Mitchell to Surat

We are obviously thinking and starting to prepare for our return home to NZ in April and this involves selling everything.
Lloyd thought it would be a good idea to put a for sale sign in the window of the Landcruiser advertising the kayaks while we were in Mitchell. On Sunday a man came by our camp to look at them and returned with his son and arranged to pick them up on monday morning. We sold them for $600 which was pretty good as we paid $720 and had a couple of months of fun with them.
 When we bought them the seller suggested we sell them in a regional town as we would get a better price than in a larger city where they are readily available.
He was right!

Our camp by the Balonne River, but if you look its very muddy,not nice for swimming.

However I was still rather sad to see them go all the same.

Goodbye kayaks!!!

Our next stop was a very small place called Surat which is a pastoral town on the Balonne River. It has a Cobb & Co changing station museum and some heritage listed building such as this Warro Shire Hall.I wondered how it got its Indian sounding name and it seems in 1849 the surveyor Burrowes named it after his former place in Bombay India.

Mitchell

We so enjoyed our time at Carnarvon Gorge and luckily Cyclone Marcia decided to stay around the coast area and all we had was a few drops of rain and grey skies for a day or two.

Lovely sunset by the river

By the time we got to the town of Mitchell the sun was out and we settled down by the river for a couple of nights.

Catching up on the blog

One real attraction in Mitchell which interested me was the hot pools which came from a large Artisan Bore. There was a normal ,cool pool next to the hot one which worked really well as we went from one pool to the other. Even though we we went both days on a weekend we were surprised at how few people were there, only a couple but that was good for us.

The Mitchell Hot Pools

Carnarvon Gorge - Part 3

Our final stop off the main track was Ward's Canyon which is the home to the world largest fern ,the King Fern. There is a path that goes under the rock walls around to a small waterfall. Its very pretty and different from the other 2 places.                                              
                         

The rock under the steam was very red on the way in.

The rock pool had beautiful curves and patterns

After leaving here we had been walking for over 3 hours and the humidity was very high so we decided to head back. We thoroughly enjoyed our walk and found the gorge to be so completely different to any other that we had visited in Australia. It perhaps would have been good to be able to walk to the end  Big Bend but by the time we returned we had completed over 14kms and it was very hot and we were exhausted!

The King Ferns

Carnarvon Gorge - Part 2

The walk down to the Amphitheatre is about 4.5kms and you hike off the main track then up a ladder
into a deep chamber with 60 mtr high stone walls and a fernery. It is a quite, tranquil place.

The entrance way in!

This picture is looking back from the inside towards the 

entrance. It is very cool inside so a good place to have a 

morning tea,

Another view from the inside

Once inside

Carnarvon Gorge - Part 1

The gorge is in the Capricorn Central Highlands and we had driven this way especially to see it.
It features over 30kms of high sandstone cliffs with the Carnarvon Creek running through it.
It is very lush compared to the gorges up north with many cycads and fan and king palms.The main walking track crosses the creek many times and leads to many different sites depending on how far you wish to go.The end of the track is 9.7kms one way but this area was closed as they had floods some weeks before.
 We decided on the 14km walk which included visiting the moss graden, amphitheatre and wards canyon. It was a very humid day all thought temperature was around 29 deg it felt much hotter.

Lloyd with the high sandstone cliffs in the background

The moss garden is set up under the cliffs where water constantly drips  from the walls allowing mosses, ferns and liverworts to flourish. It is breathtaking, the water dripping off the walls looks like gold fairy lights and the small water fall looks like it has been perfectly landscaped. It was so beautifully formed and we were there on our own which was great as sometimes these places are spoilt by the crowds.

The photo does not capture the light unfortunately

The small waterfall and pool

Lake Maraboon

We found a very quaint bush camp near Lake Maraboon just out of Emerald.It is 3 times the size of Sydney Harbour.

 The owner Kathy has over 100 acres and opened it up to self contained campers, there are roaming horses,goats and she has chickens so we had lovely fresh eggs. We were the only ones camped there as usual!
The Lake is only 4kms away and we had intended to kayak and fish. However the wind was too strong as the cyclone was approaching although this area was really inland to be too bothered by it.

