Another cool night last night, and another cool morning this morning. Around 7 or 8 degrees which was unpleasant for us, but must have been a great deal more unpleasant for the people beside us in a tent.
At least we had hot water for a shower.
We didn’t set any records getting out of the WWII Airfield free camp this morning, but 8.15 wasn’t anything to be ashamed of.
We are still trying to catch up days after staying longer than we planned in Darwin.
Yesterday was a long day – around 650km – so we were in the sack early and woke with the birds.
6.30am. Yikes! I don’t want to make a habit of that!
If you have been following along you will recall that a couple of weeks ago we had a 24.5 hour day when we crossed into the NT and turned our clocks back 30 minutes.
Yesterday they took it back off us again when we crossed back into Queensland, and we had a 23.5 hour day.
Today we were targeting about 400km, but the difference between yesterday and today was that yesterday we really only went through one township – Camooweal – while today we were going through a few. Well, two to be exact but they are both significantly larger in population than Camooweal.
Camooweal is a “blink and you miss it” kind of place, while Mt Isa and Cloncurry both have supermarkets, and gyms, and coffee shops, and ATMs, and Supercheap Autos.
Well, Mt Isa has a Supercheap Auto. Cloncurry had an Icom dealership.
I may have mentioned that we fill up Elsie when fuel is cheap, and top her up when it is expensive. And when I say “top her up”, I mean put in just enough to get us to the next cheap fuel location.
Mt Isa was only about 45km from last night’s stop, and the Elsie’s fuel range indicator said that we had about 85km remaining in the tank … so we have plenty of fuel to get to Mt Isa … right?
Maybe.
I obviously miscalculated how much I put in at Camooweal, because by the time we arrived in Mt Isa there was only about 20km range remaining. Or maybe the condition of the roads resulted in must worse fuel consumption than I expected.
We made it OK, but I think that Elsie was getting thirsty.
Not only does Mt Isa have cheap fuel ($2.04/litre), but it also has a Coles and a Woolworths, so we had the opportunity to stock up on groceries.
… except that both Coles and Woolworths are closed on Sundays … so no stocking up was able to be done.
We stopped at the side of the road in the Isa and had a video call with some of our favourite little people (Teddy and Lili), which meant that our emotional tanks were full also.
Full tanks, so off we set towards Cloncurry.
Our experience on the roads between Cloncurry and Three Ways (basically the straight road that runs east to west) is that a combination of bumpy roads, potholes, hilly terrain, cross winds and head winds together result in poor fuel consumption. On that east-west road – travelling in both directions – we were lucky to get below 24 litres/100km.
That situation wasn’t helped any by a large number of pushbikes that were out for a Sunday morning ride. The highway is quite narrow – only one lane each way, and quite windy and hilly with a lot of blind corners – and there just wasn’t enough space to easily (and safely) swing out onto the wrong side of the road to pass them.
So there were times where we were stuck doing 20km/h behind them because we just couldn’t get past. Well, not without knocking them off their bikes, and I’m fairly certain that there are rules about that.
And there was plenty of chatter on the radio from truckers who were less than pleased with the situation.
Yep, pushbikes have a right to ride on the roads too, and they did it on a Sunday morning when – I assume – traffic was lighter. But it was still pretty chaotic. And dangerous.
And frustrating.
You see some strange road signs warning about various things, and this one caught our eye. I assume that it means to beware of giant cows that eat cars?
Or maybe not.
We arrived in the Curry around 11.00am with just a few things to do. Fill the water tanks again because we are off grid again tonight, empty the grey water, get coffee, and make a booking to stay in Karumba.
Cloncurry is a very RV friendly town. Wide streets where you can easily turn a bullock train around … or a caravan for that matter … and a nice rest area just out of town with a dump point and potable water facilities.
Plenty of reasonably priced fuel at stations where you can easily pull in your caravan (… many of them have low roofs, or very small spaces between bowsers which makes it very difficult to manoeuvre a van).
And it is a pretty little place to boot. We went to a local coffee shop to get coffee, but we only managed to progress one place in the queue in about 8 minutes, and we just couldn’t be bothered. Going out for coffee and breakfast must be a popular pastime in the Curry on a Sunday morning.
