Camooweal and Barkly Roadhouse

Cattle on the road.

It was nice to leave the mining town Mt. Isa and head back on the road. The drive to Camooweal was an easy one, under 200 klms. We saw a wedge-tailed eagle on the side of the road but were past him without getting a photo.  Feel sure we will see more eagles on the Stuart Highway in a couple of days. Up till now we had only seen one other and that was a few days back. Kites seem to be the norm in channel country.

Camooweal is the last town on the Barkly Highway in western Queensland; before crossing over into the Northern Territory.  We booked into the Post Office Pub van park for one night and were pleasantly surprised. For $30 per night you get a large powered site with water of course; the use of the pool, a dump site and basic amenities. The benefit was a short walk into the back of the pub. They served meals although we decided to wait until Barkly Homestead to buy a meal.  It was a better park than what we had in Mt Isa.

We had a good night’s sleep and left the park at 8am for the longer drive of 370 klms to Barkly Roadhouse. John and I were surprised at the lack of roadkill, we saw none today.  And the speed limit is 130 klms per hour!! That meant no crows or kites either, as they are usually flying off the middle of the road as traffic approaches. The only living animals we saw today were cattle.

Barkly Roadhouse is a welcome oasis in the dry. Well watered green grass and palm trees. In the outback the Artesian Bore supplies the water needed to sustain communities.  It’s a major fuel stop for the road trains and holiday traffic.  This is peak travel time; for it’s the dry season between May and September. The wet season is not the time to be on the roads.

 

From here its 200 klms to the Stuart Highway, the main route to Darwin from the south. We will travel tomorrow after a stop for the night in the shaded caravan park site. Fuel here is $2.059 for diesel, the most expensive yet.  The roadhouses are powered by heavy generators, which are very noisy and are at the back of the park. So it’s good to be early and pick a site as far away as you can.  We were here before lunch and have a good spot. Even so we can still here these essential work horses.  The park is $35 per night.

The roadhouse itself has a take away section, a dining room and bar. There is no television service (unless one has a satellite dish). The good news is we have mobile and internet reception.

July 31^st.

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Side Trip.

John and I have a few silly moments on the trip. I laugh at his bad sense of direction in the caravan parks. Granted, we stay in lots of different setups, sometimes close to amenities sometimes not.  At Blackall, a small park, we were in view of the amenities. John went off for his shower and while I was making the bed, I glanced out to see him looking very puzzled and as I later told him; it looked like he was waiting for a bus! I tapped the window( that’s how close we were)  and over he came. He had no idea where we were parked!  The trouble is he usually gets up before dawn and one morning walked the whole way around a bigger park before he found “Syd” We now joke about “catching a bus”

Another morning when he asked me the time, I told him it was 6.15 am. Off he went to the shower and later realised it was only 4.15 am, when it wasn’t getting light! Oops.

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Winton, Cloncurry and Mt Isa

Winton sunset

Winton is dinosaur country. The oldest fossils found in Australia of dinosaur roaming our country were found in the Winton area. Lark Quarry, 110 klms from Winton is a very interesting historical record of an actual stampede millions of years ago.

Mel and Susie, bush poets.

Winton camp

Matilda Country Tourist Park is $35 per night; they put on a roast dinner, soup and dessert for $20. I had the meal and saw the two resident bush poets, Mel and Sue. We have seen these ladies before and they put on a good comedy show. We met some new friends from Tasmania and will probably see them again as they are going up to Darwin.

In Winton

 

Waltzing Matilda centre

John drove the 350klms to Cloncurry, stopping a couple of times for a break. It is very windy in Channel Country, we sat at the table and chairs at the rest stop but nearly got blown away.

We went to the supermarket and booked into the park about 2.30pm. This park has seen changes since our last visit two years ago. It is now mostly accommodation for the miners.

Today was a short drive to Mt Isa. We booked into the park for two nights, at $34 per night and went out to Lake Moondarra for a picnic lunch. John has booked the City Tour tomorrow. I have been to the underground hospital before and the city lookout we saw today, so thought I would spend the two hours reading etc.

Lake Moondarra

July 29^th

John enjoyed his tour this morning. Mt Isa hasn’t seen rain since February, it Is very dry here. It was warm last night, today is expected to be about 29c. The tour went to the mines, the city lookout and the underground hospital.

