Emu and Chicks

Today we drove to the township of Menindee, 110 km East of Broken Hill. It is an oasis in this arid region with several large lakes fed by the Darling River. There isn't much else there apart from a corner shop and a couple of pubs and lots of campsites for enjoyment of the rare water.

We visited a settlement known as "Sunset Strip". It consisted of a street of houses about 30km out of town. They looked as if they had been built in the 1950's or 60's and would have all been on the waterfront with jetties and boat ramps. Unfortunately the water has currently receded and can barely be seen several kilometres in the distance. Presumably it may return in times of flood. Meanwhile it probably isn't a good time to put your place on the market.

Instead of water, there were lots of emus running about where it should have been. Here is one with several chicks. Not sure if they are all hers or whether she was minding the nursery.

We used to see occasional emus on our farm out west when I was a child. Some local ladies used to collect their eggs to make the Christmas cake. One emu egg would substitute for 6 or 8 a dozen hen's eggs. I haven't seen one in the wild for years, but there are plenty about here.