk along the river which has much more water in it than when we visited last year in April. There were birds everywhere - many more than I was able to photograph. I could hear some of them but not see them. One concern I had was that some small ground level birds that were here last April seem to have disappeared due to work being done by a local service club to 'improve' the environment along the river walk. They had removed some bushes and have planted some small plants that are covered in plastic. In future these plants may provide habitat for the birds but they were perfectly happy with the way things were before. I may be all wrong. These birds may only appear at certain times of the year or they may be an introduced bird not native to this area or the changes in the river may have given them new homes, but they were not there! Otherwise the river and the birds look great. We had an enjoyable dinner at the Berri Hotel for our last night. Thank you to everyone who has bothered to read this journal and to look at the photos. I hope it has shown you parts of Australia that reminds you of your visits or inspires you to get out there and see it.