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Saved: December 21st 2018
Dundee Beach, NT
Sunset over the Timor SeaSaturday 29th April 2017
It was before 0800 when we left Dundee Beach, as we had hitched up and readied everything the night before. The three freezers were packed with fish and some frozen mango, we also had two pumpkin from the garden snake beans and free range eggs. Not to mention buffalo meat and beef we had bought in Darwin.
We drove back to the Stuart Highway and headed south where we spent the night at a free camp 40kms north of Larrimah, after stopping in Katherine for a few groceries. Cask wine is unavailable in Katherine and they have police in every bottle shop!!!!!!
Larrimah is a tiny hamlet with population of 11 on the Stuart Highway. It was the railhead on the North Australian Railway in WWII
Sunday 30th April 2017 At Daly Waters we turned east at the Hi-Way Inn onto the 380kms long Carpentaria Highway, which is a single track with a lot of flood damage and very few passing places, and is part of National Highway 1. There had been a rodeo on Saturday night and the Hi-Way Inn was full of ringers, jackeroos
and jillaroos having breakfast. It was pretty busy with road trains and lots of boats heading for the barramundi fishing rivers. All you can do is pull over onto the gravel and hope for the best
Our stop for the night was the Heartbreak Hotel at Cape Crawford, so named because the owner had so many dramas getting building materials and equipment trucked in from wherever. It is a nice caravan park and reasonable at $28 per night for a powered site. We treated ourselves to the best roast dinner (pork) in a pub for ages. We met a Swiss couple who were travelling in a 4x4 campervan heading to Darwin. They presented us with a bag of Swiss chocolates as the said they had brought too many for them to eat.
Cape Crawford is surrounded by savannah woodland, rock escarpments, waterholes and waterfalls. It is on the Barkly Tablelands, a rolling grass plain which stretches from the eastern part of the Northern Territory into western Queensland, covering 283,648 sq. kms. (70,090, 947 acres) and 21% of the Northern Territory.
A vast area of cattle stations, an empty land, unforgiving and the real outback of stockmen, mostly
Dundee Beach
Another end to a glorious day in paradise Aboriginal. Nowadays cattle are no longer transported on the hoof along endless stock routes,but travel in huge road trains to the abattoir in Katherine.
We saw several stations with AACo logo. This is the Australian Agriculture Company who own stations in Queensland and the Northern Territory running 5.5 million head of cattle and cover 70,000 square kms. or 17,298,000 acres. The main owner is the owner of Tottenham Hotspurs football club!
Monday 1st May 2017 a Public Holiday in the Northern Territory Today we went for a drive to Borroloola and Bing Bong barge loading facility at the mouth of the McArthur River and the Gulf of Carpentaria.
McArthur River Mine is one of the world’s largest zinc, lead and silver mines, operated by MRM a subsidiary of the Swiss mining company Xstrata. Originally underground but since been converted to open cut.
The McArthur River is home to the endangered freshwater sawfish and enters the Gulf opposite the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands
Borroloola with a population of 935 is about 11kms south of the Gulf of Carpentaria and known for its barramundi fishing. Cattle drovers passed through here
taking cattle from north-west Queensland to the new stations in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley in the late 19
th century. Local Aboriginal tribes went from almost total isolation from European Australians in 1870 to a decimated collection of defeated and displaced groups over a single decade. Entire tribes were massacred by police quasi- police, drovers and station workers.
On our way back to Cape Crawford we took the road through to Limmen National Park, the second largest national park in Australia covering 10,000 sq. kms. The road to Roper Bar was rough and followed creek beds and crossed creeks, but was great fun and we were sad we couldn’t do more of it.
Tuesday 2nd May 2017 We took the Tablelands Highway to Barkly Homestead – 361km. This highway is also a single lane road across the Mitchell grass plains. These Mitchell grasses are desert loving and found only in Australia, a small genus called Astrebla. Name after Thomas Mitchell the Scottish explorer who first collected a specimen near Bourke, NSW. They are known as hoop, barley, bull and curly Mitchell grasses and like heavy clay soils.
Spent the night
Home for six weeks at Dundee Beach
The ocean is just through the trees at Barkly Homestead Caravan Park, the place is super expensive and will not be staying again. Fuel was cheaper at Borroloola!
Wednesday 3rd May 2017 We headed east along the Barkly Highway to the Queensland border where our clocks added ½ an hour from Central to Eastern Australia Time. We stopped at Avon Downs rest area opposite the police station
Avon Downs is one of AACo stations and here, along with neighbouring Austral Downs, they produce breeding cattle for Wagyu beef, turning off 25,000 cattle a year.
