It's now August 15th...My mother would have been 95 today. I placed a photo of her on my noticeboard in the van, wrote a Happy Birthday note and circled it with a heart. Thinking of you Mum💕
It's also 5 months since I left home 😱It only feels like yesterday!!
I packed up at Cloncurry very relieved the electrical problem was solved and drove to the Discovery Park Argylla in Mount Isa.
This park had a great swimming pool which I quickly tested out...OMG was it cold?!?! but refreshing as temps are warming up during the day quite considerably. I stayed a few days as there was quite a lot to explore, but it wasn't all go go go as I did spend a day lazing around the pool reading. I had it all to myself as anyone north of the Vic/NSW border won't swim no matter how hot the day is as the water is too cold. Only us southerners have the stamina to swim in 15 degree water❄️🤣
First port of call - the information centre where I booked a tour package that bought me the Hard Times underground Mine guided tour, the Riversleigh Fossil guided Tour, entrance to the Rodeo Hall of Fame, Botanical gardens and Art Gallery and Museum. The art gallery had a fantastic exhibition by a contemporary aboriginal artist. I took a card so I'd remember the artists name, but can't find it...doh!!
Although not necessarily drawn to fossils I had decided to do the Riversleigh Fossils tour as I had opted out of driving into the fossil site when I was at Boodjamulla NP. That would have meant driving more corrugated roads!!! I'm so glad now I did the tour. The specimens and lab at the Mount Isa Tourist precinct was fascinating. I've taken the following text from the website as it describes why Riversleigh is so important to palaeontologists far better than I can. "From more than 250 fossil-rich sites at Riversleigh, hundreds of new species have been described from thousands of well-preserved specimens" It goes on to say, "Nowhere else in the world is there such a rich, detailed and continuous fossil record of the changes in fauna, habitat and climate at a single locality".
The following photo is of limestone rocks that have fossils embedded in them and are going through a process of being soaked in solutions to dissolve them to reveal the fossils. This can take anywhere from 5 weeks to 6 months of changing the solutions on a constant basis depending on how dense the limestone is. Our tour guide has lifted the rocks out of the solution for us to see in this instance.
This next photo shows, under the microscope, the hundreds of tiny incisors, teeth, bones etc from animals dating up to 30,000 years ago that come out of the limestone rocks.
Until we saw it under the microscope it looked like sand particles!!
Our tour guide is credited with finding the first ever looped bone joint. It belonged to a small fresh water fish and 8 have been found since this was discovered.
Note the scale measurement. Total length about 6mm
The Hard Times mine tour would probably be a mechanic or engineers dream tour. I thought it was great but my brain couldn't take in all the truck and machinery information the tour guide was telling us about. That said the stories of the miners and their life working in the mines was fascinating. How miners work in the darkness every day is amazing. I certainly couldn't do it. We were not permitted photos so this one, taken by our guide, is the only "Mine" photo I have.
Mount Isa gets it water supply from Lake Moondarra about 15kms NE of the town. Camping was allowed in the past but it is now a day use area only. It felt like I was driving around Hume Weir in places except the hills surrounding it were completely different. Rocky outcrops instead of lush blue hills.
Reminded me of Lake Hume
A pano of Moondarra Lake with the dam wall just under the sunlight streak
Lake Moondarra peacocks. They were everywhere around the lake and park area.
On 18th August I left Mount Isa heading west for Camooweal traveling through beautiful rocky hills. (I love them), and then passed through dry, flat, red clay scrub country as I got closer to the NT border.
I decided I'd try some free camping by the Georgina River billabong. It gets a great wrap from WikiCamps and I can understand why. It's peaceful, free and everyone can get a spot by the river view (although the water was getting fairly low at this stage of the season). The sort of place where you can chill out, paint, read a book or play some music. I did some painting!!! When I arrived it was a beautiful calm afternoon, but at 6pm the wind started to really blow up and all that dust you see in the photo ended up in the van. Well at least quite a lot of it did!!!
The dust bowl with a view!!
The view - 5.55pm sunset reflections on trees in the south eastern sky taken from the van doorway
Stairway to the moon...8.43pm the moon rising over the Georgina River. The stars were amazing although it was a near full moon so quite bright.
