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Days 45 & 46. Tennant Creek to Mt Isa'ish to Hughenden
It was bound to happen eventually, and there's no guarantee it won't happen again!
Yesterday we encountered our first hurdle of the trip which was quite scary and intimidating but all turned out alright.
Let me start from the beginning: as anticipated we managed an early departure from Tennant Creek yesterday. Due to leaving the van hooked up to the car we were able to leave by 7.30am, ready to embark on a big day of driving.
We stopped at a lovely roadhouse in Barkly Homestead for fuel and morning tea. It is certainly the best roadhouse we have seen on the trip so Darren and I made a mental note to use it as a pit stop on our next Australian adventure.
The Barkly highway is a long boring road. Whilst crossing it you are greeted with frequent spaces of nothing to the left, nothing to the right and nothing in front, except for the occasional fellow caravan traveller and the intermittent towns to pass through.
We did pass through quite a large section of road works which forced us to take the van onto unsealed road for the first time, aswell as passing umpteen number of feral cats, both living and deceased by road kill.
The first Queensland town we entered was Camooweal which greeted us with a sign welcoming everyone to Queensland and reminding people to put their watches 30 minutes and 5 years forward. Had to get a photo.
We saw the local cops having lunch in the cafe at the petrol station so we decided to have lunch there also before hitting the road again for the remainder of our long drive to Mt Isa.
We arrived at Mt Isa at about 4pm. We pulled into the Big4 park and was 3rd in line of other vans. As I got out of the car to go to reception one of the campers asked if we had a reservation. I replied "No" to which she responded that she thought it was full. I said "thanks, I'll just go and double check." She was correct. So we ventured onto the next caravan park, same thing (only the service was rude). We proceeded the ring the other parks in the town, all full! We then rang one in the adjacent town of Cloncurry, nope they were full also.
Crap, what are we going to do? We went to the supermarket to get some supplies and to give us a bit of time to formulate a plan without showing the kids how stressed we were.
We decided to drive another 60kms down the road and free camp in one of the permitted areas for the night.
By the time we got there, the only spots left were closest to the road, so we pulled up behind another van and tried to portray to the kids how exciting this is. we thought we were in for a rough nights sleep from the noise of traffic passing, especially when there was a quick succession of every car and truck that went by bipping their horn at us all. Thankfully the traffic subsided and no more horns were tooted and I slept better than I expected. Darren however, slept crap as usual and insisted on sharing his restless night with me, as usual. Told him we are getting separate beds when we get older so I can have a decent nights sleep.
Darren and I are adamantly against free camping, and why wouldn't we be when it threatens the very existence of the business that is our bread and butter. After experiencing it for a night, I fail to see the attraction. The advantages are the reduced cost but is it worth the lack of showers and electricity? This family is one that appreciates the finer comforts and hope we don't have to free camp again.
This morning we were the first to depart from our little commune, leaving at about 8am. I rang to book a site at Hughenden so we were comforted with the fact that we definitely had a site waiting for us.
Along the way, we stopped at Richmond to see Kronosarus centre that exhibits dinosaur fossils that have been found in the area. We spent a couple of hours in the centre looking at the exhibits and having lunch before continuing another 100kms down the road to Hughenden.
Upon arrival, I mentioned our little foray in Mt Isa the previous night. The manager informs me that the last couple of nights have been the first in a while that she hasn't had 100% occupancy. Wow, wasn't expecting outback Queensland to be so busy. We weren't expecting this until we reached the East coast.
Tomorrow we are visiting Porcupine Gorge national park aswell as Hughenden's dinosaur centre. We are also going to make the effort to ring and prebook a site at the next caravan park!
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