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.

We are travelling from Darwin to Sydney via the Stuart, Barkly, Landsborough, Warrego, Carnavon, Newell and New England Highways, then the old Pacific Highway to Sydney.

I’ll try to write this blog whenever I have time and coverage and include photos whenever I get a chance to download them from my camera.

There’ll be comments on places we stay such as the fees and quality of the facilities; fuel stops and cost; the location of strategic turn-offs; and, how long it takes us to cover each stage.

We are travelling in a Nissan Navara D22 4×4 dual cab ute with a rooftop tent mounted on the well body.

Day 1 – Sunday 23 August 2015

Left Darwin around 12.30 pm, a bit later than intended as always. Within an hour we hit our first lot of roadworks at Coomalie but the five-minute delay gave us the chance to get the CDs out from under the driver’s seat and launch Bob Segar, always first on the playlist!

Drove past Adelaide River around 13.50; Hayes Creek 14.20; and Emerald Springs 14.25. Bob Seger finished so we swapped him for Adele.

Passed quite a few cattle holding yards packed with stock probably waiting for their overseas trip to Indonesia.

The Pine Creek turnoff came up 15 minutes past Emerald Springs and the one for Edith Falls 30 minutes later with nothing to distract us inbetween except occasional sightings of kapok trees and turkey bush and jet streams in the sky making me wonder where they were all off to.
Crossed the Katherine River around 15.45, fuelled up at Woolies: 56L @ 143.3 cents per litre (cpl) less 4 cpl discount $74.87. Odometer 59276.
Left Katherine 16.07. Passed through Mataranka an hour later. Sign warning ‘No fuel next 176 km’ which would be Daly Waters therefore no fuel at Larrimah, our destination which we arrived at around 17.50.

Staff members are welcoming, fun and friendly. A full dinner menu is available. Pies were advertised but not on the dinner menu. However, when I asked if I could have one, the cook insisted on baking a fresh one rather than giving me the last one left, baked earlier today, but earmarked for an elderly regular. It was delicious.
The facilities are basic: 1 toilet and 1 combined toilet and shower each for males and females.
Camp kitchen includes bbq, jug and toaster.
Cost $9 per person for an unpowered site.