Lightning Ridge - Shepparton

Lightning Ridge – Shepparton (September 19^th – 24^th)

Trip finished - 16 848kms.

We are finally home.

We had a quick trip home (our longest days of driving for the whole trip) with just a couple of overnight stops. Both from the free camps book - our first one was at Terramungamine Reserve near Dubbo and the second beside the oval at the Nerrandera Boat Ramp. We’ve been through both of these places numerous times before without realizing it was possible to free camp there! Our drive through this area of New South Wales let us know that Spring has arrived as we had to drive through thousands of hectares of very yellow canola – time for the antihistamines!!!!

We made a lunch stop at West Wyalong to visit Sonja’s aunt and uncle before heading back into Victoria and spending our first night back in the state at Dunolly. We have made a note not to do this again! We had forgotten the trains that go through the town at around 3am! Taking Tom Tom’s directions to Ballarat, we followed lots of narrow, country roads through areas we hadn’t travelled before. It was interesting to pass through a number of small country towns – reminding us a little of some of the smaller out of the way places we had travelled when we did our US trip.

After spending a couple of days catching up with Claire (and collecting four months mail!) we finally arrived home after 16848kms.

A bit of a disappointment when we arrived. The next door neighbour’s son was going to mow the lawns while we were away – didn’t happen (Will pay a professional next time).

We had forgotten to leave a car key for the Elantra with someone and consequently had to replace the battery. The dishwasher decided it wasn’t going to work (repair next week) and the toilet decided to leak from one of the seals (silicon sealant is great)!

The caravan is booked in for a service in a couple of weeks and has now been cleaned inside and out (discovered it IS white, not pink and red!), the lawns mowed, the car doesn’t know itself – no towing and had a good clean inside and out as well.

We are now looking forward to the rest of the year and catching up with everyone. We are also thinking very seriously about where we will go NEXT year.

Thank you to all who have followed our travels. We’ve obviously enjoyed ourselves and hope you have as well. Best wishes to all…until next time!

Bramston Beach - Lightning Ridge

Bramston Beach -  Lightning Ridge (Sept 5^th – 18^th)

Updated map

We had a pleasant couple of days relaxing at Bramston Beach – walking along the beach, collecting shells, reading. We decided to slowly move our way down the coast towards Townsville, so our next stop was about 40kms south of Innisfail at Hull Heads. We had stopped off to visit Sonja’s brother, Garry and Jill who were staying at Kurrimine Beach, about 20 kms south of Innisfail. Our stop was in a small park beside the Coast Guard building. When the bloke came to collect the fees for the night ($15 – toilets and hot showers) he had some photos of the area after the cyclone had been through. Our van would have been well and truly underwater. He also had a photo of the resident 4m crocodile that lived in the river mouth just beside the park.

Mt Bartle Frere at sunset from Hull Head

That points out the problem with tropical north Queensland – beautiful beaches – all of them with crocodiles, making swimming a no-go. If you’re not worried about the crocs, the rather poisonous jellyfish arrive around October and hang around for a number of months!!!

Our next stop found us in a large park just behind the sand dunes at Toomulla Beach. Another pleasant free place to stop – very quiet, grassed and a good beach to walk along. Unfortunately, the mozzies and sandflies took away some of the paradise side of things!

Toomulla Beach

The Beach at Toomulla

After travelling about 20km down the highway, we next found ourselves at Saunders Beach, about 20kms north of Townsville, where we spent a couple of nights again, just relaxing. It was a small spot, but had a great grassed area where we spent a large part of the day in our chairs overlooking the beach. We decided to use the generator on our first day here – again, because we hadn’t used it since Gregory Downs. At around 6:30pm each night, 1000s of bats took off from nearby and filled the sky for ages as they took off in search of food for the night. A really amazing sight!

Saunders Beach

Thousands of bats on the wing at Saunders Beach

Having decided we would move back inland again, we did a quick drive around part of Townsville, hoping to stock up on some perishables, only to find, being Sunday, the supermarkets didn’t open until 11:00. We found a hot bread shop and decided we could wait another day for the rest. Around midday we pulled into a free camp area called Marcossan Park overlooking the Burdekin River. We decided, wanting to continue to do things on the cheap, to spend a couple of nights here and do a day trip into Charters Towers (about 20kms away). When we left Saunders Beach in the morning we had discovered the gas bottle we were using for the van fridge had run dry at some stage during the night. On arriving at Macrossan Park we discovered the fridge had obviously started to defrost and so we used the generator to make sure it got a really good going and also to allow the solar panels to do their thing as we haven’t had power for about a week and been in some shade over that time.

