Southern Queensland and the Run Home

 Not long now, 'til our trip is over, however there is still a little way to go.

After leaving Tambo we headed south through Augathella and onto Morven where we had morning tea of beautiful scones, jam & cream with our coffee, in the newsagent, come cafe, come gift shop!! Both Augathella and Morven are both little 'whistle stop' towns, and it is a case if you blink you will miss it.

From there it was onto Roma, and oh my goodness, what a state this part of the Landsborough Highway is in - if you had had a smoothie for breakfast, it would well and truely be a curdled milkshake by the time we got Augathella. To be honest it was not that much better once we had turned onto the Warrego Highway at Morven and heading for Roma. This is where we did a final bit of shopping before having an easy afternoon. We continually heard the rattle of the cattle trucks/road trains coming through the town on their way to the sale yards for the cattle sales the following morning. It is believed that these are the biggest sale yards in the Southern Hemisphere. After all the trucks and road trains we have heard of late, the noise didn't bother us at all.

Our pace seemed to slow down a tad, and we had a reasonably good trip into Oakey via Miles and Dalby. Decided that as the distances weren't overly long, we would stop at Dalby (when we refuelled the car) to have a bite of lunch ourselves at the big new shiny Service Centre that had only been open 7 weeks. One could say that all we wanted to do was get home, however, the milage is too long to do in one hit, so it is off to Oakey where we stayed the night is a lovely little park with lots of grass - yes!! Something to sink our toes into after all the red dust etc that we have encountered along the way. Pete says the showers were about the best he had had anywhere on the trip.

Sadly my photos from Oakey are no where to be found!

Our last day ..... heading towards Toowoomba first, then down the reasonably new 2nd Toowoomba Range crossing which is such a breeze of a run now. We stopped off at Gatton for our last morning tea on the road for this trip, and as the journey for today was under 250 kms it gave us time to head home at a reasonable pace, and yep ..... start unpacking the car and van.

It has been a long and tiring trip, but a most enjoyable one, and we saw places, things and events that we never had envisaged we would ever see, so yes, it makes it all worthwhile. Here is a map with our trip on it, but sadly no lines across the bottom of the map (the way we were supposed to come home). We covered in excess of 18,500 kms all up from start to finish.

Trust you have enjoyed joining us on our adventure - now it is time to do some chores around home, washing, lawn mowing etc.

Hope you will join us on another adventure 'on the road' sometime in the future.

'Til then,

June

Through Western Queensland

I must show you this photo before we leave Barkly Homestead - bear in mind you are in the middle of the Barkly Plains which is kind of desert like conditions, and, not your average sight in the morning, when we woke to find this parked at the rear of the caravan/camping area, and yes, the couple slept 'aboard' for the night!

Yay!! We are finally back in our home state, and have to say, we are relieved to be here. It was interesting to note when we came through the border entry facility just how different it was to when we headed west into the Northern Territory some 8 (?) weeks ago. Then we just drove through, no checks of border passes etc, but a board that said to keep your pass handy if required.

Now, there is a 'pop up' border check point for those heading from Queensland into the Territory, and a long line of caravans as well as trucks etc.

Our first stop is for fuel at the roadhouse at Camooweal, where we spotted a sign welcoming us to Queensland and reminding us to put our watches forward by half an hour, although for the life of me, I do not understand what the 5 years part is supposed to mean.

After taking on fuel and a cuppa, it was then onto Mt Isa. It was here that we encounted again the mines right at the end of the main street of Mount Isa. 

After Mount Isa, and it's lovely sunrise,

it was onto Cloncurry, where we understand the Royal Flying Doctor Service was begun.

From here, we turned south and pulled into McKinley, where quite a bit of the film 'Crocodile Dundee' was filmed, and this is the famous pub as seen in the movie.

Sadly with Covid and the lack of travellers/patrons, the pub has been forced to cut it's hours each day. The traffic along this highway as you can imagine is not all that much, so me being me, stood in the middle of the road, out the front of the pub, and took the following photo!!

