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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