Posts for September, 2023

We started today with a tour of Broome, the port and some of the beaches. The seaside and blue ocean are really beautiful. Maybe not so much the town. This was in some sense a final goodbye to Broome as I cannot imagine we will be back here again.

We were keen to get to Mount Barnett this morning so were on the road by 7:30 and arrived there about 10:30. Brendon and Daniel of course had nothing to do while waiting for us so they had walked the 5km round trip to Manning Gorge one of the prime attractions of a trip on the Gibb River Road and hence were not at the campground when we arrived but turned up looking refreshed from swimming in the Gorge about lunchtime.

With the tyre repaired yesterday we all decided we would spend today taking the hike to Manning Gorge. The first obstacle on the hike is a river which requires about 100m of swimming and then a 2-3km walk over rocky ground and up and down through a number of sharp creek beds. Brendon took on the job of being guide and assistant to Nina and did a splendid job.

This morning we again said goodbye to the cyclists even though our routes coincide for the next 200km or so. We will almost cetrtainly not see them again on this trip. We will travel West to the Lennard River (200km) and then South while the cyclists will probably do the 300+km West into Derby.

The highlight of the day was finding that RAAF Boab Quarry was still operating as an informal campground, and that the quarry was full of water offering good swimming opportunities. There was no water in the quarry in 2019 when we camped there.

Today really was just a driving day, we have some business to do in Katherine and would like to have some of Friday available for that business.So the goal for the day was to get to within 300km of Katherine by the end of the day.

Readers may recall that back at the start of August we spent a few days in Croydon Qld waiting for a parcel that was supposed to arrive there on Aug 4th but did not. That parcel contained a special nut for the front axle shaft of Daniel's bicycle and is supposed to help hold the front wheel in the front fork of the bike. The nut was lost and this new one was ordered via ebay on July 20th. So since at least July 20th the front axle (and hence front wheel) of Daniel's bike has been held in by a couple of zip-ties pretending to be an axle nut.

The big news of today is that Brendon and Daniel completed the final 165km of their bicycle ride from Cairn, Queensland to Broome, Western Australia. A ride of some 4000km which they started on July 8th. For some images of the final day see Brendon's Instagram account brenwell.

These two cyclists were at the campground in Elliott last night but we did not get a chance to chat so this morning we stopped on the roadside and offered them a cold coke each. Mark is from Edmonton, Alberta and Everlyn is from Switzland. They are cycling from Darwin to Adelaide and were finding the 36°C temperatures a bit trying not to mention the strong headwinds.

Today started with a few more photos of the bird life on the remainder of the lake at the Frewina rest Area. Once underway we were soon at Barkley Roadhouse which seems once to have been part of the homestead for Barkley Station (it may still be). We were really impressed by this roadhouse. It is the best maintained and most up-market roadhouse we have seen in all of our Australia Travels. In addition the kissing lizards out the front of the roadhouse entrance were very impressive and the Guinea Fowl running around the place were entertaining.

It was a shortish drive into Mt Isa this morning and thereafter the day was about the town and surrounds of Mt Isa. The mine and associated works certaiinly do dominate the town.

We thought today would be "just a driving day", but as it turned out there were a few things along the way worth seeing. But first there was another effort to capture the extend to which the mine-works in Mt Isa, visually dominates the town.

Well, what a surprise. This morning just after we woke up there was a sort-of "honking noise" outside the truck which turned out to be a pair of Brolgas which are very large long necked birds a bit like a crane only much much larger (almost Emu size).

Today was allocated to visiting the The Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame which, afterall, is what Longreach is best known for. Although the town has somewhat gone all-out on tourism as there are a number of Australiana/historical attractions in the town not the least of which is the QANTAS exhibit which boasts its own real Boing 747.

We loitered a bit today in the tiny town of Barcaldine. It is a tidy place with a nice picnic area beside the highway so there was plenty of shaded tables to lounge on so it was a pleasant place to spend some of the day. But it is also a historically and politically significant town as in some ways it is the home of the Australian Labour movement and the Australian Labour Party. To emphasis this the town is host to an enormous museum called The Australian Workers Heritage Center

Some readers will know of the song Augathella Station by the Australian Folk Group The Bushwackers. This is a song Nina and I have listened to for over 40 years and today we will finally get to visit the town of Augathella which is in Queensland cattle country and is central to the song.

There is not much to say about today as we are at the end of the trip and the "lets get home" feeling is trying to takeover our days. This can be seen by the distance we drove today, much greater than we would normally drive.

The plan was for today to be a driving day and to end the day in a position to arrive in Sydney tomorrow. Thus there was not much sight-seeing today.

We did a little exploring around Manilla this morning, the town pub, an old school building which is now a museum and a local parrot. Mid morning we stopped in the town of Wallabadah where to our surprise we found a memorial to the First Fleet which included a list of all the members of that expedition.