The main purpose of our latest jaunt was to show our friends one of our favourite places, Willandra National Park. Dogs are not allowed in national parks so we left Parkes at the crack of dawn in order to deliver Monty to the kennels in Yoogali, just outside Griffith, before it closed at 11am.
We drove past mile after mile of cotton fields with hundreds of bales of cotton lined up ready for collection. Farmers are not too pleased about the introduction of cotton farming into Australia as it requires a massive amount of water, a commodity that is very precious in these remote areas. Huge cotton producing corporations take so much from the rivers that farms and vineyards further along the river are being starved of the water they have depended on for years.
As we traveled further west the properties became progressively bigger and further apart until all that could be seen from the road was a postbox and driveway every so often leading to a station (very large farm) that was completely out of sight. 
Once Monty had been dragged protesting into the kennels we headed for Hillston where we had arranged to rendezvous with Tim and Virginia before hitting the dirt road into Willandra.

 On the way we passed a sign for Murriwagga - home of the Black Stump, well we couldn't resist that could we? There are plenty of things that are supposed to indicate where the outback begins and the Black Stump is one of them so we stopped for a closer look. The Black Stump Hotel stood in the centre of the tiny town and there was a little trail of information boards to enjoy. I had assumed the Black Stump was a burnt tree trunk or something but, upon studying one of the boards I discovered it was a woman who had burned to death while cooking on a camp fire! Apparently when describing the event, her husband said he returned to camp to find his wife was nothing but a black stump! 

 Onto Hillston which is a very small town but, because there are no other towns for miles around, it services a large number of the stations in the vicinity so has a branch of each of the main banks on its tiny little high street. It looks quite odd really because we are so used to seeing towns without banks as society relies more and more on internet banking but the internet is a bit of an issue on many of the properties so being able to visit a bank is essential I suppose even if it does take hours to get there. 
It took an hour or so to reach the outskirts of Willandra along the unmade, red dirt road, then a further half an hour to reach our accommodation.

 Driving on unmade roads was alarming at first, especially towing a caravan, but it was surprising how quickly we got used to it. There were signs warning drivers not to use the roads in wet conditions, the penalty for doing so was to pay for the repairs to the road after. The residents in these kind of areas live with the prospect of being cut off for long periods of time, in fact, we had been planning this trip for a while but the national park had been closed for months because of rain.
Eventually we reached the buildings on the property. The main building is a glorious homestead complete with schoolhouse which is set on a billabong alive with spoonbills, cormorants and many other birds and fish. The homestead was derelict when Ian first came here but was restored in the late 1990s. There is also a huge shearing shed, rams' shed, shearers accommodation, ranger's cottage and the cottage we were staying in. 

 The cottage was basic but comfortable and we even had our own pet frog in the outside loo. We could have done without the Mouse Spider but Willandra itself was as wonderful as I remembered. It was amazing to look out from the veranda over the flat landscape and know that everything you could see to the horizon and beyond belonged to that one property.

It was a very famous sheep station in its heyday and was called Big Willandra, specialising in raising huge rams that were much sought after by other sheep breeders, the descendents of those rams are still around today.  Back in the 1920s and 30s bullock trains were used to transport the fleece to be sold after shearing and it took three days for them just to reach the edge of the station. At night the stars are so clear and bright they seem to form a canopy overhead and it is just marvelous to feel the relaxation of being there with no TV, phones, internet etc. 

Ian and I love to get up just as it is getting light and drive around the motor trail to see the kangaroos and emus. The real prize is to see the big red kangaroos and they only seem to show themselves very early. 
We had a glorious few days of walks, wildlife spotting, barbecues and pretending to be the owners of the homestead and even found our entry in the visitors' book from 2005!