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We have made it to Alice Springs! Haven't put up a blog entry before now as we have had no reception for the first week and a half.
The journey so far...........
Gav, myself and the kids left home and put in a full days driving and made it to The Cooladdi Roadhouse, about 80kms east of Quilpie. We free camped at the roadhouse and boy was it cold! Luckily we were able to have a fire but even with the fire it was bitterly cold.
The kids couldn't get into bed quick enough as they have new thermal sleeping bags and were very excited to get into them, even though it was still daylight they kept asking if they could go to bed! Wish they were that keen to go to bed at home! Even Gav and myself were in bed by 7pm because even with the fire roaring it was just so cold and gav of course was tired after a long days driving.
Day two saw us continue on into Quilpie, we stopped and had a pretty awful meat pie and then continued on to Windorah to meet mum and dad at the free
camp site by the Cooper Creek. As it turned out mum and dad had stayed at Quilpie the night before so we weren't that far behind them, they had arrived a Windorah only about 15 minutes before we did. Again we set up, lit a great fire, enjoyed a beautiful meal (thanks mum!) and went to bed. Nowhere near as cold as Cooladdi, but still a chilly night.
We have stayed here before when we did The Birdsville track and it really is a lovely spot, lots of bird life and a constant supply ofwaterin the creek.
Day three we packed up and set off for The Diamantina National Park. What a beautiful spot it was! To get there we had to begin to cross The Mitchell Plains. Wow! Those plains just go on forever, as flat as a pancake and not a tree in sight for as far as the eye can see. The Mitchell Grass is the only plant life to see. These grass downs are the largest grassy downs in Australia, they extend from central west Queensland into the Barkly Tableland in the Northern Territory. It covers over one million hectares! It is interesting at
first you sort of think it's barren but upon further investigation you find it supports reptiles, grassland birds and small marsupials. They arnt kidding about birds, it amazes me that even though the environment is so dry, there are birds everywhere!
We pulled into the visitor information centre and found a spot to camp. And what a spot it was! Just beautiful, right on the Diamantina River. The biggest bonus was it had water in it! Gav and the boys couldn't get the yabbie pots in quick enough. There were another group camped there but apart from that we had the place to ourselves.
We decided to stay here for two nights. It was a great spot and the boys needed a rest from driving. The next day we climbed up a mountain to check out the view. It was abit of a rocky climb up but we made it fairly easily. The view from the top was amazing and it was well worth the effort to get up there. Later that afternoon we were exploring the river when we saw the other group that were there fishing. Gav went and asked them if they were having any
Camping at Cooladdi Roadhouse
Just east of Quilpie. Boy was it cold. luck and they had caught half a dozen beautiful yellow bellies, good size. Well that was all gav needed to be back at the camp site with the rods out fishing quicker than you could blink!
The boys caught half a dozen good sized fish that we cooked up and ate that afternoon. Yum they were delicious.
From here we began the journey to the Northern Territory border........
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Colin
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Glad to hear from you
Hi Guys, I was going to say hope you are having a great time but that would be redundant after reading your blog. Please all stay safe and keep enjoying your wonderful adventure. PS. Gav you top scored in the footy comp with 3 without putting your picks in.