Australia

Day 43 Wednesday 30th May

Woke up again, yes still alive! So we can travel today!!!
The night was extremely windy, nearly blew the van away. Cool start to the day (for a change) temp,17-30 today. I can handle that.

Up, up and away to Cloncurry. The road out of “The Isa” very hilly, so a bit of a hard pull for the “Crusher”.
But good to have some different type of landscape to look at. Had to follow a Road Train full of cattle for a bit, but eventually got pass him, he must have been in crawler gear, because that’s the speed it was doing!!

Once we passed through Cloncurry the land became very flat and in my humble opinion B…. boring!!!
We finally reached Winton, which for some reason seemed to take forever.
Found the V/park, great little park staff very friendly and helpful. The only complaint we could have had , was that the toilets and showers we older than well, me!!!!! The showers used bore water that when it came out it smelt like sulphur!!
But that was all made up by the great nights entertainment we had:- we got a roast dinner for $12 each, and a bush poet for 2 hours of being fun and laughter. He was quite brilliant!! Name Milton Taylor. If you like bush poetry he has 5 cd’s out.
Back to the van for we hope a good nights sleep. No need for a pre-pack as we are only doing 175Klm’s in the morning to get to Longreach. You should see the smile on Brenda’s face! She likes these short days.
Once more were off on another days adventure, what will it hold for us!!!

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment of the” The trip”

Day 42 Tuesday 29th May
Today Sunny , temp21-31Deg.
Off to a slow start today no rush.
We went to the Mt Isa tourist centre for a look see and ended up staying the whole day. The centre has a Fossil section. Which had this paelontoligist( rock doctor) who just loved his work and spoke to us for ages. In the end we had to walk away as we would still be there!!!!
From there we watched some movies all about The Isa . Then it was off to a underground mine tour.Well we have done a few mine tours but this was by far the best we have ever done!
The guide was a ex-miner Named Steve what this man didn’t know about Mt Isa, you don’t need to know!
We all (18) got dressed up in overalls ,miners hat, boots, and helmet light. Once we got down in the mine, we all rode the rail car to the mine face. There we all had goes on the equipment and saw some in action. He also told us about the obsolete equipment which gets pushed down a huge hole and buried. Even 2 year old Toyotas #%**.
The tour ended at 4.30 after 3 hours wow.!
Then off to the shops which incidentally shut here at 5.00 on the dot !!! We fuelled up ready for the morning, you have got to love Queensland’s prices, ULP $1.25 Lpg 68 cents.
Back to the park for a pre pack up, in readiness for moving tomorrow this time to Winton.
Once again a big day full of excitement . See you all tomorrow in Cyberspace!!!!

Day 41 Monday 28th May
Prices at Three Ways ULP $1.68 Lpg $1.06
Another sunny day but alas we leave this garden for a new one in Queensland. Temp 21-31 Deg.
Headed off down the Stuart Hwy for at least 100metres before we turned left and got onto the Barkly Hwy. Our first planned stop The Barkly Homestead roadhouse, reach that for brekie.
Fuel here was a bit over the top ULP $1.77
Left there still heading east for the Queensland border. Landscape doesn’t change all that much same old Spinifex and saltbush.
On the way we saw the funniest thing, it was a goanna with a tin can on its head. At first we couldn’t work out what it was until we got real close. But unfortunately we couldn’t stop for a photo.
We reached the Queensland border at 1250, first “town “ was Camooweal, were we had a old fashion Ham burger for lunch, it was beautiful!!!
Finally reach Mt Isa ( locally know as The Isa) 3.45 Our welcoming committee was aswarm of bees in the tree next to our site. Now that was fun watching the Bee Keeper retrieve them!
Dinner , early night, ready for the big Touristy day tomorrow!!!

Day 40 Sunday 27th May

Believe it of not, we actually slept in a bit this morning! Cloudy day 22-31 Deg. And Humid.
Today we start to head back in a southerly direction! Which sounds like we are heading home, but once we reach Three ways we turn Left and head towards Mt Isa.

Leaving Rick And Tracey was hard as they have been great travel companions. Also having their kids was good as it helped us not to miss our G/kids to much!!!
We reached Mataranka about 1 hour later and as usual had some breakfast there. Our favourite Brother ‘s were already out sitting under the trees. What do they do all day??
We then called into the Daly Waters pub, what an experience this place is, if you have been there you know exactly what I mean! So much nostalgia here you can smell it!! Happy hour here consists of a coin toss! You toss the coin, If you get it right your beer is free if you get it wrong you still only pay the normal price! One guy I spoke to said that he tossed quite a few times but never won any of them(dodgy coin???)

Pressing on we ran into a swarm of locust’s that went for about 100 metres then just stopped? Mad ea bit of a mess on the windscreen, nothing that can’t be cleaned!!

This turned into a long day as we were wanted to get to three ways tonight. So after 655klm’s of towing the van we finally reached Three Ways. We thought it would be just a park behind the roadhouse but it is very nice Plenty of water. And green grass. They actually pump it from 12 kilometres away put it through a Flocking system to purify it. Taste alright. The best part we were still in time for happy hour! How about that!!
Our next door neighbour comes from Boronia, Charles is his name travelling on his own to Darwin, where his wife is flying up to meet him(Brenda reckons that’s a good way to do it) Had a great chat with him. Its amazing what info you can get from people:- he’s a retired architect , his wife is a Chef, he’s dog hates black people!! He owns a boat that’s moored at Sandringham Y.C. Its name I think was Red William. Loves a glass of wine and more that I can’t remember.
Anyhow had dinner did my bit of typing cant get it on the Webb page as we have no hotspot here!! I have got about 5 days worth to go on!!
For those interested ULP $1.52 LPG 89.5 cents.
That’s all for this one got to get to bed another big Klm day tomorrow.

Day 39 Saturday 26th May
Once again another great day is upon us! Sun is shinning 21-33 Degs today.
Went into Katherine for a little shop and look around. On the way back to the van we stopped at the Hot springs for a dip. Great swim the hot pool is a constant 32 deg, Not as hot as Mataranka’s pool(36 deg) but very nice all the same.
Back to the park for some lunch, then back into Katherine for the cruise on the Katherine Gorge.
The cruise was absolutely Brilliant, we only did the first two gorges and had to change boats to get up the second gorge. Believe it or not there were 60 people on the cruise. The temperature was quite cool in the gorge but once we got off the boat it was very hot and humid.
Arrived back at the park and got ready for our farewell dinner with Rick & Tracey. Because as of tomorrow we head off in different direction. We are going south to Three ways, then turning left and pushing on into Queensland.
Dinner was great, good food, at a reasonable price what else can you ask for ?
Off to bed rest up for a fairly big drive in the morning!!!!