Our site at Macrossan Park on the Burdekin River

Flood levels on the Burdekin River - 21.97 metres being at the top (1947)!

We spent two nights at Macrossan, with a day trip into Charters Towers. Whilst here we did a bit of a walking tour around the place, David had a hair cut and we decided to have lunch at one of the hotels. Usually, a roast pub lunch is quite good. This was the worst we’ve had – cauliflower and broccoli were overcooked, limp bits, whilst the pumpkin was so uncooked, we couldn’t cut it to eat it. The spuds were definitely NOT roasting potatoes. VERY disappointing.

From here we headed down to a delightful camp spot at Theresa Creek Dam and then on to Rolleston (where we took 15 minutes to walk around the town) before heading to Carnarvon Gorge.

We are now obviously out of the tropics – it’s amazing how cool 22°C is after having been up in the 30s for the past few months. David even had to put on a windcheater at night when we reached Carnarvon Gorge!

Theresa Creek Dam

Our site at Theresa Creek Dam

Our two nights at Carnarvon Gorge was quite busy. After our arrival, David went out and walked through a couple of the gorges and side-tracks from the main Gorge track.

Warrumbah Creek Gorge

A small part of the The Amphitheatre (very narrow entrance)

The Moss Garden

On the second day, we walked the length of the walking trail – 20kms return trip with 30 river crossings! There is a small campsite at the end of the trail, and a fabulous Boowinda Gorge just near the end. The river crossings required a lot of rock hopping activity. Unfortunately, Sonja had a bit of a problem on one of these and bruised an ankle and caused a bit of lower back problem when she slipped on a rock that decided to move when she applied weight to it. All was fine on the inward journey, but wasn’t all that great on the return, which took us twice as long as Sonja was in considerable pain. A couple of massages and some strong painkiller over the next couple of nights helped bring things back to ‘normal’ again.

Sonja on the first crossing into the  Gorge
- A fabulous way to let you know you are entering somewhere special!

Kangaroo and joey in the park

Sonja on another river crossing

David at the entrance to Boowinda Gorge

David - Boowinda Gorge

Sonja partway into Boowinda Gorge

David at one of the river crossings 

After leaving Carnarvon we made a couple of free camp stops by dams and the Balonne River before reaching Lightning Ridge. Here we had to deal with thunder, lightning (Lightning Ridge living up to its name!) and some rain. As the weather was going to be dodgy for a couple of days we decided to stay in a caravan park just opposite the thermal pools. We also had a second spectacular, noisy thunderstorm late on the second day – being very glad we had solid, compact stone under us, not the soft, easily turned into mud, soil where we have been free-camping recently. The weather will determine if we free-camp or caravan park on the rest of our journey.

Our first day was just a bit of rest and some washing. David was up early on the second day for a quick whip down to the thermal pool for a dip. The temperature of the water is around 41°C, so there were a number of short dips and some walking around to cool off!

Lightning Ridge has four self drive trips around the town – each drive marked by different coloured car doors. Car doors and bonnets seem to be a popular form of signage around the place – there must be a number of door-less, bonnet-free vehicles hiding around the area!

It is different to Coober Pedy – here it’s quite hilly, compared to the flat area of Coober Pedy; It seems to be a different soil type here, although there are still the hillocks of white tailings from each mine site in both places. Coober Pedy seems to have more blowers (large trucks with a huge vacuum on the back for sucking up all the rubble) and larger constructions around each mine site. Most of the mine sites here tend to have a caravan and shed construction on them. They use diesel, solar or wind generation for power. We quite enjoyed our time here, but have decided it’s too much hard work (involving a lot of luck) for us to consider taking up fossicking at any time!

We managed to spend an hour or so dipping in and out of the thermal pools later in the afternoon – right through the thunderstorm. Very pleasant watching the dark clouds overhead, lightning flashing (off in the distance), thunder rolling overhead and rain cooling us down from the heat of the water in the pool.

Approaching storm at LIghtning Ridge

We move on again tomorrow – not sure where we will end up, but not worrying about stopping for anything we haven’t seen before. This will probably be the last entry before we get home. I’ll include another one when we do finally arrive – mainly to finish off the map!!

