Remote and Remarkable: Exploring the Australian Outback

Ross told me I hadn’t seen the middle of nowhere yet until I’d seen the Gibber Plains. Large swathes of the interior of Australia are nothing more than a few small shrubs in what otherwise might look like barren land. The Gibber Plains in particular are plains of small, polished reddish stones, rounded over time by harsh, windblown sand. This seemingly desolate, largely uninhabited land is quintessential Australia. This is “The Outback.” (I call it “the middle of nowhere” because I think that phrase best emphasizes just how remote we are but someone once told me, “it’s always somewhere to somebody” and I can’t get that idea out of my mind. Aboriginal peoples have lived in the most inhospitable of places, including the driest deserts of the Outback.)

The “Birdsville Track” is a tourist track for people venturing into the Outback. It is popular amongst Australians to tote around a camper van or decked out truck or some other home on wheels and venture into the middle of nowhere for some time alone under the stars. Ross and I liked to joke that surely vanlife is alive and well in Australia and there are more camper-trailer-type vehicles than anywhere else in the world. We started down the famous Birdsville Track in our Mitsubishi Pajero. Originally we had rented a Kia Sportage (a much more comfortable vehicle to spend time in) for this portion of our trip but the Birdsville area had gotten some rain and the track to get in required a 4×4. Ross had to make a 7-hour roundtrip ride back to Adelaide to exchange cars. Did we need the 4×4? It would depend on the weather. The Birdsville Track is flat, gravel, and graded. In dry conditions the road would be doable in a regular sedan but any rain and the track becomes slick and any hope of finding traction goes away. Even as we drove it, parts of the road would have easily been doable in the Sportage but we were happy to have the 4×4 for peace of mind should the area get hit with any rain. And as it turns out, we did encounter some rain.

After driving for several hours, we arrived at Mungerannie Outpost, an outpost literally in the middle of nowhere. As many folks do, we decided to spend a night here before continuing on our journey. This is the only stopping point for hundreds of kilometers between the small town of Maree and the smaller town of Birdsville. This Outback outpost looked exactly like I would imagine an outpost in the middle of nowhere to look: old, wooden, and dark with adventure vibes to match. And because I think it gets lost on most people, to put the distance in perspective, it is 700 kilometers from Maree to Birdsville, roughly the same distance as driving lengthwise across the entire state of Pennsylvania! Imagine going that far along a dirt road and only seeing one establishment to eat or get fuel!

Overall the Birdsville Track was a fine road and we had to laugh because if this road were in Africa, we would have talked about how great it was. As we drove along we reminded ourselves of some of the roads we traversed in Africa that were so bad they barely resembled a road at all. (Again, I wrote an entire blog post dedicated to the roads of Africa that I never published. I really, really should finish that if I’m going to constantly reference it…) But the dusty dirt track we drove into the Outback was quite fitting and we actually got to use our 4×4 so that was fun. For nearly 60 klicks after leaving Mungerannie, the road was slick due to recent rain. We left at the ungodly hour of 3AM so that Roger could sleep during the majority of our long drive (a trick we learned so we could cover more ground) but that meant we also got to do the hardest portion in the dark. I swear Ross loves an unnecessary challenge. The road was slick for sure and when we arrived in Birdsville one Gray Grasswren attempt and 6 hours later, we found out that sometime mid-morning/afternoon the Birdsville Track had closed altogether due to the rain. (It closed after we had already left but goes to show that even a road bad enough to shut down can be done in the dark by someone skilled enough.)

The sunrise over the perfectly flat horizon was something to behold. I don’t know about you but that booming red and vibrant orange sky just hits different when you are in the middle of nowhere with nothing to obstruct the view. As we drove I looked out my window and saw red dirt, small shrubs, a few scattered grasses and no trees whatsoever. It was flat and dry and brown. I looked over at Ross, who had a big smile on his face, and he said to me “I’ve wanted to be here my whole life.” (When he was 19 and doing his “tour de Australia,” he didn’t get a chance to do the Birdsville Track.) I have to admit, dry and brown is not what most people would call beautiful scenery but I love to look closely and appreciate the little things that make this area so unique.
We drove for hundreds of kilometers that morning through varying stages of outback habitat, including sections that didn’t look like habitat at all, but not all of the scenery was brown. When we stopped to dip Gray Grasswren, we walked through a more wet area amongst lignum cane. When we stopped for Eyrean Grasswren we got to admire the bird with a yellow backdrop. With all of the recent rains the normally barren ground was blooming with life. There were various yellow and purple flowers everywhere and unusually high numbers of Eryean Grasswrens to go along with them!

