Back to Darwin and down to Tennant Creek

After nearly 3 weeks in very cold Sydney, we packed Bailey up and headed to the airport for our 5 hour flight to Darwin and much hotter weather, but unfortunately also humidity.

Bailey is becoming a Frequent Flyer these days, so he knew what he was getting into when we got to the airport, but that didn't make him any happier about it.

The ride to the airport with Alexis started out exciting for Bailey

Until he saw the dreaded cage, then his mood changed for the worse!!

5 hours later in Darwin he squealed like a piglet when he saw us. The cage handler said "He's excited to see you - how long has he been away?". We answered 5 hours! The guy looked at us rather strangely.

We took him to the Darwin Waterfront for lunch

Merv and Jenny were still in Saddle Park in Darwin when we arrived. They loved the place so much they ended up staying nearly 2 months.  So we enjoyed Happy Hour drinks on the night of our arrival. They headed down to Mt. Bundy Station the next day.  Jayne ran into them 3 days later in Woolies in Katherine. This seems to be a common meeting place for all our travelling friends as we've bumped into many people here over the years. Boy, they travel slowly - we were just passing through Katherine at lunch time and they had two overnight stops to get there. I think we've got a lot to learn about slowing down.

Happy Hour

From Darwin our first stop was Mataranka for the hot springs. Bailey had to wait in our van while Jayne and I had a swim in the 32° water.

We camped at Bitter Springs

Our second night from Darwin was Longreach Waterhole, which is nowhere near Longreach, but is just 12kms from Elliott. The camping area was huge and totally free.  We both agree this is one of the very best free camps we've been to.

Our waterfront site

It was quite warm there, and Bailey was still struggling from the heat and humidity.

So a walk around the lake always ended up with him having a dip.

On the opposite bank are around 30 pelicans and hundreds of cormorants

Bailey enjoying the view and soft grass

Not bad eh?

We were able to have a fire here, so Jayne brought out the firewood, in a Paspaley Pearls bag no less!  She claims it's the strongest firewood bag we've ever owned.

We headed down to Tennant Creek for two nights before we head east on the Plenty Highway and then the Donohue Highway to get to Boulia in Queensland. This road is about 680 kms of dirt. We've been tossing up whether to do this as Central Queensland has a lot of road closures due to unusual winter rains. This is even happening now as Tennant Creek received quite a fall today. So much for this being a desert!

We rang Boulia Council and were told the Donohue Highway is closed. We also just spoke to Tobermorey Station that's on the NT / Qld border and were informed there are 3 fully loaded road trains bogged between there and Boulia! Her final words were "I'm not sure what condition they'll leave the road in"

I then rang Jervios Station, and they said its still raining there and they had 18mm overnight and 6mm so far today. This has turned their bull-dust roads into a quagmire. They are officially closed there within NT.

So we've given up on doing the Plenty and Donohue Highways!

Alice Springs to Boulia is the road we wanted to go on. However, Bedourie to Windorah is also closed, so we cant get out of Boulia even if we got there!

So where we'll go to from here is anyone's guess. We'll reconsider in the morning and see which way the car points when we leave Tennant Creek.