Day 41: Spalding to Curnows Hut

Daily distance: 31.7km
Total distance: 695.3km

We started from tbe Hotel this morning and headed north out of town. Awesome clear weather but a lot of polar bears along the road Dee had to scare off for me as they terrify me...... A kilometer or so out of town we turned west off the road onto the aquaduct and followed that in a north westerly direction for about 13km? The nice thing about following the aquaduct is it is going to be flat and that is most fantastic.

There was a huge cloud bank off to the north east which looked like rough weather coming but luckily it did not arrive for the entire day. Crossing a field along the aquaduct a farmer stopped and chatted to us for a long time. He owned the Bundaleer Stud which is a huge property in this area. Sheep, seed and cattle and about 150 000 hectares........ Large!

We joined the main road to Laura for a couple of kilometers passing the main Bundaleer stud before turning north onto a secondary road again taking us around the very large Bundaleer reservoir.  We joined the aquaduct again which eventually took us into the 'Never-never Valley' before disappearing into the side of a hill. We stopped there for a quick handful of trail mix before continuing north along the Never-never creek.

A farmer stopped to chat giving us some good directions up the valley and while talking a large male Euro bounded out of the bushes close by. I realized then Jeff and I had miss identified the one a couple of weeks ago as a Western Red Kangaroo. Go figure Bruce we are not west.........

Up the Never-Never Valley we passed many herds of sheep with lambs. One mother could not decide what to do so we sat down and gave her space to decide what to do. 10 Minutes later we got up and continued on...... over the next hill we walked onto the herd again and she just left her 2 lambs. We tried to reunite them, with Bruce carrying one across the creek and up the hill.  But the other youngster kept calling, so the lamb just followed Bruce back down the hill.  Mom didnt hang around so the lambs followed us for awhile before just sitting down. We just hope the mother comes back to find them?

The Never-Never Valley was aptly named as it just never never ended. Our pick-up was at 15h30 but we did not get there until 16h15 as the distance was 5km more than we expected. We have never been as pleased to see a school bus as we were when we saw Geoff and his bus waiting for us! 45 Minutes later we were back at the hotel, a hot shower, dry socks and after that we are now having a drink in the Barbed Wire Pub, preparing for the walk tomorrow.