Distance Travelled: 92 km
Time Taken: About an hour
Number of emus deciding to take up the entire road: 1
Number of large goannas seen: 1
We arrived at Bullara Station just before lunch yesterday. As we pulled into the reception area, a large goanna - over a metre long - strolled across the ground in front of us, not a concern in the world. We'd already spotted the goats as we drove in and the dozen or so sheep roaming freely, but the native wildlife was a little more unexpected. After we set up our caravan, our neighbours, Di and Allen welcomed us and we got to chatting. That's when I spotted Maggie, the resident kangaroo snoozing under their caravan. Then the station sheep wandered past looking for something to eat.
This is Bullara Station, a quarter of a million acre cattle station located only an hour south of Exmouth. I've been looking forward to coming here as I plan to set at least one of my next novels on a cattle station and I wanted to get a feel for the country and the atmosphere. Let me tell you, the land is stunningly beautiful in a dry and sometimes dusty way. This morning we walked to the top of the nearby dunes to view some of the property. The sand is so fine, it's more like dust and the colour is magnificent.
The campground has a number of accommodation options and we were on a powered site which allowed us to run our air conditioning during the hottest part of the day. At 5 pm we went to the Camp Kitchen to taste some of John's famous damper. He told us a little about Bullara and how he came to be an almost permanent resident of the place. He also let me feed Maggie a few almonds which are apparently her favourite.
After the damper tasting and a chat with some of the other campers, we had dinner and then returned to the camp fire to have a lesson in astronomy from Grant Thornett who is currently staying at Bullara. He pointed out a number of stars and constellations and the night was so dark because there's little moon at the moment. It was beautiful.
Then we tried the bush showers which are heated by a wood fire donkey system. Very nice!
This morning, as I mentioned above, we went for a walk and discovered so many animal tracks. When you look out at the property, its hard to believe so many animals could live here, but the tracks showed us there's an abundance of life. I'm not an expert but I could tell birds, lizards, snakes and marsupials made some of the tracks.
Mid morning we headed to the homestead gardens for coffee and scones with jam and cream. They were delicious and the gardens were a pleasant place to spend an hour. This afternoon I've been proofreading some of the novellas in the Warlords, Witches and Wolves anthology which is coming out in November. It's almost damper time now and then we've got dinner over at the Outcamp which should be fun.
We've had such a lovely time at Bullara and I'd recommend a few nights stay to anyone coming this way.
