Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Thursday 28/8/2014 Left Barclay Homestead Resort 7.35am heading for Kynuna, only 747km! The sign on the road as you leave "next fuel 260km". The distances between places are huge especially up this end of the country. The next stretch of road to Camooweal was extensive areas of flat, sandy, stony, dry land with not a tree to be seen. This area around the Barclay Highway is a major water collection area for Lake Ayre, with the Georgina and Rankin river systems, hard to believe as Lake Ayre is miles and miles away in South Australia. Apparently it's the largest internal drainage system in the world.
We crossed over the border from Northern Territory into Queensland some 250km from Barclay Homestead Roadhouse, through Camooweal and on down to Mt Isa.
As we approached Mt Isa the long straight roads disappeared and we got some bends and hills, pretty rare on this trip. Mt Isa is one of the biggest mining areas in Australia and as we got to the outskirts of the town, you could see these huge open cut mines surrounding the area, they mine zinc, copper, silver and lead. There are also underground mine shafts.
We all fuelled up here, diesel $1.679ltr.
Not long after leaving Mt Isa we passed the Mary Kathleen mine site, this is where they mined uranium, it has been closed down and disassembled for a number of years, just a big open cut hole in the side of this cliff with an azure blue lake of water. Signs up advising no swimming! Apparently still plenty of uranium in the ground there, so no doubt will open back up in years to come.
Next town we went through was Cloncurry, then 14km the other side we headed south on the Landsborough Highway.
There is a lot of big machinery travelling by road, we had two transporters each with a huge dump truck on board, both had a pilot vehicle, there was definitely no room left on the road for us, so we headed off road, no big deal as there are no gutters or fences just the occasional culvert that you have to watch out for.
We stopped at McKinlay to call in and have a beer at the Walkabout Creek Hotel, this is where the bar scene in Crocodile Dundee was filmed. The hotel used to be down a side road as Murray his dad, Des and Pete Byers had called in for a beer on their way to the Birdsville Races in the early eighties. It has since been moved to a site adjacent to the main road, and dollied up quite a bit. Murray thinks its lost some of its charm and a lot of the memorabilia has been removed. While we were sitting having a beer, a very large transporter pulled into the truck parking area across the road, it was carrying a EX250 (250 ton) Komatsu digger, have never seen anything quite that big. It had a pilot vehicle travelling in front. They are obviously only allowed on the roads between certain hours, it was around 4.30pm when it pulled in to stop for the night.
We left Walkabout Creek Pub heading for our camp spot 80km down the road, the Blue Heeler Hotel, motel and caravan park. The hotel was established in 1860 and not much has changed with the pub, there are a few additions like the motel units, cabins etc. it still has an old wooden floor with tin patches here and there. There is a huge fireplace that was built by RM Williams in commemoration of the 100 year anniversary. R.M.Williams is world renowned for premium handcrafted footwear and accessories as well as apparel for men, women and children. He was from this area. Kynuna is a tiny outback town famous for inspiring Banjo Paterson to write his iconic tune, Waltzing Matilda. The Combo Waterhole is just out of town which is the billabong referred to in the poem.
The barmaid in the pub was from Auckland, a really nice girl and we had a lot of laughs with her. Especially when Mark asked her how much did the toy Koalas cost that were for sale, they weren't Koalas but Blue Heeler Dogs! obviously he had a few too many beers.
There aren't to many Aussies working in these remote places, mostly Europeans, Poms, and Irish.
Des and Mark had decided that they were going to head away early as they wanted to catch up with relatives in the Toowoomba area, thought early may have been 5am, wrong, they were packed up and away at 2.30am, crazy. They ended up driving 18 hours right to home on the Gold Coast, the relatives in Toowoomba were already down the Coast! Asked Des what the drive was like in the dark, said the place was alive, managed to avoid most of the nocturnal animals bounding across the road, until just before Winton where they hit a Kangaroo.
Woke up in the morning to two Brolgas right beside our camp, they are huge birds nearly stood as tall as me. Was cool to see them so close, had seen them in the distance previously on the trip.
- comments
Marie I bet you will be looking forward to getting back to see the kids - but hey what an amazing trip you have had. You need to put all your blogs into a photo book. You have done a great job on keeping us all informed of where you have been etc. Beautiful day here - off now to have a look at vege garden - maybe I might do some digging!! Hear from you soon. X
Mark You sure do write a great blog Lynette, I totally agree with Marie (above) You "should" put it "all" together complete with photos. BUT leave out the Mark bit huh, lol. What happens away, stays away. :-)
Davey & Sheila Hi Murray and Lynn ,some good pictures their. You are having a trip of a lifetime. Bring some heat back with you. Are you coming back or do we have to come and get you????