Tennant Creek to Karumba

We pondered many options of how to get home. The option of going south from Tennant Creek through Alice Springs didn't really enthral us as it was already too cold in Tennant Creek and heading south was only going to make that worse.

When we looked at the rain over the 24 hours that we were in Tennant Creek its no wonder the roads were closed.

Our planned route across the Plenty Highway goes through Jervois. 18mm of rain in 24 hours doesn't do the red dirt roads a lot of good around here

From Jervois the road name changes to the Donahue Highway and goes to Boulia, again more than 25mm here!

This unseasonal rain central Queensland has received is amazing, especially considering that for years they'd been in the middle of life destroying drought. We hope it continues for the farmers sake. It certainly put a hole in our travel plans but thankfully we were in Tennant Creek when it rained and not already half way across the Plenty/Donahue Highways!

So leaving Tennant Creek the car turned north, away from the cold down south. Then a boring drive across the Barkly Highway to Camooweal. The camping along the billabong at Camooweal is really nice, some of the best. But this whole area has been turned into a mud bath with these rains. We managed to navigate these mud holes to find a dry sport where we could see the billabong with all the pelicans and brolgas.  The brolgas even put on a dance for us!

Pelicans on the river

Camooweal Camping

We enjoyed lunch at the Camooweal Pub, Minastone Soup, which was very disappointing as it had canned spaghetti and canned corn in it. But the parmesan cheese and garlic bread was amazing. Bailey handled the long walk there and back.

Typical Australian Outlook, Kangaroo (with horns), a dog and a Road Train

It was still cold at Camooweal and we were again using the diesel heater in the morning, so we decided to head further north to Burketown, seeking warmer weather. There was a rumour that the dirt road from Camooweal to Gregory Downs was also closed, but then we heard that a van had just been through so we gave it a go. The road was excellent, but there was evidence of rain in the area.

Burketown is the "Barramundi Capital of the World". But due to the cold, yes it was still cold, and very windy we didn't venture out fishing and I didn't want to unbolt the boat from the roof of the car. But our camping neighbour, who has been there since May, very nicely gave us a 1 kilogram Barra fillet only two days old, filleted and frozen. We should get a few meals out of this! The shops in Burketown shut at 12:00 on Saturdays, and closed on Sundays, so we have to wait until we get to Karumba where we can purchase some lemons before enjoying this beauty.

We did enjoy an excellent Barra Burger for lunch, and a bacon and egg roll for breakfast the next morning

Burketown is also famous for their "Morning Glory", no not that sort of morning glory - this is a cloud/fog formation

Driving from Burketown to Leichhardt Falls we saw lots of road-kill kangaroos with large wedge-tail eagles feasting on them. Its amazing just how close the car got to these birds before they eventually took flight. They have great eyesight, but their hearing is terrible.  One huge eagle stayed a touch too long with his head inside the roo's carcass. He took off right in front of us, with me on full brakes so we didn't hit him, then turned around and flew back in front of us! He continued flying, and chased a live kangaroo instead.  We never saw the end of the struggle, but hopefully the roo got away and wasn't carried off in those huge talons.  At one point all we could see through the front windscreen was Wedgetail eagle in full flight! We definitely need a Dash-Cam!

He was extremely lucky that the car, or the bikes/boat on top didn't hit him. I've had to brake to miss a lot of wildlife, but never an eagle, let alone a wedge-tailed eagle.  They are magnificent birds, so I was relieved that I didn't get my first hit here.  Pulling up a 3.5 ton van and car from 95kms/hour is pretty tricky and not much fun.  We reckon we saw at least 50 eagles in about 20 kilometres.

Leichhardt Falls Camping

Goats and more goats came for a drink at Leichhardt Falls

Sunset at Leichardt Falls

Krys - A replica of the largest crocodile ever killed in the World is in Normanton.  He was shot by a 30 year old woman in 1957. 

Watch out Bailey he'll eat you!

This is the original Krys!

Sunset over the Gulf of Carpentaria - Karumba Pub

This map shows our original planned trip (dashed line) and our actual route to Karumba. You can see just how far north we have had to go to get away from the boggy roads