Mount Isa to Alice Springs

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Hi

We spent a useful night at Mount Isa looking at maps and having a think. We also had dinner at the Buffs club because it was walking distance and we were curious. I joined - membership fee $2- and in we went. It was just what I expected, shiny, modern and highly focused on gambling with an enormous pokie room and screens everywhere for Tatts and Keno.

The fact that I have just typed that sentence shows just how far we have assimilated Aussie lifestyle!

Anway a $2 investment yielded a $4 discount on dinner and it was very good.

Next morning we were at the visitor information centre for up to date info on the state of the roads and hopefully a recommendation.

We also had a look at the Riversleigh display, they have a very good set of displays about the geology, the age of the fossil remains, the emergence of key ancestors of modern marsupials and some good fossil examples. I was impressed but I can't see why something like it is not at the actual Riversleigh site.

We got plenty of standard advice about the roads, high clearance 4WD (yada yada which we haven't got) and some confirmation that Birdsville was in lockdown and Boulia overcrowded with trapped people trying to get out. We decided to head for Alice via Uradangie, the Donague and Plenty highways which are both dirt roads but had not been closed. This was a long way and slower than the bitumen but over 300km shorter than taking paved roads and less boring. We made it through to Tobermory without incident and got going on the Plenty highway and for over 2.5 hours never saw another vehicle! We pulled off the road and bush camped with very pleasant temperatures but ,as we discovered, more voracious insects. We are both a total mess of horrible bites!!! We got going early and were on the road by 7:15 but still didn't get to Alice till 2:30 allowing for fuel stops and careful driving of the corrugated and stony sections.

While on the Stuart highway we finally crossed the Tropic of Capricorn again, this time heading south so had to get a picture of the monument.

We saw lots of lizards on the dirt road and stopped to look at a few, none were frilled unfortuntely. We also saw a few big red kangaroos and a emu dad with a very young chick ( remember my earlier blog about all emu parents being single dads).

We are now in a hotel in Alice and hope to get over to Palm Valley this time since we missed it last year. We have a proposed route back to Melbourne but just have to see how it plays out with closures and disruption in and around the northern part of South Australia.

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