Wheel Nut Update 

One good thing is our wheel nuts have remained tight. However, the caravan's hand brake had nearly unscrewed. This hasn't ever happened to us before, so the only conclusion is that these nuts also weren't tightened by that slacko in Alice Springs.

Doing research into who to report this shonky workmanship to, we found on the Northern Territory Government website the following gem: "In the Northern Territory, repairers don’t have to be licensed to work on your vehicle, have specific equipment in their workshop, or employ only qualified trades people". So its a real case of buyer beware up there.

We'll keep that in mind next time we get someone to work on our car in the NT.  They sure are a rough and unique lot up there.

Plenty and Donohue Highways

These two "Highways" form part of "Australia's Longest Shortcut" which will eventually link WA with Queensland on a tarred road. But at the moment they are mostly just dirt roads, and sometimes terrible, with the NT side much worse than Queensland.

This highway runs from Laverton WA to Winton Qld, connecting Perth to Cairns. We did the Laverton to Alice Springs section in 2017, so we thought we should do the remaining section.

We left Gemtree and headed towards Jervois Station, but didn't camp there as it was a dust bowl. So we headed to Arthur River free camp, which turned out to be another dust bowl, but at least it was a free one!

There was only 1 other couple camped here, and they wandered over for a beer around our fire.

We'd heard reports of cars getting bogged in the bull-dust on the Plenty Highway at the moment. The worst dust hole we drove through was about 250m long and the ruts were so deep you could see the marks on the centre ridge where other vehicles had been bottoming out. Luckily our LandCruiser is higher than most and we didn't bottom out at all.  It's still a dicky drive, with the car veering off on it's own merry way sometimes.  

Tobermorey Station

We headed to Tobermorey Station, which is just on the Northern Territory side of the border with Queensland. 

Just before Tobermorey Station we saw a small white car on the side of the road with another car giving assistance.

It turned out this was a VW EOS, about the size of a Golf. The car was fitted with low profile tyres and the two girls who were driving it got to the first bull dust hole and turned around. Then they had a flat tyre and no spare.

Thankfully the staff from Tobermorey went out and rescued them. They brought the girls back to the station, leaving the VW on the side of the road overnight. Lucky for them the car was still in one piece when they went back the next day.  This is very unusual, because normally the car would have been stripped of anything worthwhile overnight, leaving just the shell by morning. 

 One tyre needed 14 holes plugged to get it to roll, and it was eventually brought back to Tobermorey. The girls could still be there now, as nobody carries low profile tyres in the outback, and there was nowhere a low profile tyre would be likely to come from.  According to the 2 girls, somebody at the Boulia Tourist Information told them the road was tar from there to Alice Springs.  We find this very hard to believe as it's crucial to know road conditions before you go anywhere, and you rely on this information to get from A to B.

The effort the Tobermorey staff went to to assist these girls was first class. Even helping put up their tent and blowing up their airbed!  

On the way we had a close encounter yet again, but this time with a helicopter, who looked as if he was going to land in the middle of the road, just in front of us!

He didn't, as he was mustering cattle, but gee he came close. Talk about good flying -  these pilots really know how to throw a helicopter around!

We decided to camp at Tobermorey as they had grass, quite luxurious and a real treat. $30 / night is quite ok for such luxuries. They also had a bar for tourists as well as station hands. Who can refuse that?

When we got there they had 3 helicopters in their front paddock.

In talking to the young Station "Ringer" around the bar that night, we learnt that at first light these helicopters were heading out to do some mustering down the southern end of the property, near the Simpson Desert.

A fire pit created on the back of the old truck around the bar which has a BBQ plate under the bonnet

You can't tell from this pic, but the roof structure behind Jayne is 2 windmill fan wheels.

Tobermorey Station has a levy-bank surrounding it to keep the river out. We asked how often this levy bank get used, and the answer was March this year, where the water was more than half way up the levy bank.

March was when we wanted to come west across the Plenty Highway at the start of this holiday, but it was closed due to flood. Now we know why. The photo we saw showed the station completely surrounded by flood waters.

The levy bank surrounding Tobermorey Station

Camping on grass!

They have spring water there!

Sure enough at 7am, first light, well actually before first light, the helicopters were fired up. One was a bit reluctant to start, creating quite a bit of smoke.

As soon as the sun peaked over the horizon, they took off one by one.

Sunrise at the Bushtracker

This is what happens if you forget to tie up the paper towels (again)

Boulia

Boulia is at the end of these dirt highways. Thankfully we've now done the "Plenty" and we don't think we'll do it again, until it's all sealed, which is due to happen soon enough.

Very conveniently they have a free "wash down bay" to use. This was really needed as both the van and car were very dirty.

The 3 hoses were as big as a fireman's hose and needed two hands to control.  They really blasted the dirt off.

Both were shiny clean after this spa 

The caravan park there is quite nice and they have a resident horse that comes around for carrots and apples from the tourists.

In Boulia when Alan was up on the roof of our van he noticed that one of our solar panels was shattered! We don't know where this happened, but apparently it only takes a small sharp rock to smash them.  We had shattered a solar panel on our Kedron some years ago on the Oodnadatta Track, but that time a road train had powered past with stones raining down on us, and one of the panels on the driver's side suffered this fate.

But nothing had been near us on the Plenty and certainly not on the passenger's side. So this is a bit of a mystery.

