Alice to Mt Isa

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Well here’s another installment to our blog for you people out there following us.
The East MacDonnell Ranges were just as nice as the west but not as busy. We stopped at Emily and Jesse’s Gaps which are gorges in the East MacDonnell range. There were well preserved aboriginal paintings on the rocks, we next headed off to Trephina Gorge.
We took the short walk to the water where numerous budgerigars flocked to drink. It was quite amazing to watch them partially submerge themselves into the water before flying of just as quickly as they landed and in a large group form, the whole group seemed to fly and change directions so quickly and accurately.
There was only one designated camp ground here for trailers and as it was quite rocky and still early we decided to keep going. We past a dopey looking camel on the road through Ross River that didn’t want to move for anyone and headed to N’Dhala where there were supposed to be 6000 petroglyphs. We found probably 100 or so, on the marked trail but didn’t continue past this as we wanted to find a camp soon.
We stayed at Arltunga, the first founded town in the Northern Territory. There were numerous mining relics and buildings around the area, with the information centre having on display working stampers and water pumps (we missed out on the demonstration by a day or two). We headed up to the old government works town and the old police station, some of the buildings had been restored and it gave you and idea about the town and how these people lived in the mining days. From here we headed to the old mines, were you could descend 4 metres into a mine shaft and come out about 6 metres down the mine.
We continued our route through Cattle water Pass which was 4 wheel drive only, there were many dry sandy creek crossings and a few loose hill climbs with numerous ruts along the way which we needed to engage low range in a few places to ensure our passing through easily. This ended up joining with the Plenty Hwy where we continued to Harts Range, we took a side road and actually found a nice little camp ground.
We were a little wary at first as there was an Aboriginal community not to far up the hwy, we were not sure if it was sacred ground or if we were allowed to camp here, and as there was nobody around we couldn’t ask.
From here we headed down the Plenty highway (which is dirt) to the NT/QLD border stopping at Tobermorey cattle station for the night, meeting a couple who had been stuck there for 10 days, as they had a broken axle on their jayco poptop camper and the truck couldn’t make the drive from Mount Isa to them due to the rains up north.
Bearing this in mind we headed towards Boulia home of the Min Min lights. After setting up camp the owner came round to collect the camp fees, as it looked like it was going to rain we asked about the possibility of it happening. She told us that “they haven’t been wrong yet and she informed us it was supposed to rain that night”. And it did.
We took the Min Min Encounter tour with the animated dummies which wasn’t worth the $12 each paid before heading to Winton.
We couldn’t do the trip through to Winton via Diamantina National Park due to the rain, though we did start it but turned back after 15kms of dirt (actually sloppy mud). So we headed there by tar.
There was just as much water on the road as there was off it. The floodways and creeks off the road were swollen and flowing and there was quite an interesting detour off the tar. It was to the side of the road which would have been dirt if there was no rain but since there was it was the most slippery sloppy muck we have had to drive in. As we had been driving on tar Mick had unlocked the hubs, so we continued up this hill in two wheel drive as neither of us wanted to get out in the rain in this slop, the trailer swinging past us and fishtailing with the truck at every opportunity it had.
There was mud everywhere. And as it had been raining over night the canvas was wet inside the trailer and I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping in it this night.
Having arrived at Winton we found the road we had just traveled on was closed from the other side. There were no vacancies at any of the caravan parks and the only motel we found was very very very small, but it had to do.
Winton the birthplace of the song Waltzing Matilda was, well it wasn’t much, but it was bigger than Boulia, perhaps if it wasn’t raining, there was an opening at one of the caravan parks and it didn’t cost money to go into the information centre we may have thought different. But as it was we couldn’t wait to get out of there.
With all the rain about we had little options but to head back to Mount Isa (this would mean we wasted about 500kms). As it was a large town we thought this the safer option if we had to wait the rain out and at least there would be a bit to see and do.
As it was we found out the Gulf had 5inches of rain a week before we got here and there is still up to 1.6 metres of water over the road up there.
We spent a couple of days there and finally were able to put on summer clothes. From here we travelled back to Cloncurry before we head to Normanton, Karumba, and Burketown and through the Gulf towards Darwin.

Brent it doesn’t matter if you don’t have glasses anymore you will always be Harry Potter (remember Thailand).

Dean we only have Tracey’s phone now so if you get a msg it is probably from Mick. Why don’t you view the blog at home so you don’t get interrupted? And your message only half made sense and that was after the second read through.



Till next time…..

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Comments

[Tissy Wissy]

Cool Camel
Hi guys! well sounds like some more cool adventures you two have had. I love the camel not moving for anyone. that's gold! and the rain has been bad everywhere even in sydney so not to worry only makes the adventure more exciting! Thanks again for the post card and pressie i loved it! nice to come home to that sort of thing :) so no news on any biffs you guys?? whats going on? i thought there would have been a least one blow up by now...only makes for an interesting read. not much news in this end of town...taking dad, sandy and john to the orchestra at the opera house on sunday week. should be nice. and this weekedn looks like i will be spending time with friends which i have been planning for some time. oh guess what? i ran 9km on the weekend...i'm starting to get into it again and train for the city to surf! i wanna come first in the womens division for my work...beat the bosses hehe! work is also going really great at the moment. my boss is leaving in 2 weeks and so i get to take over alot of the stuff she has been doing which means more responsibility. i'm excited! and melbourne is also going well i got a new black coat which keeps me warm. the weather has been lovely around here...yesterday was 18 degrees! so i'll get back to work..nice to hear from you guys and hope all is going well! mum and i tried to call you but no reception. i tried yesterday aswell but no go. i'll hang in there but...eventually i will get through Love Tissy xoxo