E: 28 to 31 Aug: Daly Waters, Katherine, Kakadu

After a hot day's drive from Camooweal we arrived at Daly Waters Roadhouse. Stopping on the way briefly at Larrimah. Some of these stops are quite amazing being in the middle of nowhere but owing their existence to - a borehole, WWII airfield, or simply being 1/2 way to somewhere else.

As often in Australia a simple thing like an initial in a tree is something of historical significance. This tree near Daly Waters has (or rather had - as we couldn't make it out) an initial "S" supposedly carved by explorer John McDouall Stuart about 1861.

This weird pub in historic Daly Waters is a big tourist attraction. Since Camooweal we have notice most barmaids are Irish.
Notice wrecked helicopter on roof:

Not all road trains are huge:

We had a very good meal at Daly Waters pub, under cover at rear. Barbecued Barramundi.

We stayed only 1 night at Katherine. We intend to stay longer on our return journey. This is a popular spot in river near the low level bridge:

Springvale Homestead Katherine is the oldest intact homestead in the Top End:

Lilies - Yellow Water Billabong, Kakadu National Park:

Watch out for these when swimming! :

We did a boat cruise on Yellow Water and saw heaps of wildlife, I forget what this one is:

This one liked to pose for the camera. They keep their mouths open to cool down.

When bushwalking it pays to watch what is luring behind the tree:

We saw two Jabirus, this one is a female:

We had a very hot climb to get this view over the park. Arnhem land escarpment is in the distance. We will head out there tomorrow:

D: 23 to 27 Aug

We left our caravan behind at Cammooweal and headed north to Adels Grove near Lawn Hill National Park. The road was a bit rough to risk the caravan.

This is the spectacular gorge at Lawn Hill, we hired a canoe to paddle up and back and later walked some of the tracks:-

Grevillea

4WDs are the norm here.

Wedge Tailed Eagle waiting for us to drop from heat exhaustion:

Our camp site at Adels Grove:

We managed to survive using the car fridge with the battery lasting out to just the last morning.

We managed to avoid hitting any of the wildlife on the road.

We went out on a tour to the Riversleigh fossil site (World Heritage) and saw some big red kangaroos on the way:
Paleontologists have somehow determined that this is the fossil of part of the upper leg of a prehistoric fresh water crocodile:

General view over Riversleigh site:

We went back to Camooweal for one more night before heading into the Northern Territory.

I was just congratulating myself on all tyres being intact after about 400 km of driving on the dirt, when a tyre went flat as we looked at it. This was when we stopped at the end of the day at Camooweal. Luckily I was able to fix it with my "Speedy Repair Kit".

Other damage on the trip so far has been:

One extension mirror broken off with draft from passing road train.

UHF antenna fallen off on road (but we recovered it intact).

Electric element in caravan fridge no longer functioning. It still works on gas so we should make it to Darwin.

We made it to Three Ways near Tennant Creek and managed to get one of the last powered sites for the night. This is a stop used for overnighting for road trains:

C: 20 Aug to 22 Aug

20 Aug - we arrived in Mount Isa and stayed 2 nights. Its good to have a day now and again without too much driving. This was our nearest thing to the "Big Smoke" for a while. We had chores to do like washing clothes. They dry pretty quickly here as it is dry and sunny.

I then made a trip out to Mary Kathleen which was a Uranium mining town. It was shut down in 1984 and all the buildings were relocated. Just numerous concrete pads and all the bitumen streets are still there with even the white line markings still visible. I had stopped here in 1974 when was on the main (then dirt) highway and it had lots of people and seemed sort of normal. Today there were 2 vehicles camped at opposite ends of this ghost town. One was a large and luxurious affair with a satellite dish. The other was an old Kombi with an even older geezer sitting outside in the shade. I stopped and approached him and spoke briefly at a distance till I noticed he was stark naked. I then scarpered.

On Saturday morning we did a mine tour. Not a lot different to what they do in Broken Hill. We went to the movies after dinner and saw "Salt". It is a nice cinema and the air conditioning was appreciated.

On Sunday we moved on to Camooweal, a town of 220 inhabitants near the Northern Territory border. We plan to leave our caravan here for a few days and visit Adels Grove and Lawn Hill National Park. We are not willing to risk our caravan on the roads and will tent camp for a few days before returning to Camooweal. We are well and truly feeling the warmth of the tropics here and are unsure how well we can keep our food supplies fresh with just the 12V car fridge. - We'll see how it goes. There is a restaurant at Adels Grove so we won't starve.

