Saturday 18.6.2011: 10 degrees - mid 20’s a little windy, lovely in the sun, cool in the shade. We took our time packing up, then went to Woolworths and did our shopping, filled the bus up with diesel then went to the Cloncurry Show, which we walked around, looked at the preserves, cakes, flowers, produce and things people had made, checked out the animals, machinery, looked at show bags and watched a few ring events.
We enjoyed the ringers contest, five of them started off lying in their swags, once the bell went, they had to put their boots on, roll their swag, wash the face, eat their breakfast, drink a can of drink, climb a steel fence, hop on a horse bareback, gallop up the other end of the ring, collect their hat, gallop back, ram three star pickets into the ground, roll a bale of hay into a stall, lock a gate into place then down a can of soft drink again, some ended up throwing up, but they all looked like they were having fun and we enjoyed watching. We would have enjoyed watching a bit of a rodeo, but it was just a show, so we left and headed out of town towards Mt. Isa, stayed at a popular roadside stop 60k out with lots of others.
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| Hills in distance - first for weeks |
Sunday 19.6.2011: Cool morning 9 degrees - mid 20’s, Took our time packing up, then drove across to Mt. Isa about 60 kilometers, there were lots of fractured rich red rock hills some quite high, as we neared Mt. Isa there seemed to be more. Mt. Isa mines has two big chimney stacks for the copper and zinc processing plants, and a couple of very big slag heaps. The shopping centre seems bigger since we went through in 2006. Drove out to Moondarra Dam, had lunch then went along to the Moondarra Accommodation Village, booked in for two nights so we could get a tyre alignment done, see a locksmith as our bus door lock was jammed and Lloyd needed to see a dentist as he had broken a filling. The Village houses a lot of workers for Mt.Isa mines as well as tourists.
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| Mt Isa Mine |
Monday 20.6.2011: Cool morning 8 degrees in the bus but the manager told me it was 2 degrees when he looked, temperature reached mid 20’s, very hot in the sun, washing dried within two hours.
Rang around to find a Locksmith, Dentist and a Tyre place to get a wheel alignment. The locksmith fixed our door lock, but we couldn’t get into the dentist until Tuesday and Tuesday afternoon for the wheel alignment. Walked around looking at some shops, then went back to Moondarra Village to relax and book in for another night.
Tuesday 21.6.2011: 8 degrees - mid twenties, sunny. Went to Mt. Isa, I shopped while Lloyd was at the dentist having his broken tooth repaired. At 3pm we had an appointment with Tuff Tyres to get a wheel alignment done and while having a good look at the tyres Lloyd determined that unfortunately we needed four new tyres, one tyre had a slash in it which could have blown out whilst we were traveling and could have caused the bus and us a lot of trouble three others were down to the wear indicator bars. The guy at Tuff Tyres was very good and knew what he was doing, he repairs a lot of the mine vehicles,we left there $980 out of pocket. We arrived back at Moondarah Accommodation Village to find someone else on our site, so we had to go to the office to be relocated, we need to make a “reserved” sign. Because of the large number of mine workers in the village there was a restaurant that served breakfast and dinner. We decided to have dinner there. For $20 each there was a 3 course buffet meal with unlimited seconds - had long conversation with old bloke who lived in the village and knew a lot about Isa.
Wednesday 22.6.2011: 11 degrees - mid twenties, windy and sunny. Drove out of Mt. Isa on the Barkley Highway, within 50 k the countryside changed from hilly with rocky outcrops to just flat country as far as the eye can see with low scrub and small trees mainly gums. Travelled 189 kilometers to Camooweal, arrived about 2 pm, found the site in Camp 6 book beside the billabong and set up camp along with many others, met a couple of neighbours and felt comfortable with them, so we figured this is a good spot for the night. We went for a walk along the billabong for a while looking at all the birds and we saw brolgas, they were so statuesque and graceful but when they called out they sounded like elephants, the other birds were cranes and lots of others, but the brolgas were beautiful to watch.
Thursday 23.6.2011: Cool morning 8 degrees - mid twenties, sunny day. Drove 265 kilometers to Barkly Homestead, we crossed the border into the Northern Territory not far from Camooweal, the time difference is 30 minutes behind Queensland. The countryside is much the same as yesterday, flat not much scrub, low trees here and there, as far as the eye can see, and not many cattle as the road trains were moving them from the Northern Territory into Queensland because of the ban on importing them to Indonesia, thanks to Four Corners and their story. Apart from road trains of cattle we also saw lots of army vehicles and loads of caravans.
Barkly Homestead is very well laid out with drive through sites and lovely shady trees, the temperature gets very warm in the middle of the day and the trees are a welcome sight, we had happy hour under the tree and went for a walk and checked out the area, the airstrip is very close to the campers.
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| NT Border |
Friday 24.6.2011: 10 degrees - mid twenties - sunny. Had breakfast watching many of the caravans in such a hurry to get to the next stop, which meant we had lots of space all around us, we looked up the road in front of us and watched a small plane taxi down our road and turn onto the runway only a 100 or so meters away from us.
As we left Barkly Homestead we decided to buy our fuel and were amazed to see two queues of army vehicles about eight or nine, five motor bikes, as well as caravans and camper vans, so we patiently sat at the end of the queue and waited. We traveled 234 kilometers west across the Barkly Highway then turned right at Three Ways and traveled north to Attack Creek where Stuart and his men were attacked by aboriginals. There is a memorial for Stuart and the constable who was killed by a spear. This is a roadside stop where you can stay overnight, it was packed, must have been between twenty and thirty campers enjoying a free camp spot.
