The 200 km back road from Mitchell to St George is narrow but delivers us safely through irrigated farmlands to the town of St George. A family from our church hailed from this town and we had always imagined it to be somewhere in remote outback Queensland. In fact, it’s not really remote, compared to where we have come from, and is very civilised and surprisingly quaint. The bridge over the river doubles as the dam wall, providing water for irrigated cotton, wheat, grapes and much more. A feature of St George is the stunning bauhinia trees, which are covered with pink, lilac and white flowers and line the streets on both sides. The people are friendly, the petrol is cheap but the wind is chilly.
From St George it is only about 100km to the rather unimpressive
NSW border town of Mungindi, where the petrol is more expensive, the people less
friendly and the wind still chilly.
Our day ends in the lovely town of Inverell where the petrol
is cheaper again, the river picturesque, the Chinese restaurant unchanged since
the gold rush era and the wind even more chilly. Walking along the river at
dusk the feel is more European than outback. There are signs describing the
wildlife that inhabits the river. Fortunately, our croc days are now behind us and
we scour the river intently for any signs of a platypus.
Our journey south has reached its penultimate destination
and all is good – except, did we mention that it is rather chilly. 
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