Mt Isa – Bramston Beach

Mt Isa – Bramston Beach (22^nd August – 4^th September)

We were quite pleased to be heading out of Mt Isa as the sky was a very dirty brown from the smoke from one of the large smoke stacks. Our memories of our 1986 Mt Isa visit was all of us coming down with breathing problems because of the polluted air – doesn’t seem to have changed much!!

We headed to Cloncurry and spent about 10 minutes seeing the town before stopping at Chinaman’s Creek Dam, the town water supply, where we had lunch and a ‘refreshing’ swim before heading for our overnight stop at Terry Smith Outlook – very popular stop just off the road.

Another sign to read and follow the advice!

When we reach Gregory Downs (pub and a few houses) we were going to stop for the night and then drive into Lawn Hill National Park. We stopped at the pub for a drink and then set up just opposite, in an area set aside for ‘low-impact camping’, following the information in the extremely useful (but not always accurate) Camps 5 book (definitely the bible for all would be free/cheap campers). The area was dusty and had a lot of rubbish scattered around, making it a not very attractive place to be, but we figured it was only one night and we would be off early in the morning. After setting up, David went for a walk along the road towards the river. (The Camps 5 book states there is no camping along the river flats). What did he spot?

About 30 vans parked along side the river with people standing and floating around in the river. We went down for a swim and talked to a few people. A number said the road was not great into Lawn Hill and one couple (in a very suitable spot) said they were leaving around 8:30 the next morning. That settled it for us. We would be down just after they left and would spend a few days here with a day trip into the national park.

A sign to ignore! The road is was on leads to the following photo

Our site at Gregory Downs

 We had a fairly ordinary night as a group of aboriginals were having a celebratory drink (told us it was for the birth of a grand-child and would go on for another 3 days!!!!). The language was quite rife and loud. Another couple had pulled in and set up just before the celebrations began and were a lot closer than us (like us, not realising it was possible to camp beside the river) and they decided to join us the next morning. The celebratory group was larger on the Friday night!

We decided we would spend a few days camped beside the river and do a day trip. After examining maps, we decided to do a loop, heading to the World Heritage Riversleigh Fossil Site before going into Lawn Hill National Park. It was a long, dusty trip with a few river crossings and a disappointing stop at Riversleigh. We had expected to see lots of different fossils, but of course, they’ve almost all been taken away for examination. We saw five fossils, only one of which we could say, “That’s a leg bone”. A lot of time and money has been spent setting the area up, it’s just not really worth the long drive to get there!

Signs on road into Riversleigh and Lawn Hill

Down to the river Gregory River Crossing

Finally a concrete ford, making the crossing much easier and safer!

View of Riversleigh Station and part of the World Heritage Area

Heading up the first gorge at Lawn Hill

Water fall between the two gorges

David dragging the canoe between gorges

Second gorge

Sonja swimming near the falls - eyes open for freshwater crocs!

 What was worthwhile was the stop at Lawn Hill. Here we hired a canoe and David revived his paddling skills (and Sonja being in charge of the camera) for a two-hour trip through two gorges. He had to man-handle the canoe over a short distance between the gorges and we managed a swim (eyes out for freshwater crocs) in a very pleasant spot near the small waterfalls. The trip would have been set off nicely if we had remembered to include the picnic bag, with lunch in it. We had both assumed the other had placed it in and didn’t check! Fortunately, the couple we had met the day before, were having lunch and gave us some of theirs. When we arrived back at Gregory Downs, it was decided to go to the pub for a meal where we joined with a few other campers, swapping travelling tales.

Our idyllic spot was spoilt through the night as a couple of the local lads decided it would be a good idea to come down to the riverbed and give all the oldies a bit of a scare as they roared through the area and did a couple of doughnuts just near our site. Not pleasant for those couple of nights (Friday/Saturday), but no problems after that.

Despite this, it is a great spot – hence the extended stay. We were camped on stones beside the swift flowing narrow river. The water making a soothing babbling sound as it passed under the one-lane bridge just beside us. There are several access spots to the river where it is possible to step in and float for a couple of hundred metres along the Gregory River, conversing with all the other campers – or sitting back in our chairs conversing with those who floated past us! A great spot for 5 nights.