 

 

The Underground Hospital

 

The underground hospital was built in the event of an attack by the Japanese during WW2. They had already bombed Darwin after Pearl Harbour; and the city sustained more damage and loss of life than Hawaii. The hospital was never used, however the nurses coming off night duty at the Mt Isa hospital slept underground during the day to escape the heat.

We were back in the park after doing a bit of grocery shopping and having lunch.

Tomorrow we go to Camooweal , our first stop in the Northern Territory. Darwin is still 1600 klms away, it will take us about a week to get there. Our nightly stops will be roadhouses, usually with no mobile or internet reception.

We are booked into Darwin for 4 nights. Then we will head south towards home.

Blackall and Longreach

 

 

 Tambo

We had a morning stop at Tambo halfway to Blackall. Its a little oasis amongst the dry country side.
Blackall’s claim to fame is the “black stump”, used for surveying purposes around 1887. Surveyors placed their transit on the stump for latitude and longitude observations and a stump was used rather then a set of legs to give more stability to the transit. At that time any country west of Blackall was considered to be “beyond the Black Stump’

 A cane chair and a purple bougainvillea lead up to a timber cottage, which is Blackall caravan park office. The park fees are $28 per night, we just booked for one night. The amenities are basic and the sites very close together; however they have the tastiest roast dinner for $20.

Graham Rodger

Kites

the campfire crowd.

 

 

Graham Rodger, a Tamworth Golden Guitar winner, entertained us with his singing for an hour or so at sunset and John bought two of his cds. A flock of kites hovered overhead, swooping gently on the air currents. It was a typical Aussie outback experience.

 

We left for Longreach after breakfast, stopping halfway at Barcaldine for morning tea.  Morning tea in these parts is still called ‘Smoko”.

 The channel country is harsh and dry, with long distances between towns. Roadtrains are king out here, the road kill numbers are high. We saw lots of kangaroos dead on the road and beside it on the 215 klms drive to Longreach . Its hard to avoid them and the many crows and kites fighting for their share of the spoils. Luckily we have seen a lot of live animals on our travels.

Emus in town

 

The large Qantas plane is one's first sighting of Longreach. The jumbo has a permanent home in the grounds of the Qantas museum.

Any one for a stage coach ride?

As we have been to Longreach twice before, we didn’t want to do the tourist things we have done on previous visits. We have been on the Cobb and Co stagecoach ride, the Stockman’s Hall of Fame and the School of the Air. We decided on a quiet morning in town.

Tomorrow a drive to Winton for the night and then Cloncurry.

25th July.

Two days in Charleville

Charleville

Charleville is your quintessential outback town, John and I have been here three times now and always enjoy discovering new things to do. This time it was the tour of the Hotel Corones, a very large and beautiful hotel that we had been to see but hadn’t done the interesting tour. There is a lot of history on the man who owned the hotel, Harry Corones.  He was a Greek immigrant who arrived in Australia penniless and went on to buying an old hotel, renovating it and hosting famous visitors, including the American pilot, Amy Johnson. We had very interesting afternoon, with tea and scones at the end.

Campfire dinner

Bailey Bar caravan park is very popular, the camp oven dinner was on on Sunday night.  The menu is delicious, beef and red wine stew with mashed potatoes.  Dessert is apple charlotte and custard, followed by billy tea. It’s  very pleasant sitting around the camp fire with like minded  people, traveling our country just as we are.

Beef stew

The park is $34 per night for a powered site. We expect to pay this as it is high season in these parts.

Hotel Corones.

 

There is a Bilby experience at night that we have been to before and its well worth seeing. The bilby is an endangered animal, the Queensland government have an on going  programme  where the bilbies are released in a safe location after spending time in Charleville. The location is a large area of land protected from predators, some where in far western Queensland, I think.  

Another attraction in Charleville is the Cosmos Centre. I found it an interesting experience, star gazing on a clear cold night.  I was happy that I had been on a previous visit as there was a lot of cloud around this time.

There are a few shops in Charleville worth visiting and a lovely bakery that serves coffee and the nicest mini chocolate eclairs.

The Flying Doctor is based here and it has a visitor centre with interesting information on the history of the service.

 

Tomorrow we head to Blackall, 300 klms away. Goodbye Charleville.

