No Fish in the Daly River

Craigs story................... this morning decided to go fishing at the local boat ramp. Collected all equipment and headed off, walked down the drive way to the boat ramp and what should be waiting for him ..... a 5 meter crocodile. It was a Mexican stand off and who was going to move first (well he is here to tell the story so obviously it was the Crocodile back into the water).

Yes you had to cross the Daly River at this river crossing with Crocodiles.

Thats one of the locals perched on the bank opposite where we were sitting.

Not a bad view

Finally some grass.....it was great to get that red dirt behind us for a little while.

We are at the Mango Farm Daly River where there is a 5 meter croc every 100 meters and that is not one of those fishing stories. Of an evening you can see them come up on to the bank.  I can hear you ask why would you come to this place........Barramundi. But unfortunately we don't have a boat and fishing from the bank is done in a very quick, jumpy sort of fashion not that conducive to catching anything. So no fish for dinner!

We of the never never

 Easy drive to Mataranka only 300 odd kms. You might remember it as the setting for the book by Jeannie Gunn 'We of the Never Never". These days it is more about the thermal pools. We stayed at the Mataranka Homestead (which has the replica of the Gunns homestead there). Again it sounds very grand but really just a big RED dust bowl. No hot water in the showers so you really had to use the thermal pool as your daily bath!!!!!! But you could have a fire which Craig took advantage of.... and plenty of wildlife vistors to the fire. https://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msid=202030746687847341814.0004bd89622fe32cbd18b&msa=0&ll=-14.689881,141.899414&spn=18.878842,31.289063

Mataranka thermal pools

The lovely campsite full of red dirt

Bitter Springs pool (much nicer than Mataranka), you could float down the river.

NT pubs

There is not much out here every so often there is a roadhouse which provides fuel, food and accomodation some are better than others. But when you read the books as to where to stay it doesn't always match. When we left Barkly Homestead we had planned to make it to a camp ground called Banka Banka whcih charge $20.00 for no power and a spot in the paddock. So we thought lets push on as it was only early..........not always a good plan as you never know what lies ahead, but luckly 500kms later we found a place. Dunmarra $19.00 with power.

Good Bye QLD hello NT

We crossed the border just out of Camoweel onto the Barkly Tablelands. The temperature had droped from a bamy 29 to about 18 as there was a wicked wind that was freezing. There was vast nothingness........and no toliet for over 400kms. We stayed at the Barkly Roadhouse which was the only place with toliets 200km either way. I am sure you won't be suprised that this is the most expensive palce we have stayed so far........$48.00 a night!!!!!!! But it also won't surprise you that it wasn't to bad we met up with some people we had meet previously and had a few drinks at the roadhouse watching the interesting people coming and going. The link for the map is at the bottom of the page if you want to know where Barkly Homestead is.......

Gotta love those road trains..... we have 2 cracks in the windscreen thanks to those big buggers.

It was freezing with the wind blowing across the plains

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'The Isa'

We have made it to the 'Isa' as everyone apparently calls it. We stayed 3 days and got to visit the Mount Isa show. Its a thriving town dominated by the mines and smelter. Bridie was very concerned about the smoke stakes and the smelly smelters...... she didn't want to go near them. I have added a link to take you to a map of our trip so you can follow where we have been and where we are up to, just click on the link.   https://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msid=202030746687847341814.0004bd89622fe32cbd18b&msa=0

The hill behind the caravan park at Mount Isa. archie was very excited by the treasures he found (a seed pod)

View of our caravan park at Mount Isa

Dinosaurs

This is Banjo a new dinosaur discovered 2009 at Winton

We didn’t stop at Winton this time put did visit the new ‘age of dinosaurs’ exhibit just out of Winton in the ‘jump up’ country. We got to see Banjo this new carnivore dinosaur found 2009 from bones around Winton.  A quick visit but great Archie and Bridie enjoyed it!



It was only about 15kn off the road but on top of the only hills in the area, great view

Croc Dundee

What do you do when you are in the middle of know  (McKinlay) where trying to get a camp spot and they want to charge you the world for a small piece of dirt and a power point...........you mix it with the road trains. That’s right we had to find our own free camp spot and us and another adventurous campers decided to camp at the local truck stop, home to a number of road trains at any time of the night. The cattle road trains in the middle of the night are the worst when the cows are doing a tap dance.

The truck stop was just opposite the ‘Walk-a-about Creek’ pub made famous in the Croc Dundee movies, so we all headed over for a drink and then back to the tap dancing cows. Not really that bad.

Our camp in the truck stop.... not to bad



The fire bucket gets another go and despite Craigs clothes it was freezing at night. He has is assisted by his able log man.

Sunrise over the truck stop camp at McKinlay all the trucks had left by this stage.

Walking on the wing

Next stop was Longreach which is one of our favourite spots. Craig booked me into do the QANTAS founder’s museum which I missed the last time we were in town. This time I got to walk the wing..........

Pre-Historic Dip

We took a dip in water as old as the dinosaurs apparently.......the warm artesian springs at Blackall. It is also supposed to have therapeutic properties..... we all came out with 10 years knocked of us (not).

Archie is making his name around the nightly camp fire as a bit of a have a chat...well this night at Blackall he was invited up on stage to sing a couple of songs with the local country singer Graham Rodgers, all due to his earlier chat with the singer and his wife. He won a DVD which we had to play in the car the next day......  He also announced proudly to everyone that he is 5 years old (when mum had been trying to pass him off as 4 years so we didn’t have to pay camping fees for him......)

'Click go the shears' in front of the Jack Howe memorial at Blackall. (craig almost has his jackie howeser on but it has sleeves).

For those who are not sure who Jack Howe is......... he holds the record as the most sheep shearered.

The Cosmos

We are in 'big Sky' country at Charleville QLD. According to the tour guide.......Charleville was offered Government funding for a 'Stockman Hall of Fame' (Longreach) type project but instead spent it on the Stars! And boy was it worth it... they built a fantastic Cosmos centre and observatory. We got to look at the stars and planets through these great telescopes. Our favourite was definately Saturn as Archie said that was extremely cool.... We had a great time. We also stayed on a cattle station just out of town which was ideal (plenty of space).

Its not only big sky country but big hat country as well