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For a long time Jorge and I have been talking about travelling
to the outback and hunt the big game of Australia: pigs, goats, wild
cattle, etc.
One day Jorge’s friend Harry, owner of the Gooyea Out Station
invited him to go there and shoot some feral animals before he hands over the
farm to the new owners (Harry sold the farm and leaves in February). We got all excited and decided to accept
the invitation and head to the outback. The problem we had was that both
Jorge and I are men of few words and to endure a long trip we needed someone
that could keep us alive. We decided to invite Cagi
and the three of us travelled to Gooyea (13 hours and 1,050 km on the road).
The trip took us through Toowoomba, Dalby, Miles, Roma, Mitchell, Charleville and
Adavale and Cagi never stopped
talking even though he had arrived the day before from a 15 days tour of New Zealand.
Good on you
Cagi… you made the
trip feel shorter.
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We left Brisbane
at 4:30 am and for the next 13 hours we had only brief stops for fuel, a cold
beer and visit the loo. As we travelled towards the center of Australia the
mercury in the thermometer expanded and reached 42 degrees by the time we
arrived at Charleville. From Toowoomba onwards we had phone contact only at
the villages and from Charleville we said goodbye to our mobile phones. From
Charleville to Gooyea ( 240
km) we had no way of contacting the
outside world and we met no one on the road. The Navman
GPS showed the way until Adavale, but after that the screen was blank. The
second GPS (Jorge’s EBay bargain) only indicated the Longitude and Latitude
of Gooyea but gave us the warm feeling that we were going in the right
direction. From Charleville we said goodbye to the sealed road and from
Adavale we only had Harry’s brief tips to guide us
through the maze of tracks heading to the several stations in the area.
However everything went well and we arrived at Gooyea Out
Station at approximately 5:00 pm with only one wrong turn on the way out of
Adavale. The next pages try to give
and idea of the 4 wonderful days we spent with Harry at Gooyea Out Station. Enjoy it…
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