6.46am the following morning here is the same view as last nights moon shot!
Although the camp was great, a strong wind was forecast for the next few days and I had to get out of the dust bowl so I pulled up stumps, drove into Camooweal town and parked my van at the Post Office Hotel & Caravan Park. Alain and Francoise arrived a few hours later. We partook in happy hour at the pub and stayed on for dinner. The following day we drove out to the Camooweal Caves for a picnic lunch.
Camooweal Caves are sinkholes formed over 500 million years by water seeping through beds of dolimite.
Our picnic spot on the Georgina River Billabong not far from the Camooweal Caves. The wind was quite cold, probably one of the colder days for some time
Before we departed from Camooweal the following day we all did a guided tour of the Drovers Camp. Camooweal was on the border between QLD and NT and was the central location of all the drovers routes throughout the top end of Australia. Droving was a huge business and was the only way cattle were moved to markets or between states and farms right up until the 1960's. If I've got this correct, QLD made over 33,000 pounds in border stock fees in it's first year of operation (1884 I think), which might give you an idea of the size of the industry.
Our guide gave us heaps of history on the routes, the different roles and hierarchy of drovers and stockmen and here he is showing us how they made their lamps from water and dolomite carbon rock.
A quirky fact about Camooweal. When it was established in 1884 it was the administrative centre for the shire. As Mount Isa grew and was renamed the City Of Mount Isa in 1968, it took over administration for the shire, but Camooweal was retained as a suburb of Mount Isa making it into the Guinness book of records as the longest city road (190km) in the world.
Still heading west and a few kilometres from Camooweal I crossed into the Northern Territory, This is the first time I have been in NT country!!! Almost immediately the terrain changed. Very flat dry grasslands and hardly any tree vegetation. It looked amazing and you could almost see the curvature of the earth.
Alain and Francoise were following behind and we had set up CB radio contact so we could chat , which made the trip lots of fun..."64, 64 do you read me" 😎
We dropped in at Barkly Homestead for a break, but decided to drive on to Frewah free camp about 50 kms further west on the Barkly Highway. It was a dust bowl again like the Camooweal Billabong, but we parked our vans as best as we could to shield the strong winds (I think it's a common Barkly Tablelands occurrence?) and watched another great sunset over a few drinks and dinner together.
Almost gone
The next morning I took a walk around the parking lot!!!! It was huge and in the wet season would be under water. No fear of vans being squashed in here, they could park so far away they'd just be a spec in the distance. 12 vans had parked there overnight.
We packed up and continued on to Tennant Creek in tandem stopping off at "Three Ways Roadhouse" where the Sturt Highway meets the Barkly Highway. Chatting on the CB radio was a lot of fun again. We turned onto the Sturt Highway to Tennant Creek, 25kms south and parked side by side at Tennant Creek Caravan Park
After setting up camp we visited the Art Gallery where there was a fantastic diorama exhibition of the history of settlement of the region and the conflict between white and black. We met Jerry, an aboriginal tour guide who explained a lot of this to us as well as explaining the meaning behind the shapes in traditional aboriginal art. It was a great insight into the art form. He also took us out to the studio and showed us where the local artists work and some special bracelets worn by young aboriginal youths to combat depression. The following morning we walked back to the gallery to meet some of the artists.
Jerry telling us all about the special bracelets
Meet Aileen, one of the local artists painting a snake
This was already sold, otherwise I would have considered buying it. It was beautiful
A staff member of the gallery was raising a baby red kangaroo who had lost it's mother. It's now around 2 months old. We were lucky to be there at feeding time when she took it out of it's basket (pouch substitute).
Named "Nala", this little red kangaroo will grow up to be approximately 6 foot tall.
How cute is this???
Note the small dot marking around the nose and a circle of dots above the eyes. You could be forgiven for thinking Nala had been used as a canvas for an aboriginal painting, but we were told all kangaroos have the same markings...
Tennant Creek has a very big population of full blooded Aboriginals. It was very common to walk by a group and hear them talking in their native dialect. Tennant Creek also has one of the strictest alcohol restrictions in Australia. Bottle shops hours are very short, a policeman at the door checks ID as you enter, ID is checked again when you purchase and there is a strict limit to how much you can buy.
