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Camooweal Billabong
2 days free camping ! 18th May Wednesday. When one is traveling the same road but in reverse, its sometimes hard to find anything new to comment on. Same with us on the journey from Burke & Wills back to Mt Isa, via Cloncurry. Not boring at all, but not new. Stocked up on groceries etc, refueled ready for the coming journey into the west.
Camooweal. We have been reading about the early cattle pioneers, the Duracks, Kidmans, etc and the later ones such as the Quiltys, so it was good to get the to major droving crossover point from the Northern Territory to Queensland which was Camooweal. It has the Georgina River, which settles into the Camooweal Billabong, a 5 km long series of “lakes” which are/were great for stock to rest at on their long drive to the rail at Cloncurry and thence to Townsville and the markets. We camped “down by the billabong under the coolibah tree”, (Copyright Banjo Paterson: Waltzing Matilda), but there was no jumbuck (sheep) for us to eat. Stayed there 2 days. Free camping, binoculars at the ready as there was great bird life and views. Along the water front there would have been 25 caravans, etc, but we
Joey
Pattie in the Post Office with an orphan kangaroo had about 50m either side of us. Great! Far enough off the road, so no traffic noise, such as it is.
At Camooweal there is a drovers’ museum (every small town is trying desperately to have an attraction to hold the tourists). Each drover had his “plant” which would consist of his working gear, a swag which was a sheet of canvas with blankets and spare clothes rolled up (no mattress) and about 6 working horses. Also a couple of pack horses to carry everything. Not just John Wayne riding off into the sunset! The drovers day was: up at about 4.00am to catch and saddle the horse for the morning, breakfast (cold meat and damper) and off by daylight. Keep the cattle moving until midday when they had “dinner”. Short rest and change horses then move the cattle hopefully to water by late afternoon. Tea (dinner) & bed. The crew included a boss, a cook and a boy to look after the unused horses. In addition to this there would be night patrols to stop the cattle wandering off or stampeding if spooked. VERY hard life.
As we have been off the electricity grid for 2 days, the battery
Billabong
View from the chair - the birds were wonderful. in the van has gone flat, despite putting it on charger for an hour. Also, my bike tyre is flat again – 3 punctures!
Saturday 21 May. We did some fossicking around the site of an old hotel by the river. Found lots of broken bottles (surprise!) but were after unbroken glass stoppers, but couldn’t find any. Did find a handle for a “pint pot” and a very rusty bullet mould. Gave them to the Museum. Then on our way to the Barkly Homestead on the Barkly Tablelands, so called because they are flat and mostly treeless. 260km. Change of time zone by another ½ hour. As we left Camooweal, we set the cruise control at 87kmh. Apart from the lunch stop, didn’t touch it for 260km!
Fuel at Barkly was $2 per litre (diesel) so put some (enough) in but didn’t fill up, so don’t know the consumption. Stayed the night, but didn’t unhitch the car.
Next day to Banka Banka via Threeways. This is the corner where we met the major north south road from Adelaide to Darwin. We talked with a stock truck driver there. His run is from Darwin to Threeways nearly 1200km He has to
Photo of photo
14 road trains with 120 head on each! Trucks are 53m long, 130 tonnes do it in 12 hours, his legal driving limit. Hands the truck over to a new driver who takes it to Longreach, another 1000km, then another change and to the freezing works at Rockhampton. In 3 days. The truck has three trailers and carries 120 beef yearlings.
Anyway, our driver goes to bed for the day and picks up another truck on the return trip that night and back to Darwin. He works 2 days on and 2 off.
The truck loaded 600 liters for fuel and he said that he normally gets about 1km per liter! The truck weighs 130 tonnes.
Decided to stay another day at Bank Banka. Not as good as we had heard, and the price was quite high, but very nice. All caravans are requested to park with their backside out to the “ring road”, so we all form a circle and latecomers are in the middle. The first night there were quite a few and the middle was messy and packed, quite funny. Most are going north and the target is Daly Waters where the rumour is that you have to be there before midday to get a space, and its 300km away.
Anyway
Banka Banka
Camping ground on the Darwin Alice road we are going south so have passed Threeways again through Tennant Creek and are now at Wycliffe Well. Tennant Creek is very depressed and quite black, not a comfortable feeling at all. Got fuel and milk there and glad to be on the way. Lunch at Devil’s Marbles, an amazing example of 200 million years of slow erosion. Granite, upthrust and weathered has turned into these huge spheres and balls perched precariously on one another in the middle of the unending desert.
We’ve been remarking on the number of vans heading north along this road. Most are going to Darwin and Broome, so we hope they have moved on by the time we are up there at the end of July.
Tomorrow Alice Springs. Q. What was Alice’s surname? A. Todd, the same as the (dry) river that runs through the town, named after her husband
P n D
24 May 2011.
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fiona
non-member comment
alice!
hey campers! if you are going to buy any indigenous art please do go to the co-op owned and run by the indigenous of the area as most of the other dealers rip the artists off badly - eg, give them a clapped out car to go back to their settlement in, in exchange for thousands worth of art!