Middleton Hotel in the middle of nowhere

A tiny plane had just landed before we arrived and pulled up outside the pub 

Winton

On the way to Winton we had a speeding car pass us on the one lane sealed road and he threw a rock up at us which cracked the windscreen, even though we were going at a snail's pace.  The crack has spread right across the windscreen, but thankfully not in the driver's vision. Not having much luck with the rocks around here and at least this one is covered by insurance!

We stopped for 2 nights in Winton to do washing and had dinner at the pub.

The local pub has Guinness on tap, which was quite nice! Al normally has 1, but he enjoyed these so much he had 3. It also meant he could send a photo to Merv, who makes sure he has a Guinness every Friday night and sends a pic to keep in touch.

Goodberry Hills Broadwater Campground

We had to look further afield for camping options as Longreach is probably the worst camping in any town in Australia. This is really surprising, as Longreach has excellent tourism, but terrible caravn parks. We found this gem which was 40kms from Longreach.

Wikicamps came good with the recommendation, then its was booked through Hipcamp. Couldn't have been easier to do. The instructions on how to get there and what to expect at each of their 11 campsites was amazing. $10/night/person was so worth it.

No grass, but nice firm dirt 

We selected Site 11, as it had good views of the river and also of the hills

Alan finally getting to use our chainsaw

There was lots of firewood around, so we didn't have to walk far to get it

This is definitely the biggest fire we've ever had!

People were catching Redclaw in the river. It's a freshwater Australian Crustacean, sort of like a Yabby. All you need is a Yabby net, which Jayne purchased in Longreach.  We used to have one, but threw it out because this "Opera House" style is now illegal in most states, but not Queensland. So, not much use carrying one around when they're only $15.

Then some bait. We were told the best bait was "Good-O" dog food, but this was only available in 3kg bags.  So Jayne asked the staff at IGA Longreach and they recommended small cans of cat food. Redclaw also eat soap, potatoes, rotten vegetables or fruit. So they're not fussy what they eat.

Yabby net plus cat food, does that equal Redclaw?

YES!

Our haul - although we caught another whopper after this photo was taken

So our largest Redclaw gave us a small amount of flesh. You can only eat the tails.

This Redclaw gave us ...

...this much flesh

Plus potatoes wrapped in foil in the fire 

Not a lot of Redclaw, but we had 5 large ones. Which meant our meals were a real "River and Turf"

Complete with potato in the jacket cooked in the fire! 

It was a great meal, and anything cooked in garlic and butter has got to taste good.  It was a little like lobster but more tender and juicy. They didn't have as much flavour as lobster, but definitely worth the effort.

Goodberry Hills Broadwater was the best camping we've had in Central Queensland, and we've been to some really good ones. So that's a big call.   

Camping in such an isolated area around a roaring log fire is a great place to do some soul searching, and we really appreciate the opportunities we have.  What seems so important at home isn't out here, and the days are simple.  How much firewood do we have, and is there any left lying around we can scrounge from a previous camper?  What is the quality of the dirt we're camping on?  Is it firm, or does it blow around your feet every step you take, and gets into EVERYTHING? Can't we find some grass somewhere? The sky is clear and full of stars, and we can see the Southern Cross (always), Scorpio (yes) or Orion's Belt (unfortunately not this holiday).

We had group chat around the fire in Boulia the other night, and a woman commented on how frustrating it is travelling with her husband, and how much they annoy each other. We were shocked that she was happy to share this information with a bunch of strangers. We're happy in each other's company 24 hours a day, and thankful we both love doing this kind of travel.  Having an offroad van means we are able to stay away from the hoards of "grey nomads" who only traverse a set path and don't venture off the sealed roads.

Alan is always tinkering or fixing something or other that's broken, come loose or needs some outback ingenuity to fix, mostly due to the rough roads we travel on. The caravan is covered in dirt most of the time, but how good is it when it's clean?  When we got lost on our way to Newhaven, and it was getting dark (and always the best sunset when you can't enjoy it) we were pretty wound up, but being helped by the 3 Aboriginal guys really gave us faith in the generosity of others.

Muttaburra 

Muttaburra is the geographic centre of Queensland and is part of the dinosaur trail out here as well as the start of the Sculptures Trail. Population about 100 people.

It's a real grey nomad place with many vans here.

Muttaburra is also famous for Dinosaurs. They have found the second most complete dinosaur here in 1963. The Muttaburrasaurus!

Here's Jayne standing with her new friend

Nice legs........

Our lakeside campsite 1 km out of town - $6/night

While camped here we were able to catch up with one of the guys who helped design our Bushtracker.  Peter is a wealth of knowledge, and when he retired from Bushtracker 4 years ago he bought a Zone RV caravan.  Very interesting ...

The weather out here has been bordering on a heatwave, with unusual temperatures around 30-35 degrees.  We love it, but the locals want their winter back which according to the forecast should happen as early as tomorrow!

They have an excellent hospital museum which was incredible in its detail and equipment in each room.  The original doctor who started the hospital in 1925 was ingenious with his solutions to any problem he had, and employed the local blacksmiths, engineers and anybody else that could help him create equipment to use.

The Operating Theatre

Ward 1

It's a very friendly town and everyone says G'day to you as you walk around.

We're still hanging around in outback Queensland as Sydney is still in Covid lockdown and will be for at least another month. We were going to go to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, but they have also just gone into Covid lockdown as well.

If they open up the Sunshine Coast, we'll do a bypass through there and get Bushtracker to replace the solar panel as well as fix the fridge.

Talk about having to have flexible plans! So we just don't know where we're going from here. This is certainly a mystery to be solved.