Following in the footsteps of legends

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Day 111 - Karumba Point to Burke & Wills Roadhouse

We leave the very friendly and relaxed Karumba Point Tourist Park this morning after a funny old night! We had a lovely shady spot at the park, under a nice big tree but the wind got up a bit and deposited quite a pile of debris on our roof throughout the night!! Not to worry, we got a lovely dawn chorus this morning from the campsite birds! There’s a big mixture but it definitely included Figbirds!

We’re showered, packed up and on the road just before 9am. The journey facing us to Burke & Wills Roadhouse is along one of the worst roads in the country apparently. Oh joy!

As we passed by the billabongs at the side of the road we were surprised to find them empty of Brolgas, there had been hundreds here yesterday. Perhaps there were on a Saturday morning lie in! Further on we go and eventually we find some so stop for a quick photo opportunity!

We need to get some fuel today, we didn’t grab the opportunity to fill up in Karumba thinking that the price would be less in Normanton, we were wrong! It was $138.9 in Karumba Point which we thought was a bit steep but when we got to Normanton we realised our error! There are three stores selling fuel, the first is $1.84, the second was $1.79 and the third was $1.41!! We popped into the Foodworks store for a loaf of bread and a pie for the journey and the staff were very friendly but having trouble with an older Aboriginal lady and the assistants tone was pretty strong as she exclaimed to her “I’m not going to check the pin on your card. Now leave before I call the police.”

We filled up with diesel in the Top Service Station, the bill for 71 litres was $100.

The road does start to deteriorate south of Normanton when you get on the development road. It’s mainly bitumen, some of its single track and a lot of it has ‘tram lines’ where the heavy road trains have caused the bitumen to sink a little bit. It just makes the driving challenge that little bit harder and the journey that little bit more bouncy! There’s not much traffic on the road today, presumably because it’s a Saturday, up til 11:17am we’d only seen one small road train and a handful of caravans and cars.

Like most other outback roads in Australia, this has its fair share of road kill which today includes kangaroos and wild boars. The long open stretches are not as bad as those with an element of tree cover bringing the Kites circling overhead!

The road is long today and there’s really not much to see on either side except for termite mounds, miles of them! We make a stop for a ‘natural break’, luckily we pick an actual rest stop where the toilets are clean and the area is presentable. No snakes or frogs in the loo, phew!

Finally we make it to the Burke and Wills Roadhouse, our little oasis on this journey. Across the road there’s something going on involving lots of people wearing big hats and riding around on horses! We decide to get a pitch then go over to check it out!

The roadhouse caravan park is the yard to the side of it, although it’s dusty and nothing much to look at it has power, lights, water and concrete bases with big shades over them to pull up along side. This will be our base for the next few nights as we intend to leave the caravan here, all plugged in to the power, while we trott over to Lawn Hill and spend two nights sleeping in the car! There were various ways for us to approach this trip but we’ve decided to do things this way round so that we don’t drag the caravan across too many unsealed roads. The car copes well with it but the caravan is older and her joints maybe a bit more fragile! Anyway, it will be a bit of an adventure roughing it in the back of the car!!

With our caravan set up we headed over to watch the action across the road. It turns out to be a Camp Draft where the horse riders enter the paddock and single out one cow from the herd, separate it and then drive it out through the paddock gates into the main arena. Here the rider must keep control of the horse and the cow driving in a figure of eight around two outer pegs and then finally through the gate. It’s very skilled stuff and entertaining to watch. If you get ‘cracked off’ by the guy with the whip then you’re out of the round, we think you probably get more than one go at it though. We’ve picked up a few of the rules; once you’ve selected a cow in the paddock you have to stick with it, you’ll be ‘cracked off’ if the cow beats you back to the herd three times in the paddock or if the horse or cow is considered out of control in the main arena or you miss any of the pegs or gate. You get points for the paddock work, the arena and for horsemanship. Great fun anyway!

We watched the event unfold for a good couple of hours and these cowboys n cowgirls are having a rip roarer of an afternoon! It’s a scorcher today and we’re suffering a bit with it being so hot. Luckily as we return to the caravan to sort out the car ready for tomorrow we pass a conveniently placed ice cream shed! Well, it really would be rude not to stop and see what’s on offer wouldn’t it?! One single Rum n Raison and one single Boysenberry later and we’re back on the short trek to the caravan!

Darryl does a great job organising the car and I sort through our food supplies to see what we’ve got for the next couple of nights dinner. We’ve not got an esky with us so we can’t really take much in the way of meat or cold stuff but we pull together a few ideas and in no time at all we’re pretty set.

Whilst we were away at the Camp Draft, a gentleman pulled up the other side of the concrete base we’re parked on so we have a neighbour for the night. He’s from Lightening Ridge and has a dog with him called Brother! He’s got another dog called ‘Please’ so usually the call is “Please, Brother, in the truck!” How funny is that!! We chat for ages about our trips and where he’s heading, he’s going to Lawn Hill the same as us but is taking his caravan to Gregory Down to camp there and visit the grave of a friend. He goes off to the roadhouse for a beer or three and some dinner leaving Brother getting thoroughly fussed by us!

By the time we’ve had a look through the last few days photographs it’s really time for us to go get dinner too and seeing as how we’re at an actual roadhouse for the night we thought we’d grab a burger! The camp drafters are coming over in their droves now that they’re finished for the day. We hear that the partying will go on into the early morning, they look a bit hard core for us though what with their spurs and whips! With our burgers ordered we join a couple who have a large table to themselves, they are Wal and Chris McAdams from Lake Macquarie in NSW. We have a fascinating chat with them about their travels around Australia over the years in their motorhome with the great number plate BED51T! Chris says they’re City Slickers really but love getting out and away from it all. They’ve got a great hobby too, Wal restores wooden heritage boats and they go all over the country showing them off but Chris is quick to point out that they don’t fish from them! Time flies by and the clock strikes nine o’clock before we know it! We’ve still got loads to do and I doubt we’re going to get much sleep because the party across the road is galloping away with Lady Ga Ga’s ‘Poker Face’ blasting out!!

So this is us signing off for tonight but we’re not able to upload because we’ve got no internet access sadly, never mind, it will give you all the chance to catch up reading the others!

Love to everyone, take care

Dar and Sar

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