22^nd July.

Cunnamulla to Charleville.

Before the rain

 

 The first hour out of St. George was warm and sunny for the drive to Cunnamulla, 300 klms away. However then we drove into rain and it followed us all the way to Cunnamulla. We had a brief stop in Wallam Creek, looking for koalas who are supposed to be in trees along the creek. John and I were getting wet so we gave up and headed back to the truck.  

I realised that we had gone through Cunnamulla before but hadn’t stopped over.  There is a big statue “the Cunnamulla fella” outside the information centre, immortalising the young men who worked on the vast sheep and cattle stations in the 50’s and 60’s. These young men, some 15 and 16 years old, worked long hours seven days a week, mustering sheep and breaking in horses etc.

Slim Dusty recorded the now famous song,” The Cunnamulla Fella”. Up till now I didn’t know the story behind the song.

Cunnamulla Fella

Mural in Cunnamulla

A new caravan park has opened on the outskirts of Cunnamulla, the Cunnamulla Tourist Park, on the Warrego River. The owner has turned her farm into a lovely park with lots of powered sites and the best amenities’ we have seen. The grounds though aren’t sealed; the place was a mud mire. Shame we hadn’t gone when it was fine. We decided to only stay the one night. They usually have a campfire by the river, but because of the rain it was cancelled. The sun was out this morning but the place would take a week to dry out.

Shame about the mud.

Campfire spot on the Warrego

 

I rang Bailey Bar CP in Charleville and luckily booked a site for the next two nights. We have been to this park twice before, it’s basic but friendly and they have camp dinners several times a week. We paid for the beef and red wine stew with mashed potatoes that’s on the menu tomorrow night.

It was a great day for a drive, we saw lots of emus along the way, along with kangaroos, and some were seen hoping across the Mitchell Highway. Wyandra, half way to Charleville, had an unusual display on town fences; rows of bras of every shape and size.

Rows of bras in Wyandra

20^th July.

St George

Lunch on the Balonne River

John and I had stayed in St George on our trip to the Gulf in 2009. I should have remembered the nice caravan park where we had stayed last time. They had an afternoon happy hour around a campfire. However the one I booked wasn’t the one. No campfire but a nice park anyway.  We had met Lynn and Peter for the first time in St George, friends we still keep in touch with and hope to meet up with towards the end of this trip.

We left Dalby after breakfast and John drove the 300 klms to St George on the Moonie  Highway, stopping for lunch at one of the parking bays along the highway. It’s a pretty boring drive; lots of road kill on the way. We even had to swerve to the other lane several times to avoid a dead kangaroo or fox.

The weather has been unseasonably warm. It feels like spring.

St George is on the Balonne River, for the past three years in a row, the town has seen big floods. The worst one was in 2011, when the whole population was evacuated.  There is a flood sign marker along the river with unbelievable height readings dating back to 1890. The area is known for cotton farms and the river supplies water for irrigation.

irrigation pumps along the river.

A Kite.

 

We enjoyed a river cruise this morning on the Balonne, later a T model Ford drive around town.

T Model Ford

 
                                          

The flood height marker

Lunch was the ideal time for a sausage sizzle as the wind was picking up and later in the day would have been too cold by the river.

The booking for our next stop at Cullamulla is done. We will head towards there tomorrow, 292 klms away.

Gecko

18^th July.

Dalby and the Bunya Mountains

View from Look Out

John and I had a lovely weekend with Glenn, Ali and the children. They took us for a Sunday morning drive over to Caloundra and the beach areas, ending up at the local Strawberry Fields, where we enjoyed coffees and later strawberry ice creams. We spent most of the time with them  just talking and enjoying our stay.

Strawberry Fields

 It’s always hard to say goodbye, however I’m hoping they all come for a visit next year and show the children around Sydney. 
 
Dalby lies in the Western Darling Downs region of Queensland.  The Warrego Highway runs through the town, we had our first sighting of the road trains that service the outback.  We will see much bigger ones as we go further into the outback areas.