Just a bit further to go for our nights stop at the Blue Heeler Pub at Kynuna. We have stayed here before and yet again, decided to have a yummy pub meal. Can't get much better than that.

I also have to mention a quirky thing about this place - they have the Kynuna Surf Club, AND they have their own surf boat - no kidding!

Fom here we continued south along some very unimpressive scenery and not so good roads, with plenty of tumble weed caught in the fences. If you had had a smoothie for breakfast, by now it would be a milkshake that was not sitting so well in the stomach.

next whistle stop was Winton, where a lovely new Info/Waltzing Matilda Centre was built after the previous one was burnt down some years previous. The Waltzing Matilda Centre celebrates the writing of one of Australia's favourite songs 'Waltzing Matilda' written by Banjo Patterson in the last 19th century. It is believed he had the inspiration for it at the Combo Waterhole half way between Kynuna and Winton.

Another qwerky feature in Winton is their sidewalk rubbish bins - they are encased in dinosaur feet.

From Winton it was on to Longreach for our next nights stay. It is a contentious issue as whether it was Winton or Longreach where our national carrier QANTAS was born, however Winton claims it as the 'birthplace where the idea of the airline was decided on, whereas Longreach  (I believe) is where the first planes took to the air. Longreach has a museum here that houses quite a number of planes from through the years. An interesting fact regarding the jumbo that is parked here, is that it was flown in, had just one go at landing and basically no fuel left in it's tanks. In other words it was there to stay and there was no way it was taking off again. Quite an incredible sight, considering it is right beside the highway.

It was in Longreach that, yet again, and for the last time this trip, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. Yep, that makes 4 times we have crossed it this trip.

After Longreach, we continued on to Barcaldine, which is apparently the birthplace of the Labour Party, and they also had the 'Tree of Knowledge' however some years ago, it 'mysteriously' was poisoned, and they now have preserved part of the trunk and created a beautiful wooden sculpture that chimes with the wind. 

It was then onto Blackall, which again is another spot of contention regarding the place of the 'black stump', however there are a couple of other places that also claim to have the 'black stump' their backyards. The next place we stopped for the night was Tambo - I love this little town, it is the birthplace of Tambo Teddies, which was the inspiration of a couple of farmer's wives who began making teddies from the fleece of sheep many years ago when the bottom dropped out of the wool market, and they came up with this idea to supplement their incomes.

We spent a night here in Tambo, and the photo of the board here at the entrance to Tambo says it all.

Then at the lovely little caravan park, and we created Tambo's own 'stump' for our happy hour.

So from here, we bid you goodnight with yet again another lovely sunset ....

'Til next time,

June

Back Across the Territory

 When we first began planning this trip, we put in pace a couple of alternative ways to get home, should the need arise as we were going around. Never in our dreams did we consider having to come back up through the north of WA and crossing back over into the Northern Territory. Ah well, stuff happens and here we are back into the Territory.

There was quite a  line up of caravans etc going into WA as we passed through into the NT.

Anyway, we were able to continue  and our first stop was at Timber Creek, where we celebrated our first hurdle back towards home, with morning tea and of course muffins etc at the bakery.

It was then through to our first nights stop was back at Victoria River Roadhouse. Here, we refuelled the vehicles and had a comfortable evening before it was time to begin our journey back towards Queensland.

These two photos above show the beautiful colours in the ancient mountain ranges as we left the Roadhouse just on sunrise (around 7am) and began our journey towards Katherine and our nights stop of Mataranka. It was whilst here at Mataranka that we filled in our Queensland entry border pass form, and surprisingly it was quite a simple one to complete -yay! All good, and we can head for our home state.

Plenty of those long flat straight roads that we encounted on the trip over to Western Australia, but we just got them in reverse this time, and it is quite interesting to see sections you have travelled over from a different perspective.

For our next nights stop, we decided to chose a different place (for a change)  and stopped off at Renner Springs. We have called into here for fuel and a bite to each on other occasions, but not to stop the night. This is actually 'Renner Springs' and what a lovely peaceful area it turned out to be.

From here we continued south down the Sturt Highway until we came to the 'Three Ways' which is where we turn east onto the Barkly Highway to head towards Queensland.

