Day 6 Thylungra Rest Stop to JC Ruins Rest Stop ( Birdsville Road)

 After a great stop at Thylungra we continue to head west towards Birdsville via Windorah and into the channel country. At the moment there has been abundant rain so the area is so green - not what you expect heading into the desert.

Busy Main Street

We stooped at the Windorah Visitor Centre and talk about 7 degrees of separation. Turns out she worked at St Andrews hospital in Toowoomba and she know Russ's cousin who works there and also my BFF from school who has worked as a nurse there for many years.

After a great chat and more fuel it was off to Birdsville or at least some of the way. We weren't in any great hurry so our first stop was at a place called JC Ruins. JC stands for John Costello who was the brother in law of Patsy Durack. Just about anything to do with cattle in the 1800's would have had a Durack involved in it anywhere in the top end of Australia. JC stopped here on one of his many explorations around Coopers Creek and Diamantina River. A hotel was built here and remained open until the 1920's. The roof was removed in 1956 and it has just crumbled away to a pile of rubble. 

We are starting to see the Gibber plains that are part of this landscape - the stony rocks and pebbles that make life tough out here for man and beast alike.

The cemetery is about 400m with some very old graves that have stood the test of time from the early settlers. 

We shared the spot with only one other van and a few cattle later that night. There has been some traffic on the road but pretty quiet really. Tomorrow we are heading to Betoota and 100kms of gravel so will see what condition it is in.