Paleo Excitement

Twice this past week – yes twice I have flushed the toilet and a frog has jumped out! I swear there is nothing more unnerving – or at the very least that is the case for me. When I flush the loo, I expect things to go down – not to jump out!!

As you will glean from this situation I am not in a metropolitan centre. I am in beautiful, wonderful, glorious Eromanga!

Oh! Beautiful Eromanga!

The furtherest town from the sea.

The warmth and the friendship of the

Town ironically once an inland sea!

I had been speaking to my precious friend, from kindergarten days (and who came to see me in Broome), when I was in Quilpie, Jenny, who was extolling the perils of what seems to be a never-ending flood. In an off handed remark she said she thought perhaps I should sit things out for a while. It was after this I was pondering what she said and surveyed google maps and decided she was right, then I thought I might as well make myself useful while doing that and offered my volunteer services to the Eromanga Natural History Museum. I used to go and do some work there when I was cooking at the Eromanga Pub and so back out to Eromanga I went. I set up camp at the Eromanga Hall where they allow free camping and each day I go and have the absolute privilege to work not only with a wonderful group of people but with the ancient fauna bones of this extraordinary area. I have been working on Diprotodons, which are the megafauna of old. So far, I have unearthed from their ancient patch of dirt a jawbone and a shoulder bone and even a plant fossil which is wildly exciting for this complete paleo novice and I have learned so much. The Eromanga Natural History Museum won an award at the tourism awards in Brisbane last night and it is thoroughly well deserved.

Quilpie is still wonderful, and I was able to catch up with so many people who remembered me schlepping in there every Saturday to do my grocery shopping. Another Jenny had a coffee shop there then and I would always make my way to it after getting the groceries, sit at a table order a coffee and I would always meet someone, and we would talk the legs off the chairs. I loved it. Jenny’s coffee shop isn’t there now, but I still managed to meet those people and the wonderful Jenny too we all had wonderful catch ups!

Quilpie is a wonderful little town, steeped in outback farming history and mining and is usually dry and dusty. The rains though have fallen and fallen and fallen in this part of the world too. When I first arrived in Quilpie the road to Eromanga was actually closed. The effect this has had on the landscape is extra ordinary. It looks completely different from when I was here in 2019. It is green everywhere. A monochromic landscape of every shade of green from the most vibrant to a gold. It is beautiful. The road out to Eromanga (about 100 ks from Quilpie) is a vibrant drive of differing plants. I have found flowering wild grevilleas and some yellow plant that reminds me of the egg and bacon plant that we find in the Victorian mountains, but it is much tougher and has the most delightful green seed pods hanging amongst the flowers making it look like its own artistic floral bouquet. The Mulgas sway in the breeze, but their constricted canopies seem to whisper ‘enjoy it while you can! This will not last’. Drought is the constant companion of this world, but it is so wonderful to see it transformed to this verdant beauty.

I had told the powers at the museum that I would volunteer for 2 weeks, and it is flying by. I finish on Wednesday and will begin to edge my way south on Thursday. I really don’t know which road I will make my way down yet as I see the flood waters are now making their way west. I will be researching the route and promise to be careful!