Camooweal – Daly Waters (18/4/12)

We had a HUGE day of driving today.  This country of ours is SO unbelievably big, especially in northern Australia!  Camooweal is only 14kms from the NT border, so it wasn't long before we arrived in the NT.  We were all very excited to be back in the NT and are looking forward to exploring northern NT.

It was 440kms from Camooweal to Three Ways, with very little in between.  Except of course a very silly motorhome driver who attempted to overtake us at a very dangerous spot.  It is easy to see how accidents happen.   We also had to stop at one point when some cattle were crossing the road.  The kids enjoyed watching the jackaroos on horses and motorbike keep the cattle heading in the right direction.

We stopped for snacks at one of the few places between Camooweal and Three Ways, Barkly Homestead.  We were a bit surprised at how nice it was given it was really in the middle of nowhere.   Diesel was $1.99/L so we were thankful we didn’t need fuel.

Another 180kms and we reached Stuart Highway and Three Ways.  To the south is Alice Springs and Ayers Rock and to the north is Darwin.  We were so thankful that we had visited Ayers Rock from SA last year and could head north as it is such a long way down the Stuart Highway to Ayers Rock.  Yippee!

We needed to fuel up at Renner Springs, 137kms north of Three Ways, and only paid $1.90/L here – bargain!  We drove another 100kms north to Elliot, where we had planned to stay the night.  Let’s just say it was not appealing at all and we decided to keep on driving.  So another 140kms north and we arrived at Daly Waters. 

We drove a total of 813kms and were in the car a very long time.  Simon is an absolute legend for driving for so long and the kids were so good.  However it was well and truly worth it.  We booked into the Daly Waters Pub Caravan Park, right next to the iconic Daly Waters Pub.  What a classic pub.  You name it, they had it hanging in the pub – from undies, hats, thongs, business cards, kitchen utensils, car registration plates from around the world, traffic lights, signs, etc.  In fact it is very hard to put into words.  Needless to say our drinks at the pub were very enjoyable.

We even had breakfast at the pub the next morning and it was delicious.  Daly Waters is a definite must stop for anyone travelling the Stuart Highway.

Next stop….Mataranka.

The Daly Waters Pub

Caravan park

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

Winton (15/4/12 – 17/4/12)

A much easier day of driving today, only 180kms from Longreach to Winton.  We booked into the Matilda Caravan Park so we could plug into electricity and charge everything up. 

Winton is a small, neat town, with a population of 700.  Despite its size, there is a lot to do in Winton.  Our main reasons for visiting Winton were to see the dinosaur attractions that Winton is well known for.

The Age of Dinosaurs Museum allowed us to visit the laboratory where technicians were working on fossils, including dinosaur bones that had been discovered in the area.  Dinosaur bones were first discovered in this area in the 1970’s by a pastoralist on his property.  Since then, a huge number of dinosaur bones and fossils have been discovered.  We then visited the museum section where we saw the bones in their finished state.  It was fascinating to watch the technicians working on the bones.

We also visited the Lark Quarry Conservation Park, 100kms south east of Winton.  This is the site of dinosaur footprints during a stampede many millions of years ago.  We got to see the footprints  of what is unofficially named an Australian T-Rex and two smaller, chicken like dinosaurs. 

The people who work in these museums are so passionate about dinosaurs and very excited to share their knowledge with visitors.  There are more dinosaur sites in towns north east of Winton.  We will not be visiting these as they are not on our travel route (and a fair distance to travel to), plus we have all had our dinosaur fix!

Chloe and Donna spent a couple of hours at the Waltzing Matilda Visitors Centre.  A lot of this centre is based around Australia’s unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda.  It is believed that Banjo Patterson wrote this song in the Winton area and performed it for the first time at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton, which is still in operation today.  The centre was also home to a number of local historical items.

We visited two more of Winton’s attractions – Arno’s Wall and the Musical Fence.  Arno’s Wall is a quirky 70 metre concrete wall that was built by a local opal miner with numerous items built into the wall, including car parts, motorbikes, a cash register, microwave, cutlery and even the kitchen sink!  Quite bizarre!  Chloe didn’t think too much of it, whereas Ben thought it was “good”.