Into Queensland and the first town, 12kms from the border is Camooweal, with a population of 187, calling itself ‘Gateway to the Northern Territory/Queensland’. We bought milk and refused to pay double the normal price for a cask of Yalumba white wine. The town lies adjacent to the Georgina River. The road through Camooweal to the Northern Territory was the inland defence route for World War II. The road was built by army engineers and carried over 1000 vehicles a day
Just west of the town is a billabong known as Lake Francis and we camped next to it under a Coolabah tree (Waltzing
Matilda) for 2 nights. There was so much bird life including nesting kites above us, wagtails, Brolgas, Sarus cranes, Wedge-tail eagles, budgerigars, finches, pigmy geese, coots, black swans. We used the fire pot and had a BBQ both nights. The weather is still beautiful and we have lost the humidity now with warm nights around 24C and days in low 30C’s. There are actually two billabongs and there were quite a few free campers but we were well spread out.
Billabong – an ox-bow lake (a U-shaped body of water) that forms when a wide meander from the mainstream of the river is cut off creating a free-standing body of water.
Friday 5th May 2017 Next stop Mount Isa for supplies. They actually sell cask wine here but not until after 12 noon. This is not a caravan friendly town without any large parking areas in town so we just took up several parking bays in the street to go to Woolies and the bottle shop. We were also on a mission to buy a red claw crayfish net , not one to be had until we Googled fishing tackle shops and found
Limmen National Park
One of many creek crossings a tiny one that had a few. ($9.95 each).
Mt Isa is a city in the Gulf country region of Queensland. It came into existence because of the vast quantities of mineral deposits in the area. Mount Isa Mines (MIM) is one of the most productive single mines in world history, based on production of lead, silver, copper and zinc. Copper and lead are smelted on site with copper anodes and zinc concentrate being transported 900kms to Townsville on the east coast. The lead ingots are transported to a refinery in Britain where the silver is extracted.
Mt Isa is often referred to by locals as “The Isa” and in 2016 had a population of 22,000. Due to the lead production in the city Mt Isa has one of the most intensive air monitoring systems in Australia – the mine being in the centre of the city. MIM in particular are a source of significant lead pollution. Not the nicest place we have ever visited and we did not stay long!
John Campbell Miles stumbled upon one of the world’s richest deposits of copper, zinc, lead and silver in 1923. Many people don’t know that he was
actually taken and shown the deposits by a young Aboriginal called Kabalulumana. He called his claim Mount Isa after the gold mine Mount Ida in Western Australia.
Mt Isa is known as “Rodeo capital of Australia”
About half way between Mt Isa and the next town of Cloncurry is the Corella Dam free camp and this was our home for the next three nights. This is a large area and there were about twenty caravans etc. here, mainly for the red claw fishing. We were given a feed of red claw by a family who put their boat in right next to us and didn’t return until 0130 and it was a ‘sorry for the noise’ gift. Later we caught another 5 or 6 so had a good feed of chilli red claw. Again plenty of birdlife and we really enjoyed our time there, cooking on the fire pot, relaxing and chilling.
Corella Dam – Lake Corella was created in 1959 by the construction of the Clem Walton Dam to provide town water for the Mary Kathleen Uranium Mine. A hole in the dam wall prevents this reservoir ever being full.
Mary Kathleen was a mining
settlement in the Selwyn Range between Mt Isa and Cloncurry and first settled in the 1860’s. Uranium was first discovered by Clem Walton and Norm McConachy in 1954. The deposit and township was named after McConachy’s late wife. Rights were subsequently on sold to Rio Tinto and a sales contract was signed with the United Kingdom’s Atomic Energy Authority.
Reserves were finally exhausted in 1982 and the mine and mill were dismantled and the town abandoned, the site became well known for fossicking and gem stone collecting. Since rehabilitation it has been found the tailings repository at the site has been subject to seepage of radioactive waters, seeping into former evaporation ponds as well as local drainage systems. This issue remains unresolved!!!
Monday 8th May 2017 Drove 60kms to Cloncurry (pop in 2006 was 2384), known as “The Friendly Heart of the North West” and it celebrates its 150
th anniversary in 2017.
Cattle grazing is a significant industry in the area and there is a large sales yard in the town. Burke and Wills were the first Europeans to traverse the area on their epic and ultimately fatal transcontinental expedition. The Cloncurry
River was named by Burke after Lady Elizabeth Cloncurry, his cousin.
Ernest Henry discovered copper in the area in 1867 and the town sprang up to service the Great Australia Mine to the south and gold was discovered at Top Camp. The discovery of uranium at Mary Kathleen brought wealth to the community in the 1950’s.
The first ever flight of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia took place from Cloncurry in May 1928 using an aircraft from the then small airline, Qantas.
Politician Bob Katter was born in Cloncurry in 1945.
Our base for the night was Julia Creek Caravan Park where they put on a bush tucker night every Monday. It was the hospital auxiliary staff’s turn to cook and they did a very good goat curry or chicken dish followed by apple crumble and custard. We stayed here two nights at $24 a night and met some really nice fellow travellers.