Not far from Tennant Creek is a smaller version of the Devils Marbles called "The Pebbles" and we decided it was a good spot for happy hour so we took drinks and nibbles out and enjoyed another great sunset.
Mother Teresa visited Tennant Creek in 1985. The Catholic Church has a hall of memorabilia and Francoise and I took a look.
We'd packed a lot into Tennant Creek, but it was time to move, so Devil's Marbles here we come. For me this meant a detour 103kms south, but from my research I thought it was worth the trip. I was still travelling with my friends and on arrival we parked our vans side by side at the Campground for a cost of $3.30. What a magic place, especially at sunset and sunrise.
This was taken during the afternoon on one of our walks
From a lookout point and if you look closely enough you'll spot my little van amongst the vehicles.
From the camp ground
The colours of sunset on the rocks was magnificent.
It's August 24th and tonight is my last night travelling with my friends as they head further south to Alice Springs and I am turning back north on my way to Darwin. To celebrate they surprised me with a sumptuous seafood banquet under the stars. Lobster tails, Tiger prawns and King Salmon and I had a lovely Rose to add to the meal.
Not the best photo, but a beautiful memory of a delightful couple who will remain very dear friends. Thank you Alain and Francoise for your company, hospitality and friendship. It was wonderful to meet you and experience so many memorable moments with you and I look forward to more in the future 😘
And here are some sunrise photos around 7am next morning before packing up the van and heading north again.
It's now August 26th and it was time to finally bid farewell to Alain and Francoise 😞 I drove through to Tennant Creek again and decided to spend another night. I needed to do some washing and I wasn't sure I'd get those facilities for a few days. The next morning I left around 9.30am and drove about 200kms north calling in to the Three Ways road junction for a coffee on my way.
Almost every pub or roadhouse collects some memorabilia so they are all worth checking out.
The altitude appeared quite high and it was windy so travel was relatively slow going at about 80 to 85 kph. I didn't mind because I am listening to some audio book, biography's on Michael Jackson and another one on Keith Richards and they are fascinating 😳
On my way I passed through some beautiful scenery especially as I came to the end of the tablelands.
I arrived at my next destination and parked my van at Rennie Springs Roadhouse (about 180kms north of Tennant Springs) around 1pm. There's nothing at Rennie Springs except the roadhouse, but I was happy to stop and take the afternoon off. My arms were tired from holding the steering wheel steady against the wind!!! But the van is towing magnificently and when the road is good I hardly know it's behind me.
Rennie Springs...Although the water doesn't look great, it's spring water on tap and lovely to drink. I filled all my tanks 😀 as a lot of places only have bore water, which is pretty awful drinking water.
While having lunch I was inundated with feathered friends calling in!!!
Geese, chooks and peacocks looking for a left over morsel
The park was empty when I arrived at 1pm, but by 5pm it was getting pretty busy. I wasn't in a rush to get away the following morning, but It was empty again by the time I left around 9.30am.
That's me in the distance to the right of the blue car 😎
On the next days journey I passed some very desolate dry rocky country
I arrived at Daly Waters Pub and parked my van at the caravan park beside it. There's not a lot at Daly Waters to do apart from the pub and a museum across the road. Both are full of an eclectic mix of memorabilia and obscure collections making for an interesting afternoons entertainment.
I walked into REECEPSHUN and yes...that's bra's hanging above the bar
Bra's to the left of me, knickers to the right...here I am stuck in the middle😳 🤣What an entertaining sight!!
And across the road at the museum...
Everyone says you have to eat the famous Beef and Barra pub dinner and I did...it was yummy. I sat with 2 couples who were great fun and ended up staying on until quite late listening to the entertainer and chatting. One night at Daly Waters is certainly worth the visit 👍
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I've done lots of kms this month as I've done some fairly long side trips to tourist attractions in the vicinity of where I parked the van. One being the trip to Lawn Hill and Adel's Grove.
Total Distance travelled to date 15,115 kms
March....764km
April .....1225km
May......3435km
June....2800km
July.....2606km
August....3908km
Loving your comments and I hope I'm not making those in the south too jealous. I can assure you the boot will be on the other foot shortly when I hit hot humid conditions and wish I was in the more temperate cooler regions of Australia😎 Until next time...enjoy