David floating down the Gregory River by our van

After reluctantly leaving Gregory Downs our next stop was quite a let down! In the middle of nowhere (with toilet, water, shelter and dump point) in extreme heat. The place went under the grand title of ‘Bang Bang’! We stopped here as it had what we required and only meant a short drive the next day.

From here we moved on to Normanton and stopped at the caravan park in the ‘centre of town’. We set up, stocked up with a some of the supplies we had run out of, had a rest in the shade and then did a walking tour of the town. We visited the three pubs, saw the model of the 8.6m crocodile that had been shot nearby in the Norman River.

Sonja by the Gulf of Carpentaria at Karumba Point

We had one night here before heading to Karumba, on the Gulf of Carpentaria. It is only about 80kms, but we saw huge numbers of Brolgas on what are basically huge tidal flats, as we approached the town. Temperature for our stay here was around the mid 30s. Thankfully, there was a cool sea breeze, which made it a little more bearable. Took about an hour and walked around the community and along the beach for Sonja to gather up a variety of shells.

Pelicans at sunrise on the Norman River

Staying at Karumba Point, had us out each evening to sit by the water’s edge (no beach – all mangroves and mud!) or the Sunset Hotel watching more great sunsets.

Sunset at Karumba Point

We decided to make our way over to the coast following the Gulf Developmental Road. This has changed somewhat over the past 26 years when the road was a very corrugated dirt road. Now, it’s bitumen all the way. Although, it does vary between single and two-lane sections. We spent a couple of hours looking through the historical precinct at Croydon – a number of buildings (mostly former police buildings) before stopping at a rest stop beside the Gilbert River. The river is crossed by a long one-lane concrete structure. Most of the riverbed is sand, but obviously covers a large area in the wet. No swimming here – saw one small freshwater croc, but not sure if the bigger, estuarine crocs make it down this far. We decided it would be a good idea to walk across and to see if we could spot any more crocs. Just as well that there are supporting pillars that protrude from the bridge at regular intervals, allowing you to stand on them when road trains cross!

One-way bridge crossing the Gilbert River - not much water, but still a number of crocs!

We passed through Georgetown where we reminisced about having to put Claire and Owen under the sprinkler at the caravan park when we were there in 1986 – it was 45°C in the van and the pool was closed because it was winter! We spent the night at Innot Hot Springs, having a relaxing break sitting in the pools (a number of different temperatures).

Heading to the coast, we made a brief stop in Innisfail to gather some perishables and buy a new gas hose to replace the dodgy one on one of the gas bottles. Hopefully this is going to be the final bit of work we have to do relating to gas for the van fridge! After stocking up we headed to Bramston Beach, about 20km north of Innisfail and then about 17kms out to a great looking beach. No power, but it does have toilets, hot showers and lots of grass to walk about on (rather than all the dirt/dust we’ve had for a long time). Unfortunately, when we asked about swimming, we were told they had had an unusually large number of crocodiles in the area of late, so…. The beach looks great and is a pleasant place to walk along!

One thing we have found strange is that everything is GREEN and LUSH. A little hard to take in after all the browns and reds of the past few months! Two nights here and then we will head south, looking at a few beach spots on the way, before we intend to head back inland. We’ll stay in the tropics as long as we can before we head into the cooler climes!

Katherine to Mt Isa

Katherine -  Mt Isa (9^th – 22^nd August)

Now to Mt Isa

Leaving Katherine took us a long time as we stopped at a market and remembered we hadn’t done the required dump. We stopped at the Highway Inn at Daly Waters before heading along the Carpentaria Highway. This proved to be quite narrow in places and we had to get right off the bitumen to allow the LONG Road Trains (FOUR trailers) to get past us. For those that haven’t experienced a road train, they are massively long trucks – mostly with three, but occasionally (usually fuel trucks) four trailers. When they are on the move, they don’t stop, and they can’t veer to the side because the load would get a sway up that would prove disastrous for all. Mid afternoon we decided to pull over into a wayside stop for the night. There were table & chairs, a fireplace and a watertank. When we arrived there were lots of finches and honeyeaters feeding from a container someone had left underneath the tap – great to watch. 

Goanna Creek Stop

Carpentaria Highway

Another couple pulled in not long after we set up and when we sat around the fire that night we were delighted to hear that we had done the right thing when we decided not to drive through the Reynolds River when we did the 4x4 drive in Litchfield. They had tried to cross it, got bogged, and spent an hour sitting in the water waiting for someone to help them out – the inside of their vehicle is now quite clean!