As you can see, the road heads north (the way we had come) to Darwin, the way south is towards Adelaide and the way east is heading into Queensland. MOre long straight roads as we head across the Barkly Plains.

However, we do have a nights stop at the Barkly Homestead which is about half way across towrds Camooweal and Mount Isa.

It has been a long trip from the bottom of Western Australia to get to this point, and all of us are feeling very tired, however, our next day will see us back in Queensland and I think that is lifting our spirits a little.

'Til next time,

June

Heading Back Up North Pt 2

 As we continue to head back up north, we yet again cross over the Tropic of Capricorn just 9 kms south of Newman.

We stoppped off at the Capricorn Roadhouse, thinking this was actually where the Tropic was, only to find out after we had our morning tea, but no, we had to go a couple of hundred metres up the road.

Would you believe we still have another crossing of the Tropic to go before we get home. That will be a bit further down the track though. From here it was into Newman for a look around. Our friends from the UK (their surname is Newman) had mentioned to us previously that there was some family connection  - not sure what or where), so it was a nice surprise to find ourselves here. After wandering around for a bit looking for the Information Centre, we pulled over to check with the GPS when a work ute pulled up beside us and the guy in the passenger seat began asking Peter about our van. It appears he has recently purchased the same one and wanted to know how ours was going. We had about a half hour chat to both guys, showed them the inside etc, and off they went happily. The Info Centre was just around the corner from where we were.

As you can see from the above photo there is a big dump truck out the front, and as most of you know I am not exactly a tall person (1/2 pint size actually) so you can imagine I found I could walk through under this big monster without having to bend. Actually in the photo below you can see I only come half way up one of the wheels, that is how big these monsters are - they are H-U-G-E!

After Newman, we turned and headed back towards the coast near Port Hedland again. Now I have to tell you a funny but frustrating tale. We pulled into a service centre to get fuel and some morning tea on the outskirts of Port Hedland. Got our coffees and cakes and settled down at a table there to fill out our entry border passes for the Northern Territory - we had to list where we had been for the last 28 days, not just 14 days as on previous ones. All good, had all the information required at hand. Well ..... it was the funniest sight you have ever seen, the three of us, each with a mobile phone, trying to work through this process. Gee, it was frustrating particularly as we had to put all the overnight addresses in as well for the 28 days. Finally got them completed and submitted them, the poor truckie at the next table had more than a funny smile on his face as we were quite vocal when they were approved. Only took a hour to fill the things in! One step closer to heading home.

From Pt Hedland we continued up the coast,  stopping off for the night at Pardoo Roadhouse - now this place was not overly special in itself, however the pre-dawn fog the next morning was something else, and as I got up I saw the following out the caravan door and had to take a photo of these two trees with a floodlight (for the roadhouse) surrounded by the fog. 

Continuing on, bypassing Broome, but calling into the Roebuck Plains Roadhouse for an overnight stop. What a performance. Now I will ask you if this makes any sense to you - we had tried several times to ring and book a couple of powered sites, and were told they do not take bookings - OK I can handle that, BUT, when we got there to see if they had a couple of sites, we were told "we are all booked out"!! If anyone has an answer as to the logic of this please let me know. They actually were not the only ones who did this that we came across. 

And so we had to hit the road again and find yet another free camp spot for the night. This one was really lovely and as it was quite hot, we decided to eat 'alfresco' (?) What a beautiful night.

We are slowly making our way back across the top of WA - none of us thought that this was going to be the way we would be heading home - and after a night's stopover at Fitzroy Crossing, we stopped off the following morning where we found the most delightful free camp site called Mary Pools on the banks of the Mary River. To add to the place, we found quite a number of cattle (you can just see one in the background of the above photo) just wandering around amongst the various campers parked up.

After another free camp night we continued on into Kununurra again, but not before marvelling at the ancient rock formations and mountain ranges along the way.

After a quick shopping trip, it was time to catch up on some washing (never ending isn't it?) and get ourselves organised to cross the border into the Northern Territory. We still have more places to go as we head home.

'Til next time, 

June