Someone that we were speaking with the other day said that they were heading east and planned to be in Townsville for the Super V8s racing there soon. Something that I would really like to see one day.
You don’t get an appreciation of the logistics involved in moving the racing from one location to another, but I imagine that there is a lot of complexity involved.
We saw this car carrier in Cloncurry that is obviously on its way to Townsville for the race and transporting all of the official vehicles.
I’d never really given that any thought before …
So with the water tanks filled and our booking in Karumba secured for three nights from Monday night, we set off north on roads that we have never driven on.
I mentioned that the road from the Curry to Three Ways gives bad fuel economy. Travelling north towards Normanton and Karumba, we were getting an average of 18.5 litres/100km which was far more acceptable.
But then the roads were flatter, more even, and nicer to drive on.
We stopped for lunch at the Quamby Hotel which was about 45 minutes north of Cloncurry. They get good ratings, and we were getting hungry. And it is a quirky little pub.
MBW pointed out that we have only eaten out once so far on this trip, and that was lunch at Julia Creek. Sure, we have bought things to eat, but many of them were just a quick bite and often fundraising anyway.
So we stopped at the Quamby Pub and had steak sandwiches for lunch. And because we had some network coverage, we were able to upload a couple of long-overdue blogs.
The original plan was that we would stay at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse at Four Ways tonight. Four Ways is a location north of Cloncurry where roads to Lawn Hill, Normanton, Cloncurry and Julia Creek all meet.
But we were keen to stay off the grid again (actually we were keen not to spend any money again), so we found another location about 80km beyond Four Ways. Plus some WikiCamps reviews of the Roadhouse described the owner in not particularly flattering terms and gave him increasingly poor ratings, so even though there were plenty of vans stopped there, we kept going.
We blasted through Four Ways around 2.30pm and kept on towards home for tonight – a free camp called Bang Bang Rest Area.
The section from Four Ways to Bang Bang had quite a bit of roadworks going on, with a few bits of dirt (getting ready for bitumen to be replaced), and road crews working in a few locations.
And we arrived in Tropical North Queensland.
Just like the Promised Land, only … Tropical 🙂
One of the most unusual things that we saw was a paddock of anthills, just before we arrived at Bang Bang. There must have been hundreds of them on both sides of the road. Quite unusual, but also quite stunning.
A few stops at traffic lights and a few stop/go people doing it the old fashioned way, and we arrived at Bang Bang Rest Area around 3.30pm.
Only one other van here when we arrived and they had jagged the better spot further away from the toilets. There is probably room for 10-15 vans at a pinch, but rather than cramp their space, we stayed at the toilet end, upwind of the loos.
A pleasant little free camp site for the night that serves our only purpose of somewhere to stay the night.
As a wise person once said, “Home is wherever I park my caravan”. So tonight home is Bang Bang Rest Area, about 110km south of Normanton.
I will say that despite my complaints about the cold, the further north we go again, the hotter it is getting. When we stopped at BBRA it was 27 or 28 degrees, and once we had set up for the night, we were back into shorts and T-shirts.
We bought lunch at the pub today, so dinner tonight will be eggs on toast. We figure that we had better hurry up and eat those eggs before they turn into chickens.
Although given the bird flu issues and the shortage of eggs in Coles, maybe we could sell them on eBay?
I must say that I am looking forward to a short day tomorrow and staying in Karumba for 3 nights. And getting some rest. We have done some long distances over the last few days, but that’s OK because we have travelled (most of) these roads before, and there is not a great deal to see anyway.
But now we will start to be going through small townships again, so we will have something to slow down for and look at. And because tomorrow is Monday, there is a better chance of things being open. Everything out here closes on the weekends, and in many of these small townships you could fire a cannon down the main street on a Sunday and not risk hitting anything or anyone.
Although it seems that if you fired a cannon into the coffee shop in Cloncurry on a Sunday morning, you’d probably wipe out most of the township while they sip their lattes.
The sunsets continue to be spectacular. After dinner we went out and watched the sun set over the toilet block.
The perfect end to the perfect day.
And MBW says that there is no romance in our marriage … ha!
Ciao
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