Julia Creek (pop 368) is on the Flinders Highway heading to Townsville and is named after the niece of the first white settler, Donald McIntyre. "Gateway to the Gulf" The township began life as a temporary terminus in 1907 when
the railway was extended to service copper mines in Cloncurry. The town did not receive electricity until 1952.
The main industries are cattle, wool and mining, which is mainly centred at BHB Billiton mine a Cannington when they discovered lead and silver in 1990. As of 2010 it was the largest and lowest cost silver and lead mine in the world. Silver from the mine was supplied by the mine for the Olympic Games medals for Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008
The town is a major centre for cattle sales and stock trucking with a large sales yard.
Julia Creek is home of the near extinct Julia Creek Dunnet (a tiny marsupial).
The Dirt ‘n’ Dust Festival considered one of Queensland’s major sporting events is held annually in the town since 1995.
Wednesday 10th May 2017 We took the back road south to Kynuna (pop 95) on the Landsborough Highway and the bank of the Diamantina River ( a major Queensland river). As we were filling up a truckie told us not to miss the General Store in Winton.
The town was established as a shearer’s union camp at
a supply point for the Kynuna pastoral station where five roads met the Diamantina River. At one stage there were 700 residents and three pubs. Local legend claims that the suicide of a local shearer at Combo Waterhole was the inspiration for the Banjo Paterson song Waltzing Matilda”. Paterson was at one time engaged to Sarah Riley, a squatter’s daughter and regularly visited the area.
We parked the van at the back of the North Gregory Hotel in Winton for the night ($10) and had lunch there in the Daphne Mayo Dining Room, The Grand Old Lady of Winton, established in 1879. It was here the first public performance of “Waltzing Matilda”, Australia’s unofficial national anthem was played. The song is said to have been written at Dagworth Station, northwest of Winton by Banjo Patterson and the music arranged by the daughter of the Station owner Christine McPherson. During the 1920’ secret meetings were held at the hotel as Winton locals met to form a small airline called QANTAS ((Queensland & Northern Territory Air Services). Lyndon B Johnson stayed here when his plane was forced to land during WWII.
Winton is a nice place to wander around, very
touristy but well worth a look. We found the General Store and it is truly an Aladdin’s cave, if it’s not there you don’t need it. Winton proclaims itself as the dinosaur capital of Australia.
Winton is named after Winton, Dorset the home of the first postmaster. It is a big cattle and sheep centre and is in the Queensland Channel Country. Channel Country .is named for the many braided rivers and intertwined rivulets that cross the region covering 150,000 sq. kms. and is part of the Lake Eyre drainage basin.
At 1730 we wandered over to the beer garden to watch the daily chook race. Six chooks are dyed with food colouring and released to follow a radio controlled car and trailer with chook feed on board, first over the line wins. The birds are auctioned prior to the race and that night’s owner gets a percentage of the prize money, the rest going to various causes in the town. Interestingly and not surprisingly the caravanners didn’t participate as the money got pretty steep.
We had a late Happy Hour with several couples who were mainly heading north for the winter.
Once a
Cammoweal, Qld
Camped by the billabong under the shade of a coolibah tree jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
He sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
He sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,
you'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
you'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
you'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Up rode the troopers, one, two, three,
With the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
With the jolly
Cammoweal Billabong
The kites nest as seen from our van jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, you scoundrel with me.
Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong,
You'll never catch me alive, said he,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
you'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me.
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
Waltzing - derived from the German term auf der Walz, which means to travel while working as a craftsman and learn new techniques from other masters
Waltzing Matilda - Matilda is an old Teutonic female name meaning "mighty battle maid". This may have informed the use of "Matilda" as a slang term to mean a de facto wife who accompanied a wanderer. In the Australian bush a man's swag was regarded as a sleeping partner, hence his "Matilda
Matilda - a romantic term for a swagman's bundle.
Swagman - a man who travelled the country looking for work. The swagman's "swag" was a bed roll that bundled his belongings.
Coolibah tree - a kind of eucalyptus tree which grows
near billabongs
Jumbuck - a sheep
Billy - a can for boiling water in, usually 1–1.5 litres (2–3 pints). Originally made from large jam tins with bent wire for the handle.
Tucker bag - a bag for carrying food
Troopers - policemen
Squatter - Australian squatters started as early farmers who raised livestock on land which they did not legally have the legal title to use; in many cases they later gained legal use of the land even though they did not have full possession, and became wealthy thanks to these large land holdings.
Thursday 11th May 2017 We left early this morning to get to Llewellyn Station near Morella, 95 kms from Longreach, the nearest town, a 60,000 acre cattle and sheep property way out in the outback, 35kms off the main road. There are no sheep at the moment and reduced cattle numbers thanks to the drought.
