Winton – Mt Isa – Camooweal (17/4/12)

We had a big day of driving today.  We left Winton around 8ish.  Our first stop was McKinlay, 240kms west of Winton.  McKinlay is home to the Walkabout Creek Hotel, made famous by the Crocodile Dundee movies.  Other than the pub, a police station, service station and a few houses, there is little else there.  Unfortunately we were in McKinlay mid morning so the pub was closed and we missed out on having a drink there.  We had to make do with a photo.

The next major town was Cloncurry, although we drove straight through, keen to get to Mt Isa. 

At Mt Isa we stocked up on supplies to get us through to Katherine at the end of the week.   Mt Isa has a population of 22,000 and is a copper and silver-lead zinc mining town.   We were keen to get to Camooweal, our stop for the night, so we didn’t have much of a look around Mt Isa.

185kms more driving and we arrived at a free camp at Camooweal, right on the banks of the Georgina River.  WOW!!!!  What a beautiful spot.  The 630kms we drove today was well and truly worth it.  We camped a few metres from the water’s edge, the sunset was spectacular, the stars were amazing, we ate dinner around the campfire, the sunrise was awesome and we caught a feed of red claw (like yabbies).   Life doesn’t get too much better than this!

Camooweal would have to be our best free camp so far.  We would have loved to stay here another day, but we were very keen to get closer to Katherine as soon as possible.

In go the yabbie nets

Look what we caught!

Our campsite

A Camooweal sunset

...and a sunrise