Friday, July 16, 2010
Day 53 - Maleny
Well we're home - at least the trailer is home. We got up early this morning 6.15 (temp 0 degrees) and were on the road by 7.15. We only made a couple of stops for fuel and food and arrived here at 5pm. Tomorrow will be busy with cleaning the trailer and gardening, and we will head back to Brisbane early next week. We have had a fantastic time and feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to explore so much of our wonderful country and visit some very remote areas. We have covered about 12,500 kms, with almost 4,000 kms on unsealed roads (some good, some bad). We had no major mishaps, just the trailer tyres which both ended up with slow leaks. We had put Cooper truck tyres on the car which have been fan tastic and should have put them on the trailer as well. We will do that for the next trip - Alice Springs, Uluru, MacDonnell Ranges and Birdsville and all the southern bits we missed out on this time because of the rain and closed roads. We heard this morning that the road from Birdsville to Windorah is still closed so we would have had to do very major detours if we had proceeded with our original itinerary. This will be the last posting to the blog. Hope it has been of interest, especially to our friends in the U.S. We now have 3 1/2 weeks to get ready for the arrival of Jeff and Senya from New York and we are holidaying with them for the 5 weeks they are here.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Day 52 - Augathella
We had a big day driving today. Stopped in Longreach for a coffee and then in Barcaldine for fuel and some lunch and arrived in Augathella at about 4.30. As the caravan park is not listed in our book and therefore doesnt have a rating, we were expecting it to be very substandard. Quite the opposite - it is quite big, we are camped on grass and the amenities are new and clean, and moreover the showers are hot! We really pushed ourselves today as we are within sight of home now. We will try to get back to Maleny tomorrow even if it is after dark - the thought of a soak in a hot bath is very appealing as is our ensuite bathroom. Will see how we go. Now that we are nearing civilisation there are many more roadtrains and caravans on the road, all of which need passing. And it is also very cold overnight - 2 degrees this morning here in Augathella. Oh yes - we were listening to an interview on the ABC on the radio this morning of a lady who has a business called Tambo Teddies. She and 2 friends started it 17 years ago when this area was gripped in drought and wool prices down so they made some teddies out of sheepskin. They are now the largest employer in Tambo (population 400) and have made 33,000 teddies - all with a name and all numbered. So when we passed through Tambo this afternoon, we called in and have bought a delightful teddy called Pedro for Jim to take to Canada for his new granddaughter,Camilla.
Day 50 - Winton
We spent a delightful two nights in the Bladensberg National Park, 25km from Winton. Just the sort of camping that we love - perched on the riverbank among gum trees with only a handful of other campers all spaced out that that no-one was too close to the other. The drove out to Lark Quarry (LH picture), 220km round trip, where there is the only known documentaation of a dinosaur stampede in the world. The building has been built over the tracks to preserve them. There are 3000 footprints of 5 or 6 different species of dinosaur - they have discovered that they were drinking at a waterhole 95 million years ago when a large dinosaur (RH picture shows tracks) came looking for a feed - the smaller ones panicked and the tracks are going every whichway. Not only have they identified the species, but they can also tell how fast they were running - just amazing! Then spent the balance of our time in the national park finishing our books before we leave for home.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Day 48 - Mount Isa (Again!)
Tomorrow we head for Winton and plan to stay there in the national park for a couple of days and do a side trip to Lark Quarry to check out the dinosaur stampede footprints. It's a good feeling to be back in our home state even though we still have another 2000 kms to go.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Day 46 - Tennant Creek
Day 45 - Daly Waters
Day 44 - Top Springs
Had a great night in Top Springs. After a hot shower and hairwash we felt a whole lot better. The roadhouse which is the only building at Top Springs becomes a pub at 6.30 so after a pub meal and a couple of drinks we relaxed. It also happened to be the 3rd State of Origin match so we watched that in the bar with a bunch of roadtrain drivers. As soon as the game finished, they all hopped into their vehicles and sped into the night - amazing. Some of them have 4 trailers behind them. We have had to make some major decisions about the rest of our trip as we are now 500kms north of where we want to be and there is more rain on the way. We really haven't got time to get to Alice Springs and Uluru, and the Plenty Highway which runs from Alice to Boulia in Qld has also had a lot of rain so it is doubtful that we would get through there, so would have to come all the way north again to go home through Mt Isa. We'll head as far south as Tennant Creek so that we can get supplies and then 26kms back up to Threeways and across to Mt Isa and home the way we came, with a few detours. Will go to Lawn Hill National Park before we get to Mt Isa as we were sorry we missed that on the way up. All a bit of a shame, but one must be flexible. We will make that a separate holiday in the future when hopefully it is not raining and not as cold as it has been down there. Before we left Top Springs, we spent 2 hours getting the worst of the mud off the car and the trailer, but unfortunately it has set pretty hard. At least now we can see out of the back windows.
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