Gunnedah – Sydney

This was the last day of our roadtrip, so since we had the luxury of a kitchen, we started the day with a big fryup for breakfast: bacon, fried egg, baked beans and toast.

While he was packing the truck, Brian saw the owner who told him that the resident Koala, which had gone missing, had been spotted that morning and he was going to keep an eye out for it on his rounds, but he hadn’t spotted it by the time we were ready to leave.

Gunnedah is a koala-friendly town and it is often possible to spot them, but we didn’t. We went to the lookout where there were some great views but no koalas.

We fuelled up at Woolies – 46 L @ $1.329 per litre $61 less 4 cpl discount $58.29. Odometer reading 62802.

10.45 Left Gunnedah.

11.50 Arrived at Willow Tree and turned onto the New England Highway.

12.25 Took the Burning Mountain turnoff. Had lunch in the carpark. The walk was too long to do.

13.05 Drove through Scone, into the Upper Hunter wine-growing region.

13.35 Muswellbrook

14.05 Singleton

15.25 Went through Cessnock on the B82 and kept going straight along Freeman’s Drive instead of turning right onto the M1 to Cooranbong.

16.00 Left Cooranbong and drove towards Morrisett where we took the turnoff for the M1 to Sydney. We missed the exit for Hornsby because it was the same exit as the one for the Pacific Highway South but we took the next one and eventually made our way back to Mona Vale Road and arrived at our destination, Belrose, in time for dinner.

Blackall – St George

Condensation had saturated the tent overnight. Brian tried spreading it out to dry while I made breakfast in the camp kitchen. Not enough bread to make lunch so we’ll get something along the way.

10.00 Left Blackall.

11.05 Drove through Tambo, oldest town in the Central West and says it’s the site of the first Qantas crash.

12.20 Fuelled up at Augathella BP: 55.01 L @ $1.399 per litre – $76.96 – odometer 61834. Got a couple of pies from the cafe there and took them to Meat Ant Park to have for lunch. The park has a giant meat ant sculpture, shaded picnic tables and a modern shaded playground. Toilets are nearby. After lunch we drove around the town taking photos of the murals on some of the shops and the toilet block.

13.20 Left Augathella. Passed the Matilda Highway turnoff just outside town.
14.10 Passed the Charleville turnoff, then five minutes later the Morven Warego Highway.
14.45 Passed through Mungallala.

There had been a lot of kangaroos darting across the road all afternoon but Brian always spotted them in time and slowed down. But, after we’d slowed to let two cross, we were just getting up speed again when one of them decided to turn back and it went under us. It took off into the bush and there was no damage to the ute so we continued on our way.

15.10 At Mitchell we took a right turn for St George.
17.20 Turned left onto the Balone Highway 5 km before St George.
17.30 Checked into St George Caravan Park – $22.

We had our choice of campsites and picked a spot down by the back fence near the river.

Went into town to shop, then had dinner at the Boomerang Cafe: Barra and Chips $12.00 and a Works Burger $10 which came with chips and was enormous. We had to get a doggy bag for the chips. Great food, great service and value for money.

I don’t know what the temperature was but I was freezing by the time we got back to the campsite and I had to get out the cold weather gear. Tried to write my blog but my iPad Mini doesn’t like me wearing gloves and it was too cold to take them off for long, but I did get my diary up to date for today: how we’d  noticed a change in the cattle we were passing – Santa Gertrudis I think instead of Brahmans; the different animals we’d seen – horses, goats, kangaroos, a possible dingo and Brian saw a blue-tongued lizard but I missed it.

Amenities
The camp kitchen is in the laundry. It has a jug, toaster, sandwich press and a microwave without a turntable – don’t know how that works.
The amenities block looks very new. It’s clean and the water is hot but the design is crazy. Two of the three showers are just cubicles with a hook on the back of the door, so you have to leave most of your belongings outside. Secure though, you have to enter a code on a keypad to get into the block.

.

Winton – Blackall

A rainstorm during the night had turned the grounds into a quagmire, making it tricky getting to and from the amenities block.

Couldn’t make toast for breakfast without a camp kitchen so made cheese and Vegemite sandwiches instead. Made lunch as well.

10.20 Left and drove 12 km on the Landsborough Highway to the right-hand turnoff for the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. Saw a flock of brolgas on the way. Did two tours there: the Collection Room which is unique in that it is open to the public rather than being under lock and key in the backroom of a museum; and the Laboratory, commonly known as ‘The shed’, where volunteers painstakingly clean the dinosaur bones using pneumatic scribes that look and sound like dentist drills. It’s an experience not to be missed! Fee $30 each concession. Ate lunch there before leaving.

11.10 Left there.

15.10 Fuelled up at Longreach BP: 68.02 L @ $1.399 per litre – $95.16. Odometer reading 61388 km.

Thought we should take the lasagne out for dinner tonight, only to realise we’d left it in the freezer at home! Had to settle for pea and ham soup.

13.25 Left Longreach.

13.45 Drove through Illfracombe which had a display of old farm machinery along the side of the highway.

16.15 Passed an entrance to Tara Station.

16.30 Went through Barcaldine.

There was a detour 25 km out of Blackall which made us slow down to 60 kph.