Signpost on a hill in Mount Isa:-

View from hill Mount Isa:
What is left of town streets in Mary Kathleen:-

Photogenic rocks, Mary Kathleen:

Old store in Camooweal:

B: 15 Aug to 19 Aug

Me - giving lady back her snake.

Performing cockatoo.

Lily's lagoon:
Some saleyard scenes at Longreach:

Brolgas wandering near our caravan, these birds are quite tall:

These last few days we have covered some distance since Charleville where we stopped 2 nights before heading off for Longreach for another 2 nights. We had been here not so long ago so with effectively only one day to look around we went out to Lily's Lagoon, where the abundant wildlife was all hiding. It was hot - 38 deg! Last time we were here (in July) it didn't get over 8 deg all week. We then dropped in on the saleyards where they were putting through 4,500 cattle in one day. This was quite an operation to watch. Cattle were weighed out in lots of about 10 before being loaded onto the road trains.

After that we did a bit of shopping and mooched about reading the paper and dropped in on the bird circus to watch cockatoos riding bicycles on a high wire. Dinner was at the Longreach Club, nice formal waiter service.

On Thursday 19 Aug we spent most of the day en-route to Cloncurry where we settled down for the night in a drive-through site saving having to unhitch the van. There was a quite good country & western singer from our neighbouring site who put on a show at happy hour. She is also the resident hairdresser. This is one of the nicest sites we have stayed in and the owners make you feel very welcome and guide you to your site so you can setup quickly with no fuss.

Its 38 deg here, quite hot and we are thankful for the air con.

A: Wednesday 11 Aug to Sun 15 Aug

[Pictures are not in order that they were taken]

The road north of Bourke, straight and smooth. It goes on a long way. This is the Mitchell Highway which we entered in Bathurst.

The lonely pub at Barringun:

Post office at Bourke:

This is what I believe to be a "canoe tree" which we found near the Darling River. The bark has been stripped out to make a canoe, many moons ago:

View from paddle boat on Darling River and the Darling-Murray Navigation Flag :

Toilet facilities for the ladies are a bit primitive at our Charleville caravan park:

Our departure had been delayed waiting for the air-conditioning to be fitted to the caravan which we collected on Monday, and then we had some minor DIY repairs on Tuesday.

We set off at 1.30 pm Wednesday and headed west. We went into rain just over the Blue Mtns but were rewarded with some great views through the storm clouds. Sadly no photos, not opportunity to stop.

Inevitably it wasn't long before we remembered the things that we had forgotten to pack. Not serious omissions - just a bit annoying. One being a USB to mini USB cable for getting photographs onto the laptop. The laptop refuses to read an 8 MB card so a cable is needed, a cable is also needed for the SLR which has a big memory card which the laptop does not cater for. We had to await a few days to procure a cable - in Charleville.

Bathurst was very wet and cold, we stayed one night and soon found the reverse cycle air conditioner a bit on the noisy side,although very effective. At this point I regretted not bringing the little blow heater, this was added to the shopping list for Dubbo.

The rain was causing some local problems and Molong Creek was forecast to overflow. It certainly looked about to burst its banks as we drove alongside it.

Thursday - headed into Dubbo, rain not so heavy and air not quite as cold as Bathurst. We checked early into the Top Tourist park and went about our shopping. A nice little blow heater was procured for $17! This did the job quite well and we had a cosy night.

Next day we set off earlyish for Bourke stopping at the Bogan River picnic spot at Nyngan for morning tea. The river was flowing over the weir at some pace. I had been to this spot quite a few times before when investigating a new water supply for Cobar and had never seen this much water in it. Lots of picturesque landscapes from the car - Canola in bloom etc. As usual no safe stopping places for photos.

Bogan River Nyngan:

About 15 km out of Bourke the bush seemed to come to an end and it was just open dry land.

Weather was clearing and things were looking up. We booked in for 2 nights at Bourke. We did a few touristy things like a paddle boat cruise (PV "Jandra") and a look through the relatively new Back 'O Bourke museum. There are some significant heritage buildings in Bourke and an interesting cemetary. We are now full bottle on history of Bourke.

Sunday we headed off north under clear blue skies stopping very briefly at Enngonia and arrived too early at Barringun to enjoy a beer at this isolated post on the Queensland border. Population 4, they have 2 houses each. We stopped at Cunnamulla for lunch and to visit the "Cunnamulla Fella". We continued on to Charleville to get some more kilometres under our belt. We booked in 2 nights at Charleville. We got to see the Bilbys in a red-lit enclosure. They breed them here for release into a feral cat-free national park further south. They were very cute and very active little creatures. There are reportedly only 1000 left surviving in the wild. It was not possible to take photos.

Tonight we view the stars at the Cosmos observatory. Tomorrow - on to Longreach.