After our 500km detour to Alice, we set off again, with Cairns on the east coast as our target destination. Took a while to get back to warm weather. The trip back up the Stuart highway to Tennant Creek was long and boring. The only excitement along the way was a forced stop on the highway for about 30 mins while the police cleared an accident. Someone missed a bend and rolled their car off the road. We turned towards the east at Three Ways and found a gravel pit on the side of the road to spend the night.
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| A traffic hold-up for about 1 km while police cleared an accident |
On the following day we drove across the Queensland border - our fifth state/territory in our travels. We found a Radio Repeater tower and camped the night. This one was set on a hill with some great views in all directions. Lovely spot.
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| A lonely walk up the hill for Princess |
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Our camp spot near Camooweal next to the tower on a hill.
That's Princess in the bottom left of the photo. |
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| Lovely views in all directions |
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| You can see for miles... |
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| The sunset was disappointing, but the moon-rise made up for it |
Our next destination was Mount Isa. Cheap petrol! Only $1.37 with discount. There was only one place left for the underground mine tour, so I grabbed it. (I think Jude was happy to have an excuse not to go.) It was a fascinating tour and I got to keep the orange overalls that you have to dress up in. (Sorry, no photos.)
We found a nice camp spot about 50kms out of Mt Isa towards Cloncurry - Clem Walton Reserve. It's a recreational dam with lots of space for camping. There were about 8 other camps set up when we arrived, in stark comarison with the road side camp spot just prior to the dam turn-off, which would have had over 30 campers wedged in side-by-side - horrible. We considered spending more time but decided to keep moving towards our target destination.
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| Our camp spot at Clem Walton Reserve |
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| Spectacular view across the dam waters |
Cloncurry was a bit of a disappointment. Not much happening at all there. Even the public toilets were locked. We fueled up and kept moving. Found another Radio Repeater station 35kms out of Normanton.
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| Our camp site near Normanton |
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| Relaxing in the bush next to the Radio Repeater station |
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| View from the van window in the morning |
Normanton was a nice old town. We did the walking tour around town and saw the sights.
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| The old safe room for one of the original banks... |
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| ...being explored by Princess |
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Princess exploring the stairs and getting stuck.
She finally decided to go around the back to escape. |
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| The Purple Pub. It started out a soft mauve colour and has gotten darker with each re-paint. |
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The oldest bank in Australia that is still in operation.
The nicest automatic teller that I've ever seen. |
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Krys the crocodile. Apparently it was over 8m long.
Watch out Princess! |
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| The Gulflander narrow-gauge train that travels between Normanton and Croydon (about 150kms). |
The next town along is Croydon, an old gold-mining town. We decided it was time to set up our coffee machine again, so we booked into a caravan park - intially for one night but have extended for a second and third night. We were all packed up after the second night and ready to go when the neighbours told us about a free train trip and meal happening that night. How did we miss that? So we're staying for another night.
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| The map of our travels from Alice to Croydon |
