You really know you are back in the outback when you find emus running down the main street of the town.

I’d spent the night at the pub in Nymagee on my way to the Macquarie Marshes, a 198sqkm oasis in the dry plains of North West NSW.

The fact that you are in the Outback is reinforced when you confront a road train at a water crossing!

I set up camp in Coolabah Gum woodland opposite the woolshed at Willie Retreat about 5km from the southern end of the Macquarie Marshes.

The woodland was home to a beautiful selection of small woodland birds.

The oldest known Coolabah gum is 300+ years old. The Coolabahs in this woodland were old and gnarled with plenty of hollows to form homes for the little birds.

The next day, I woke to a beautiful outback dawn…

And headed down to marshes.

In the light of the day, the small birds were flittering around, catfish were jumping, waders were hunting, and the pelicans rode high on the thermal updrafts.

As the sun went down, the mood and colours changed.

Across the water, a crafty fox was keeping an eye on me.

The Birruma Boardwalk is 25km north od Willie Retreat and provides a way of walking through the, otherwise, impenetrable reeds and across the top of the boggy marshes.

A further 50km up.the road, at the northern end of the Marshes, is the town of Carinda famous for cotton growing and for having tge pub where David Bowie’s Lets Dance film clip was recorded.

Follow the link to see inside the pub.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=VbD_kBJc_gI&si=kveFHCryACAg-peb

Above is the outside! So lets dance!!!!!