09/05/26 One Day In Tilpa

Sydney was bleary-eyed when we met over the kettle in the morning. "Did you hear the party last night?" she asked. "It went on until the wee hours."

I had to admit that with two long days of cycling in my legs I had slept like a baby. I had a vague recollection of music and a glimpse of a fire drum and happy drunks when I got up for my own wee hour of the morning, but otherwise my night had been uneventful.

I spent the day in Tilpa waiting for phone calls from Daughter's hospital, where she had landed after a routine test had some not quite routine results. I didn't want to be out of phone range when important information might come in. 

I met all the locals while I was waiting.

Dolly the pub cat. "I'm allergic to cats," said Crystal, co-owner of the pub. "But the staff begged me for a pub cat, and they're such good staff I couldn't say no."

Tito's goat, Patricia. Tito was the young french cook. "What happens to Patricia when you leave?" I asked. Tito was horrified. "I'm never leaving! I love it here."

I wandered around Tilpa and saw all the sights.

I don't know why. But then again, why not?

I had lunch in the beer garden, overlooking the levee bank and the waters of the Darling down low between steep dry banks.

Caravans came and went all morning. There was a lull at lunch time and by 3pm locals started filling up the pub while their children played on the playground beside the questionable toilet/shower block over the road. Then a team of shearers bowled in for the weekend, lit up the fire drum, and started the party. I shared my dinner table with two sisters who had travelled to Tilpa to finalise the estate of a father who had spent his final decades alone on an isolated property, collecting junk and cobwebs. The shearers, resolutely sticking to a liquid diet, stayed in the bar and bemoaned the fact that all the rooms were booked and they would have to roll out their swags in the free camping over the road should their liquid diet render them incapable of driving.

Anyone who donated to the RFDS got to sign the pub wall. There were a lot of signatures.

My office for the day.

The important phone calls, when they came, only raised more questions than answers but in the end it didn't matter. I couldn't stay in Tilpa forever, and wherever I was going I had to ride my bicycle to get there. Crystal very kindly let me refill all my water bottles* in preparation for an early start in the morning, and I doubted any shearers' carousing would be able to keep me awake once I turned in for the night.

*I didn't fully appreciate this at the time. Tilpa didn't have a bore or rainwater tanks, and all drinking water was purchased from a neighbouring property with both those amenities. Giving me 12ish litres gratis was an act of exquisite generosity.