The normally desolate Gibber Plains also have their own bird-mascot, the aptly named Gibberbird (now called Gibber Chat, but I like Gibberbird better so sticking with that name.) Many of the birds found around the channel country migrate in and out at various stages of the year when conditions are more favorable, but the Gibberbird stays year round. As we were driving, Ross spotted a small bird standing on a rock outside of his window and immediately stopped the car and threw it into reverse. He then parked and walked out into the plains to refind whatever he saw. Sure enough he had spotted a Gibberbird and we had great views of this normally challenging species before we even had a chance to look for it! It would have been an especially productive stop because standing next to the Gibberbird was an Inland Dotteral, had we not already seen a group of 5 a bit earlier on our drive.

It’s kind of funny that Birdsville and Bedourie are even destinations at all because when you get there, there’s really not a lot in town. These are towns only 2 streets wide. Bedourie in particular has a population of less than 150 people. But these are gateways into the Outback. People come to these areas because they are so remote. Their remoteness is what makes them appealing. Tourists may stop for a few nights in town before or after venturing into the truly remote to go camping for weeks on end, but our trip looked slightly different now that we had a baby. We didn’t have a camper van so we were getting a hotel room in town. We only spent one night in Birdsville before continuing on to Bedourie.

When we arrived in Bedourie we stopped to offload our bags in our motel room but then continued on to make it to our target birding spot before dark. We ended the evening with views of a classic outback species, Letter-winged Kite. These stunning black and white raptors are colony nesters and are most notable for being nocturnal. Wild birds. They begin to get active right at dusk and hunt at night. We watched as they flew between trees and circled overhead. They were raptors and yet their flight was reminiscent of how an owl would fly.
As we drove back to Bedourie that night we spotted five Dingo pups hanging around a den. Oh my goodness were these things adorable! The sun was setting and the pups just playfully stared at us.

I love days where we see the sunrise and the sunset. The colors dancing over the outback horizon at dusk were equally as beautiful as the sunrise we had seen that morning, and the morning before. (But just so you are aware, it is not recommended to drive during dawn and dusk hours due to the higher probability of hitting a wayward kangaroo or stray cow. Drive slow and carefully if you are driving at these times!)

Ross was continuing onwards and making the long journey to Winton for Opalton Grasswren. Because it was far and would require Roger to be strapped in his car seat for long distances, I opted to stay behind in Bedourie and give him mostly “normal” days playing with his toys and crawling around on his belly instead. In hindsight, we totally could have done this with the baby because we had already conquered plenty of long drives into remote places, but I was thankful to have a few days “off” and I think Roger was too. Bedourie was the perfect place to relax. Originally Roger and I were going to rest in Birdsville for 3 days, but because I really wanted to see Letter-winged Kite, we switched our plans and he and I joined Ross through Bedourie and spent 2 nights alone there instead. Bedourie turned out to be the better spot for our needs anyway!

So once again Roger and I were left in a tiny town where we were cut off from the world. At least this time, if I made the 7 minute walk across town to the information center, I could log on to the free wifi and at least keep in touch with Ross while he was away. (Clearly going with Vodafone was a mistake because my sim card was useless in places like this where Telstra had coverage. Oops!) I didn’t mind the walks though; these quiet outback towns were great places to pause and reflect. Bedourie must have really wanted you to reflect because they made the sidewalk across town doubly long by adding zig zags into it instead of making it a straight line. It was a quaint place and Roger and I made a visit to the Bedourie Artesian Bore swimming pools to have a dip! Artesian water is underground water confined and pressurized within a porous and permeable geological formation that comes up to the surface. A bore is a hole drilled in the ground. Bedourie’s bore was drilled back in 1905 and visitors have been relieving their aches and pains in the warm 38C (100F) to 40C (104F) degree water for years. Usually artesian water is full of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, sulphur and bicarbonate which are believed to be absorbed into the skin. Roger’s first time ever in a pool was a rather unique one!

Ross’s 14 hour roundtrip adventure past Bedourie near the area of Winton was a success and he managed his main target, Opalton Grasswren, along with some other fun birds such as Rufous-crowned Emuwren, Chestnut-breasted Quailthrush, Spinifexbird, Hall’s Babbler, Black Falcon and a bonus lifer, Painted Firetail.

When Ross picked me and Roger back up in Bedourie, all we had to do was complete the 15 hour trek back to Adelaide. No big! We drove back down the Birdsville Track, stopping along the way to finally see Gray Grasswren. Like I mentioned, this bird gave us quite the runaround and we missed seeing it on two separate occasions but the third time was a charm! It wasn’t until our third try that we actually managed half decent views and photos. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we stopped to see a few Gray Falcons nesting on a communication tower, an extremely scarce and elusive Outback species that has only recently been discovered using the communication towers. We drove for hours and hours and hours and hours through their habitat and never saw them outside of these communication towers. Only recently have birders learned of their affinity for the comm towers, before that the only way to see Gray Falcon was to drive around looking.

While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a number of climatic zones. This would not be our only time venturing into what is considered the Outback. More to come!

This birding occurred on July 28th – August 2nd 2023
Here’s some sample eBird checklists: Eyrean Grasswren, Gray Grasswren, Opalton Grasswren