Boroloola to Cloncurry Qld.

RFDS replica plane in the John Flynn Centre, Cloncurry, NW Qld.

Borroloola to Cloncurry Qld

Next morning, we packed up to commence our journey to the east. This meant travelling back to Cape Crawford to commence our journey down the Tablelands Highway to Barkley Station Roadhouse on the Barkly Highway to Queensland. The Tablelands High Way was a similar road to the one into Borroloola from Daly Waters. That is a single lane of bitumen with wide verges, something the NT does very well. The road surface varies from time to time with the worst sections being in low lying areas which suffer from road base erosion during the wet resulting in very undulating roads, including pot holes and wash outs in places. Given the need to be vigilant and aware of some unexpected oncoming traffic such as 53 mt 4 bogie road trains which rightfully demand the road. So, we just get off the road to let them pass.

The landscape is also very interesting. Starting out from Cape Crawford there are many escarpments on both sides of the road. This was home to many large wedge tail eagles that awaited road kill for their lunch or dinner. The highway was also cattle grazing country with many Bos indicus including Brahman, Brahman cross and tropical composites which are generally live exported through the Darwin port (source). Also for the Australian market Bos taurus or British breeds which are processed for Australian and export markets (source). Many of the road trains are cattle transport which generally come in threes, that is three road trains in close proximity. They are very courteous, particularly if you show them respect. Along this highway there were possibly many thousands of Brahman, Brahman cross and tropical composites which grazed on the side of the highway which was mostly unfenced. The stations running the cattle are on large lots of land either in the hills/escarpment areas or the flat plains, some wooded with mainly Mulga (this is a great firewood burning wood with a distinct Mulga smell that is easier on the nose for clothing etc, or areas of just bare flood plains. Its was also used extensively by the Australian Aborigine for tools, spears and boomerangs because it was so hardy yet workable.

We arrived at Barkly Homestead Roadhouse some 490kms and 6 hours later and were lucky enough to get an unpowered site for the night. After such a long and arduous drive down the single lane highway we thought we would shout ourselves dinner in the roadhouse. Dallas had Chicken Schnitzel and I hade the Beef Hamburger with egg and bacon. Reasonable but it is always difficult when what arrives on your plate is processed food, particularly when you know you could cook your own probably quicker and cheaper. However, we chose to eat there, so be it! The camping facilities were good albeit crowded so it was an easy departure in the morning after doing breakfast in the van and using the facilities for showering.

Our next destination was some 260 kms to Camooweal, Qld. a shorter drive and day. The drive again was more of the flood plains type landscape and many more of the Bos indicus including Brahman, Brahman cows. Once at Camooweal we looked for the free camp down under the bridge on the banks of the river Georgina. Once set up we drove into town and had a look around at some of the droving memorabilia, something the town is well known for given their droving and breaking of horses that were then taken to stock sales in Gladstone SA for sale to the Indian army, circa 1930’s).

I also discovered that my dad was probably not so wrong with his message “I am off down to the Post Office”. We all knew he was off to the pub! We discovered here and in other Qld towns the hotels are often known as “Post Office Hotels”. We had a good free camp that night with a corn beef and veg meal and good company with a NSW/Qld border couple who were on their way to Daly Waters Pub.

Next morning we headed off to Mt Isa, some 190 kms away. The landscape soon changed and we were driving through escarpments very similar to Arkaroola SA, but larger in scale. Interestingly both areas were home to copper deposits but Mt Isa can also boast many other minerals also including, Gold, Silver, Copper, Tin and Zinc, plus, Corundum, Limonite, Beryl, Margarite, Tourmaline, Magnetite, Actinolite, Scapolite, Staurolite, Quartz, Epidote, Amethyst, Garnet, Fluorite and Pyrolusite. I am sure there are other minerals found in the very rich area.

Mt Isa is also bigger as a mining town than we both expected but we were due to move on so in the morning we departed for Cloncurry, 15/7/2018, only some 130 kms away but we figured we needed a stop before we travelled north again. Cloncurry was a very pleasant country town with a rail history as well as early mineral discovery. Cloncurry is also the town where Dr John Flynn centred the RFDS for outback Queensland. The towns John Flynn Place Museum and Art Gallery is well worth the visit. We also visited the Cloncurry Unearthed Museum, another great regional Australian Museum.

From here we are off to Normanton and Karumba. Looking forward to it and will be reporting in the next Blog Post.

Most photos by Dallas.