17.45 Checked into Blackall Caravan Park – $27 – Our Pete Murray CD was drowned out by their live entertainer belting out Neil Diamond. We had arrived during Happy Hour. Happier than usual this evening due to two lots of rain having fallen in 24 hours after a four-year drought! Made for a pretty muddy campsite. Three-course roast dinner was available at the camp kitchen, but we set up camp and went there when they’d finished and heated up our soup. The young couple managing the park joined us and offered us free Anzac biscuits and to start a fire in the pit for us which we gratefully accepted. It gave me the chance to download some photos and work on this blog.

We also reflected on the day’s drive:

A lot of roadkill today; saw two flocks of green budgerigars in flight and a huge flock of ibis on the ground;  buffeted by roadtrains from Longreach to Barcaldine but OK once we turned south for Blackall; a lot of kangaroos crossing the road.

Amenities

What I loved about this park was that they provided bath mats for use in the showers: you use them then pop them in the basket for washing. So considerate – if all parks did this I wouldn’t have to cart one with me all the time.

The amenities block was clean with warm artesian water.

The camp kitchen provided a jug, toaster and microwave.

Free WiFi is provided throughout the park.

Mount Isa – Winton

Took the Madras curry and rice we’d cooked and frozen at home out of the Engel and put it into the cooler to defrost and keep the cooler contents cold at the same time.

10.05 Left Argylla Big 4/Discovery Caravan Village and fuelled up at Woolies: 55 L @ $1.399 per litre, less 10c discount $71.45; odometer reading 60 682 km – 1720 km since Darwin.

10.20 Drove to the lookout. The view was amazing with the enormity of the mining structure emphasised by the comparatively small size of the vehicles working on it. If you zoom in on the photo below, on the right-hand side you can see a triple-bogey road train that looks like a Matchbox toy.

10.45 Left the lookout.

11.40 Passed the turnoff for Mary Kathleen, once a thriving uranium mine.

12.10 Arrived at Cloncurry where we fuelled up at Woolies: 14.01 L @ $1.485 per litre $20.24 less 4 cpl discount $20.24; odometer reading 60806 – nice number, reads the same both ways, a palindrome.

12.20 We left Cloncurry and 10 minutes later turned right onto the Landsborough Highway.

13.30 Arrived at McKinley. Stopped to eat lunch at a very nice park with shaded tables and a modern childrens playground, plaques describing various historic buildings in the town, toilets, and a library/information centre said to be the smallest library in Australia and famous for being the office for Walkabout Tours in the Crocodile Dundee movies. The Walkabout Hotel is just around the corner too, so it’s an interesting town to take a break at.

14.10 Left McKinley and drove for three-quarters of an hour to Kyuna where we stopped briefly to take photos of the Blue Heeler Pub.

15.10 We turned off and drove 8 km to the carpark of the Combo Waterhole, the billabong Banjo Patterson wrote about in the song  Waltzing Matilda, then walked the rest of the way. We disturbed a few big grey kangaroos along the way. It was a bit hot and we were glad we wore our hats. There was some water in the billabong but as someone we passed on the track remarked, the jolly swagman would have had trouble drowning in it.

16.15 Left Combo Waterhole.

17.10 Passed the Richmond T/O.

17.45 Passed the Boulia T/O 8 km before Winton.

17.50 Checked into the Matilda Caravan Park at Winton – $25

Amenities

No camp kitchen, just a bbq, table and sink.

One-course roast meals were on offer at $15 per person.

It became very windy and the lack of windproof shelter made reheating our dinner on our gas cooker a bit of a challenge, but it was worth the effort.

There were two amenities blocks which were clean and the water from the artesian basin was hot but smellled a bit.

An animal enclosure at the entrance held an alpaca, sheep and chickens and opposite that was a pool.

Tennant Creek – Mount Isa

9.35 Left Outback Caravan Park. Stopped at United to get ice – crushed $4 a bag.

11.45 Passed the Barkly Homestead – Mt Isa 460 km away – Carpentaria Highway, Booroloola T/O

13.00 Lunch stop at Soudan Bore rest area. More zebra finches.

13.25 Back on the road

14.00 Passed Avon Downs rest area and police station.

14.35 Paul Kelly sung us across the NT/QLD border – 10 km to Camooweal.

14.40 Camooweal: icecream and fuel stop – 30.04 L @ $1.669 per litre $50.14

30-minute time difference – turn all time-keeping devices forward 30 minutes.

15.30 Left Camooweal
17.20 Arrived at Mount Isa and checked into Argylla Caravan Village – $30.60.

Shopped at Woolies for dinner.

Cooked lamb chops, mashed potatoes and green beans in the camp kitchen.

Downloaded photos from my camera to my iPad Mini.

Amenities

Huge camp kitchen: full-sized electric stove, 2 microwaves, 2 grills, toaster, jug, fridge freezer.

Main shower block was at the other end of the park. At our end was a demountable comprising three combined shower and toilet units, which was fine untill three people were showering at the same time and someone needed to use the toilet!
Tip

You can give yourself more lunch-stop options by making your own sandwiches. I do it in the morning when I’m making toast for breakfast and have most of the ingredients and equipment out already.

I reuse either the plastic bag from the deli meat or the empty bread bag to wrap the sandwiches, then when we’ve eaten them, use the same bag in the car for fruit peel/skins.

The two fruits we find easiest to eat on the road are mandarins, preferably seedless, and bananas, with me, the passenger, peeling the fruit and feeding segments to the driver.