We continued on through Cape Crawford (nowhere near the coast) and on to Borroloola where we spent two nights. On the way to Borroloola we stopped at Caranbirini Conservation Area - another Lost City. We spent an hour or so wandering around the large rock formations.

Lost City formation

Lost City

Passageway through part of the Lost City

In Borroloola we spent some time in the Old Police Station (Museum) and found some great spots for camping down by the river (although there was too much sand on the track for us to take our van down there.

We also drove out to the coast (Bing Bong – yes that’s it’s name) to look at the loading docks for the mines in the area  - the tide was out, so we took a walk around the area (with Sonja carefully dipping her toe in the Gulf waters and David keeping an eye out for crocs)! 

Sonja dipping in the Gulf of Carpentaria at Bing Bong

We drove to King Ash Bay (27km dirt road) where the Borroloola Fishing Club has an extensive setup. There were lots of sites, both powered and unpowered, and lots of vans there. We had lunch here and spent some time checking out sites, including driving out to Batten Point where there were quite a few vans (this is the free camp area). If we were really keen fisher-folk, this would be a great spot to be, although when we were there, all the good riverside places had been taken.

When we left Borroloola we headed down the Tablelands Highway. The initial part of this was quite poor condition. Most of this Highway is single lane, with the occasional double lane section where you hope to meet the road trains (or any other on-coming vehicle). The first section was lots of ups and downs as well as a few kinks and twists in the road camber, making it a drive to keep you alert at all times. 

Tablelands Highway - single lane - needing lots of concentration

There was also quite a large amount of wandering cattle along the road. Fortunately, we were in reasonable spots when we did meet on-coming vehicles (a number of 4-trailer road trains) where we were able to get off the road and let them pass.

Our first night was at a roadside stop at Brunette Downs. There was a water tank and a barbeque pit, but more importantly, a track that took us well back off the highway. We settled down and, after a lot of fiddling with the fridge (the ignition switch to allow us to use it on gas doesn’t want to work properly – will have to try to get it fixed in Mt Isa, or we might not be able to do any more free camping or risk losing the fridge contents – might also reach the stage where we can just use the Engel as a fridge) we sat back and watched a glorious sunset.

Sunset at Brunette Downs

Our second night took us onto the main highway (Barkly Highway) heading towards Queensland. We stopped about 60km from the border at Avon Downs (water tank, barbeque pits and toilets) so that we would only have a short drive on the following day. We have learned that you need to get in early if you want to have a reasonable place at roadside stops as they prove to be very popular (mostly because they’re free).

Lots to see along the Tablelands Highway

Sometimes a bit difficult picking the Highway

Our stop officially sanctioned!

Our early stop proved to be fortuitous as it meant we avoided the masses of red mud that was being created by the water trucks on the roadworks near the border. All the vehicles coming in from Queensland pulled in to our stop and belted/dug off the thick layers of mud that had built up on cars and vans. When we went through in the morning, they hadn’t started with the watering, so we just had the dust to put up with – not that you could tell where any new dust had been added to either our car or van!

We spent three very pleasant nights camped beside a billabong just west of Camooweal. A very pleasant outlook as we watched Jabirus, Brolgas, Herons, Cormorants, Egrets, many varieties of ducks and other water birds as well as Kites, Crows, Mudlarks, Miners and others in the water just in front of our van site. We also had to deal with the afternoon rush from the cattle that came down to feed and drink along the billabong. Our only problem was the coolish wind that blew for the weekend (at one stage causing Sonja to don a long-sleeved top and trousers for the first time since Alice Springs)!

Our view at Camooweal - a wealth of birdlife all day

Daily afternoon visitors

Sunset WITH CLOUDS (unseen in the north for a LONG time)

Whilst at Camooweal we visited the Drover’s Camp. A tourist attraction set up to give information about droving and its influence in the area. This was quite a good effort (run by volunteers) and is the hub of community activities (population 310). We had lunch at the sausage sizzle and listened to the country and western singer after we had the 90-minute tour.

Arrived in Mt Isa (after dodging roadworks and bushfires) and managed to find an ignition switch for the fridge and David put it in – now up and running correctly, so we can free camp without any worries!

Roadworks with all the dust

A little close to the fires which had a  20+km front

It was great to be in the camp park – showers – clean hair – clothes washing!