The Musical Fence is a wire fence that is built in such a way that when you touch the wire with a pipe it plays different notes.  The kids were more interested in playing the other musical instruments, such as the drum kit made from old tins, saucepan lids, plates and ashtray.  Very noisy.

Simon and the kids tried their luck at catching some yabbies in a nearby waterhole, unfortunately with little luck.

We are all enjoying being back in Australia’s outback.  The clear skies, warm, dry weather, the isolation, the amazing night sky and the adventure of it all.  We are fascinated by the size of the road trains up here – they are massive – some with 4 trailers and up to 53.5 metres long!

Next stop…Mt Isa or somewhere nearby.

Age of Dinosaur Museum

A dinosaur's vertebrae

A technician working on a dinosaur bone

Lark Quarry - dinosaur footprint

Site of the stampede - lots of footprints

Road into Lark Quarry - pretty rough

Arno's Wall

The Musical Fence - Ben on the drums

The structure with the roof is the actual Musical Fence

Old merry go round at Waltzing Matilda Visitor Centre

Longreach (13/4/12 - 15/4/12)

We left Airlie Beach at 10.30am and headed south towards Mackay and then west, en route to Longreach.  We had a big day – not only did we catch the boat from Daydream Island to Airlie Beach, we also drove 560kms, some of which was windy roads.  We stopped at a small town called Sapphire, west of Emerald.  We did a free camp tonight – love not having to pay for accommodation.  Sapphire was a quirky sort of town that is in the middle of pastoral country and known for its gemstone fossicking.  It reminded us a bit of a much tidier Coober Pedy.  We had to laugh at a bottle shop that was on the main road, kilometres from anything else.  It looked very out of place.

On Friday we continued to Longreach, which was another 400kms.  We stopped at a few towns along the way.  Our favourite was Barcaldine, 100kms east of Longreach.  Barcaldine is a beautiful small town that was so neat and tidy.  The people were very friendly and they had five operating pubs, which is quite amazing given the size of the town.  Barcaldine is also home to the Tree of Knowledge, which is a big dead tree in the main street, surrounded by a huge wooden wind chime that commemorates the Labor movement. 

In Longreach we stayed at another free camp (Apex Park), alongside the Thompson River, which is part of the Lake Eyre catchment.  We really enjoyed this camping spot.  Perfect location, nice people and it was free!  We even had TV reception so Simon could watch the news on the 12 volt TV!  We coped just fine without electricity for a couple of days.  The best thing though was the amazing night sky - there is nothing better than looking at the clear night sky filled with countless stars.

Chloe and Ben were very impressed with the family of green frogs that lived in the cistern of one of the male toilets.

The highlight of our visit to Longreach was the Qantas (Queensland & Northern Territory Air Service) Museum.  Whilst Qantas was founded in Winton, in the early stages they relocated their headquarters to Longreach where there was a railway service.  Qantas is an amazing airline that was created by two world war one veterans, backed by a local pastoralist.  It is the only commercial airline in the world that built and flew its own planes.  There was so much history about the early days of this airline and the obstacles the founders encountered has to be admired.

We enjoyed a guided tour of a luxury Qantas 707 that had been donated to the museum.  It had an interesting history, including being owned by an Arab Oil sheik (only after the pig skin seats were removed!), it had flown the Jackson Five on a number of occasions and even John Travolta had been on board.

It was a fantastic and modern museum that included displays in the original Qantas heritage listed hangar.

Simon visited the Stockman’s Hall of Fame which also had a lot of local history.  It had great exhibits from the Royal Flying Doctor Service, pastoralists and legends of the Australian bush, from the aboriginal days to the present time.

Longreach is a tidy remote town, with a population of 2,500. 

Next stop….Winton, 180kms north west of Longreach. 

Tree of Knowledge, Barcaldine

A beautiful Longreach sunset

The Qantas Museum

Captain Ben

Stockman's Hall of Fame

The green frog family