By Margaret Maccoll
Bob and Sherril Lewis hadn’t expected to pick up a traveller on their journey to the Gulf Country – but they found their own Red Dog in Sturt’s Stony Desert and he now calls Noosa Springs home.
The kelpie they call Red was left in the desert with two bones, no water and no identification tag.
Bob said the couple left their Noosa Springs home on a 10-week drive to Cape Leveque and back via Alice Springs. Flooded roads south of Birdsville forced them to detour north across the Stony Desert.
“We had been driving slow, stopping to take photos of the scenery as we could see 360 degrees to the horizon across flat, barren, treeless plains,” he said.
“Pulling in to a rest area off the track we saw what initially we thought was a dingo, until it started running to the car.
“We had left our campsite early and hadn’t seen another vehicle all day, so we were not sure how long he had been there.
“The only other road in the area was closed due to flooding.”
Knowing he would perish or be taken by dingoes, the couple made room for him and asked around for an owner at the nearest town.
“Speaking to the locals it became obvious that people abandoning their dogs at rest stops and caravan parks was a common occurrence,” Bob said.
“The kelpie travelled in the car with us for a week before returning to Noosa and seemed very happy to have been rescued.”
A vet visit found there was no microchip so after a health check, vaccinations and de-sexing he has become a much-loved member of the family and a friend to the couple’s other dog, a briard named Riley.
“He has made himself very at home in the Springs out walking meeting all the other dogs,” he said.
Bob reckons the family must attract kelpies, as Red is the second one to adopt them.
“The first one was 23 years ago,” he said.
“He turned up at our house in a thunderstorm. We found his owner, only to be told to keep him as he wasn’t wanted.
“He stayed for 13 years.”
