COOPER Creek provided a true outback experience with an abundance of golden perch, grunter and catfish.
Cooper Creek is probably the only creek in Australia formed by the meeting of two rivers, the Thomson and Barcoo. The Cooper and its tributaries are still carp free; handles drought and flood as easily now as it has since the millennium of time. As a result, the fishing in these outback water ways can be extraordinary.
With the canoe loaded on top of the 4wd we took the winding track through outback
NSW crossing the very sad Darling River at Wilcannia. With a couple of hours before sunset we pushed through to the Opal mining town of White Cliffs.
After a couple of days chasing opal we were back on the road roughly following the route of Charles Sturt’s explorations of 1844/45. We pulled into the old gold mining town of Milparinka where we visited the rocky water hole named Depot Glen. Here Sturt’s party were trapped for six months while they waited for rain before they could continue their explorations.
Sturt abandoned a whale boat here that he had carried all the way from Adelaide with the intention of sailing on an inland sea which he was convinced existed in the interior of Australia!
We climbed Mount Poole to visit the rock cairn built by Sturt’s party “to keep the men occupied“ but it ultimately became a memorial to James Poole who died of scurvy a couple of days after they broke camp when the rain came in July.
We then travelled to Tibooburra following Sturt’s track, stopping at Fort Grey, Sturt’s next depot in whatisnowknownasSturtNationalPark.
It was from here Sturt explored NW, found and named Cooper Creek after Charles Cooper, Chief Justice of South Australia.
We awoke to a blood red sky to the east , “red sky in the morning sailors take warning”.
We packed our swags and had a rushed breakfast before continuing our journey towards the meeting of three states at Cameron’s Corner.
Intermittent rain turned the dust to mud but it was just a shower and it didn’t stop our progress.
From Cameron’s Corner it’s a up and down ride over the sand dunes to the junction with the old Strzelecki Track which would take us to Innaminka on Cooper Creek.
The Strzelecki Track was created by cattle thief Harry Readford in 1870, while moving 1,000 cattle south from Queensland.
While he was found guilty of stealing the cattle, the judge was so impressed by his determination and service to future pastoralists by creating the track that he couldn’t convict him.
Arriving at Innamincka we stopped for fuel and a chat at the pub before heading out to our camp on the North West branch of the Cooper.
Swags out, canoe launched, shrimp tramps set and the millions of flies tried their best to drive us mad.
The shrimp traps soon supplied endless amounts of shrimps and yabbies, the largest of these were kept for eating and the smallest for bait.
The first foray onto the water and we were not to be disappointed, with golden perch, grunter and catfish readily attacking our baits bobbed on the bottom under the overhanging Coolabah trees. Fish after fish tumbled into the canoe!
We were eating grilled golden perch morning and night with the larger yabbies and shrimp as entrée and dessert.
Heavy rain saw the water flooding over the lower ground and we knew we would see no traffic for several days until the roads dried out, perfect.
After the rain the desert bloomed with wild flowers; the Regal Bird Flowers were magnificent.
Rabbits stained red from the soil were abundant and lots of slip snares set meant two became dinner mixed with curry and vegetables.
The roads dried and we headed to Coongie Lakes with the intention of canoeing across the lakes. Wild winds whipped the lake to white cap waves as a rain squall settled in.
We sheltered beneath a tarp biding our time. Around 10pm the wind and rain stopped and
the lake became mirror calm, our crossing of the lake by canoe was carried out under the full moon, another tick to the bucket list!