We needed to be there by 1030 to meet the owners, Philip and Lyndel, unhitch the van and help load four horses to take to the races 2 hours away along a dirt track to Koorooinya Station which is
Lake Francis at Corella Dam
Hard to beat this for a free camp 60kms south of Prairie, a small township on the Flinders Highway. We followed in our car and we got set up in good time for dinner. We just had our swag, enclosed fox wing awning for the car, en-suite tent which went inside with Porta Potty, washing facilities plus two camp chairs. We were well set up and very impressed as not used before.
The races were over two days and horses could only race on day two if they had raced on day one. Son David was our jockey a he did very well. I think, all up there were 97 horses at the meet and only 9 jockeys!!!! Some of the races had to be split in two so all nominated horses could run. Danie enjoyed helping with our horses. We were amazed at the turn out with people coming from 100’s kilometres away, three light aircraft arrived, one being Lyn’s cousin, part of the race track is on the airsrtip. Most people dressed in the country uniform of jeans, shirt, boots and Akubra hat. Day 2 saw the girls dressed up with high heels and fascinators or huge hats for Fashion on the Field. Men were
also seen in suits and ties.
All in all an amazing experience as these picnic races are dying out, only two grass fed meetings held in North-West Queensland now. Horses are only allowed to eat grass for three weeks before the races, no oats or horse nuts). We bought tickets for breakfast and lunch for the three days and the food was amazing and plenty of it. All we took was our own coffee and snacks for lunchtime, plus wine and beer, of course.
Sunday 14th May 2017 Mother’s Day After helping feed and load the horses we packed up, had breakfast and headed home via Muttaburra, the nearest small village to the Station, which we wanted to check out..
Muttaburra (pop 106) is a town on the Thomson River. In 1963 Muttaburra was the discovery site of the Muttaburrasaurus, one of Australia’s largest dinosaurs.
The Great Dividing Range, the third longest land based range in the world, which stretches more than 3,500kms from the northeast tip of Queensland through NSW and Victoria, finally turning west and fading into the central plain at the Grampians in West Victoria. This
is the main feature of the Muttaburra Aramac area and is well known as good sheep and cattle grazing country.
Muttaburra was also the scene of one of the most daring acts of cattle duffing (rustling) ever performed in Australia. In 1870 Henry Redford stole 1000 cattle from Bowen Downs Station and drove them 1300kms through the central Australian region to the Blanche Water Station in northern South Australia. He sold the livestock (for $250,000 in today’s money) and was later charged with theft and tried in Roma District Court. Despite overwhelming evidence a jury found him not guilty within an hour. He was greatly admired for crossing central Australia unscathed. Henry Redford worked as a stockman on the Bowen Downs station and gradually, with some help, gathered the herd together in a remote part of the property into yards they had secretly constructed. Later Redford married and drove cattle from the Atherton Tablelands to Dubbo and then drove 3000 cattle, the first mob ever to be taken to Brunette Downs on the Barkly Tableland. In 2899 he became manager of McArthur River Station. Redford became something of a national hero, and the character Captain Starlight in Rolf Boldrewood’s
Julia Creek Caravan Park
Daytime view of the campfire book ‘Robbery Under Arms’ was based in part on his exploits.
An annual Harry Redford Cattle Drive commemorates Redford’s exploits as a drover. A range of riders from the city and the country participate in this droving expedition, taking part for three days or
We sorted out the van and decided where we wanted to park and had a look round the homestead. It is very dry but a lovely place with lots of birdlife, including galahs, budgerigars, zebra finches and willy wagtails. We saw plenty of emus and kangaroos, but have not yet seen the dingoes which are around.
On Friday we went into Longreach, an hour away, about 93kms, 35 of which is dirt road. Just a small town with not much in the way of shops, ut I got my hair cut and we got some groceries (no Coles or Woolies here) Named after the “long reach” of the Thomson River on which it is located. In 1897 the railway arrived causing the population to grow. The town is on the Tropic of Capricorn (pop 3137) cattle sheep and recently tourism are the main industries. N Longreach the street are named after species of
Julia Creek Caravan Park
Other side of the campfire birds, east-west water birds and north-south land birds. Longreach is home to the “Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame” and the Qantas Founders Outback museum and also has a School of Distance Education ( School of the Air)
We have the use of two quad bikes and a buggy to get around to the various water tanks and troughs. I have come down with a cold so am not allowed to mix with anyone in case they get my bug so stay around the van. Danie has been out mustering and taking cattle to Winton sale yards.
It is now Monday 22
nd May and I am still sick, Danie out again today and tomorrow mustering whilst I stay home and finish the blog. The weather is still in low 30C’s but mornings are a cool 18C or so.
We are here until around 20
th June helping out and also chilling.Will continue when we set off again, heading north to the Atherton Tablelands…….
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