John and I left on Monday morning for Dalby, about 200 klms away. We had planned to meet up with Bernie and Jean, our long-time friends who are travelling in their caravan from their home in Wagga NSW.  We all stayed in the Dalby Tourist Park for two nights. The park is $32 per night.

water dragon behind caravan park

Bernie drove us to the Bunya Mountains, a scenic drive about 50 klms from Dalby. The Bunya pine is a different looking tree from other pines and they thrive in the mountains. We had coffee and scones in a mountain log cabin in the little township and drove through a rain forest for several klms. We saw many little wallabies.

coffee time

 

 

 

July 16^th.

Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

Southport Broadwater

Gold Coast

The park at Warwick, Oasis Big 4 was $31 a night, the most expensive yet. It was only for one night and we needed a dump point before we got to Shirley and Stewart’s. We don't put any chemicals in the cassette when we use the domestic dumps. Some  parks don't provide dump points.

We noticed the tyre was leaking again and asked Stewart where the local tyre place was to get it fixed.
Heading for the Gold Coast, the stupid GPS took us way out of where we wanted to go, including th Mt. Tamborine road. It must have the worst steep decents and narrow in parts. We had to pull over for a bus then passed four more. Mt Tamborine is a popular tourist spot .

We were at the Gold Coast by lunchtime and John went to get the tyre fixed. They said it was an embedded screw and was quickly fixed. Lovely to see Shirl looking well after her illness last year. She looks a little frail but coping well. Michelle and the children came over in the afternoon, we didn't see Owen as he is away working for a mining company in Myles.

We enjoyed our stay and caught up on all the news.  We had lunch with Kylie on Thursday in Australia Fair. Robyn came for afternoon tea.  She is down to see a specialist  from Moranbah.

 

Shirl, Pam and Robyn

Sunshine Coast.

 

            

John and Cheryl

We left the Gold Coast after breakfast on Friday and called in to see Cheryl, John’s cousin in Burpengary, north of  Brisbane for lunch. We had a nice catch up. We drove through to Glenn and Ali’s via the back roads, past Australia Zoo. They are about 15 mins from the zoo. I love that  the shire have named the main road, Steve Irwin Way. The twins’ school are entering a competition doing a dance and story theme on Steve  and his work for the animal environment. I  went  to the rehearsal last night. One of the Australia Zoo staff came to wish the 86 children good luck in the competition to be held  in two week’s time.

Australia Zoo theme

Elijah is playing rugby league this year, I’m glad that his team won and we were there to see it. All the children are growing tall, it’s been a year since we saw them.  We still have the rest of the weekend with them before we continue our trip.

Elijah

 

Glenlyon Dam

 

Glenlyon Dam

It was -1c at Bingara when we woke. At least we are heading north now then in a couple of days we will be at the coast. John pulled into a garage at Warialda and someone told him his front driver’s tyre looked flat. Now, we drive and put fuel in the truck. If anything else happens, we know nothing about the mechanics etc.  No idea of how much air pressure to put in the tyres.  A man filling his Harley came over and before we knew it he was on his knees, reading how much pressure there should be by looking at the writing on the tyre, ha. Before we knew it all was ok.  Apparently this guy had worked on the Harbour Bridge, getting broken down vehicles off the bridge to keep the traffic flowing. We will have to keep an eye on the tyre, so far so good.

Glenlyon Dam was another couple of hours away, 10 klms off the highway. I noticed it on the map, before that we were going to spend the night in Texas, just over the NSW border. A much better choice to be in a great spot at the water, surrounded by kangaroos and a bonus was not many other campers.  The kangaroos are very tame, we didn’t feed them, but you can tell others do by the way they hang around. 

The wood BBQ was a nice change, although we had had a sausage sizzle on an electric bbq at Bingara and eaten most of the meat. I found a couple of chops and hash browns so they went down well along with my scotch and coke! It was the most we had paid for a powered site. $28.

It was warmer during the night by the water, also not as cold in the morning. There was a fog that burnt off when the sun came up.

We packed up and left before 9am, John drove on a country road to Stanthorpe, about 80 klms away where we had morning tea. We  had smashed the passenger side mirror into a signpost last trip and got fixed, is now broken again but the mirror is still intact. This time we knocked a piece off the back of it at a pole beside a low level country floodway.

We arrived in Warwick about 12.30, found a supermarket and I bought some groceries. We booked into the Oasis caravan park for the night.

Tomorrow we will be at the Gold Coast to spend couple of nights with Shirl and Stewart.

9th July

Cold morning in Bingara

The first evening star. It is there!

Tiny joey.