Saturday 25.6.2011: 11 degrees - mid twenties - sunny. Travelled 231 kilometers to Daly Waters, the scenery was similar to yesterday with small red termite nests everywhere and we felt like the road went up then down a bit like the Nullabor. We queued up to get into Daly Waters Pub which is a lot of fun with signs everywhere, like Angle Parking - any angle will do. The pub has all sorts of things hanging from the ceiling, like T shirts, bras, and assorted underwear, money from all over the world, hats etc. etc. etc. too much for the eye to take in, the young ones working behind the bar are backpackers from all over the world. The people we met at the last stop advised us to get an unpowered site because we would not be packed in like sardines, we were grateful for the advice because we remembered the last time we stayed here and the description is very true.
Daly Waters was Australia’s first international airport with flights coming in from Singapore. The original runway and hangar are still there but are being progressively overrun with grass, weeds and vines
Had dinner, beef and barra with salads and damper, the entertainment was good, a guy called Geof playing guitar and singing songs from the sixties, good dance music, then a guy called Chilli came on, he had an infectious laugh and told many jokes, sang country and western songs and told a few poems, he was very entertaining. We enjoyed our night.
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| Outback Servo |
Sunday 26.6.2011: 13 degrees - high twenties - sunny. Travelled 171 kilometers up to Mataranka, the landscape has become more dense, more trees and more termite nests. Stayed at Bitter Springs Holiday Park, we were interested to see Bruce Ross owns the park. After setting up camp we walked down to the Springs to have a relaxing soak in the warm 32 deg water, it is a beautiful natural setting of palm trees, very clear water with rocks on the bottom with fish, turtles and water-lillies, very pretty, there was a lot of water about with signs of it having flooded not long ago. Once you are in the water the current takes you along and I drifted along with lots others, looking at all sorts of things on the bottom, when I reached a little bridge I climbed out and walked back to where I first entered the water, Lloyd was still there holding onto a log with his feet so he didn’t drift. Walked back to the camp ground with squeaky crocs on our feet and felt very relaxed.
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| Bitter Springs |
Monday 27.6.2011: 14 degrees - high twenties - sunny. Travelled 105 kilometers to Katherine, countryside the same as yesterday, booked into the Low Level Caravan Park, so we could walk to more hot springs for another swim. Caught up with the washing.
Tuesday 28.6.2011: 14 degrees - 30 degrees - sunny. I did the washing and caught up with the trip diary. Had a slow day and read a book.
Wednesday 29.6.2011: 15 degrees - 30 degrees - sunny. Drove into Katherine to do some shopping went to Telstra shop to fill in time so Lloyd could buy his casks of wine after 2 pm, this is a new measure by the Government to try to stop the aboriginal people being drunk all the time, he was told he could only buy one cask per person and had to produce his license, he was very pleased to see me, so I could also buy one. We have heard that cask wine will not be available for sale in the Northern Territory after lst July, 2011, which in a new measure to reduce the amount of alcohol being consumed by the aboriginals and applies to everyone not just aboriginals. Finally we could make our way to the springs, that’s the great thing about the motor home you put your shopping away and your swimmers are in the drawer as well, it was beautiful in but we though it would be hotter like Bitter Springs, I guess we didn’t feel it was hot because our temperatures were very high after a very hot day 30 degrees.
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| Katherine Low Level Crossing |
Thursday 30.6.2011: 18 degrees - 30 degrees - sunny with a few clouds. Travelled 167 kilometers to Sullivans Creek in Gregory National Park, met the neighbours and talked so much the sun went down before we realized and had to cook dinner in the dark. Next morning I woke with vertigo and thought I was Ok by 10 30 am, we left the camp site and headed on to Victoria River Roadhouse which is only 18 kilometers down the road, thank goodness as I was bad news and had to rest all day to recover.
The countryside has now changed from relatively flat scrub with short trees to rocky outcrops and the trees are getting bigger. The rich colours in the rocks are brilliant at daybreak and sunset
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| Approaching Victoria River |
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| click on image to enlarge - spot the helicopter |
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| Rich colours in the rocks. click on photo to see larger size and read the sign |
Friday 1.7.2011: 19 degrees - 30 degrees - sunny with some clouds, which disappeared then came back later in the day. I took it easy even though I sort of felt OK, I washed my hair to try to get the dust out of it and did the washing, Lloyd wanted to go for a walk but after walking for 15 or 20 minutes with 30 degree temperature, I felt it was too much for me, so we decided to look at the gorge tomorrow on our way out of Victoria River, so we walked back to the Roadhouse and bridge, that was plenty of exercise after being written off the day before. Had a good rest and read my book.
Today is Territory Day and tonight the Roadhouse is putting on a Sausage Sizzle and Fireworks, so we will go and meet all the other happy campers.
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| Victoria River Bridge The low one is on the old road, recent floods were higher than the old bridge |
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| View from old bridge |
So....... what can YOU do about the cane toads?
ReplyDeleteLooks like the landscape is getting a little more interesting .... that is ..... if a few hills make a difference. Did you fly over Mt Isa?