Bush camping

On the road Longreach to Emerald

On leaving Longreach along the Matilda Highway it was quite depressing as we had in all off our travels here never seen so much road kill.
It was like a Kangaroo cemetery along the highway as every few metres was a dead kangaroo is some state depending on how long it had been there.It seemed to go on for miles and I tried not to look at that part of the road. They are having a drought in the area so whether that meant more kangaroos were moving around looking for water or not we don't know. There was no way that I could photograph it!
We stopped in the town of Barcaldine which has an interesting tree. It is outside the railway station.
The Tree of Knowledge is a memorial to the 1891 Great Shearers Strike which lead to the birth of the Australian Labor Party, so it is regarded as the Labor Party ALP birthplace.It was at the foot of the Ghost gum tree a foundation document was read out in 1892 and so the tree was of importance and in 2006 it was poisoned with roundup.The remains of the tree was removed in 2007 and it was preserved and then returned under a an architecture design structure in 2009 which cost 5 million all up.It recreates the canopy of the tree with hanging long wooden like blades representing shear blades.

Looking up into the structure

It is a very clever design and made a lovely chiming noise in the wind when we were there.

Tree of Knowledge

We stayed the night at a small town Jericho at the show grounds and continued on to Emerald through the area know as the gem fields. In the towns of Sapphire and Rubyvale you can go gem fossicking but we weren't keen in the hot sun to dig in dirt!!!

Longreach

Longreach is sometimes called the capital of the outback and it is home to the Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame,Qantas Founders Outback Museum and is located near the Thompson River.
It got its name from its position near the long reach of the river.
We booked into the caravan park with power, it was on Ibis St. We discovered all the streets are named after birds,those that run east-west are named after waterbirds and north- south streets are named after land birds.
It was St Valentines Day so we enjoyed a lovely candle lit dinner with a bottle of bubbles out in the warm night air, it was just lovely!

Cheers!

There is a lot to see here and we chose to visit the Stockmans Hall of Fame which opened 25 years ago thinking it was all about the outback. However it is way more than that, it has 5 large galleries and starts with the founding of Australia , the halls are Discovery,Pioneers, Out back Properties,and Life in the Outback as well as a gallery all about the Royal Flying Doctors. There were over 1200 items on display and many interactive elements to the museum which made is so interesting.

The Qantas Founders Museum plane outside.

 

Outside the Stockmans Hall of Fame

Winton

After crossing the border we drove through to Mt Isa where we bought a few things and on the way out we were stopped for another breathe test, 2 with in 24 hrs after all our travels.
We were now on the Landsborough Highway and stayed the night at a roadhouse camp at Kyuna. The place was alive with flies and bugs and we had to wear a net to even venture outside.At least we had power for the air-con but the toilets and showers were a no go area as they were full of all sorts and sizes of creepy crawly flying things!!!!!
We were pleased to leave and our next stop was Winton which is a town of about 1000 people and is known for being the birthplace of Waltzing Matilda. It was also one of the founding towns of Qantas. The first board meeting was held at the Winton Club in 1921.
The song Waltzing Matilda was written by Banjo Paterson and first performed in the North Gregory Hotel in Winton in 1895. There is now a whole centre you can visit about the song.

The Waltzing Matilda Hotel in Winton

We also visited a nearby park which has a wall with many thing cemented into it, including sewing machine, engines, vintage typewriters and even a kitchen sink. its over 70mts long and is called Arnos Wall after the man who built it.

Arnos Wall

What I loved most was the Musical Fence. It was set up so that anyone can play the many instruments outside and the fence is tuned and the music to Waltzing Matilda is supplied.It was so awesome, they also supplied the batons needed to play the drum set and the fence. It was such a cool community area. 

To the Queensland Border

Three Ways Again Deja Vu !!!!!

 As we arrived at Three Way we remembered the last time we were here in August and made the decision to turn right and head up north knowing that we could come up the from Port Augusta. We are glad we did as it gave us plenty of time to explore up north and leave before the wet season.

Before we crossed into Queensland we went past a police station in the middle of now where called Avon Downs. There is no settlement at all there except the 2 police families and as we went past a policeman jumped out of this car and waved us down,. It was a random breath test, he was so happy to see us and chat. We had seen only 6 vehicles in 5 hours so you can get the picture. Also it was 40 deg so he was sitting  inside his air-condition car while he waited, very bored by all accounts.!  

We now feel like we are on the last leg of our trip as we head back to Brisbane and arrange to sell the car and caravan.

On the Road up the Stuart Highway from Alice Springs

It was another blue sky day as we drove up the Stuart Highway known as Explorers Highway 500kms to Tennant Creek.
Our first stop was was at Wycliffe Well which only has a caravan park and a roadhouse. It is well known as the UFO capital of Australian as it has by far the most number of reported sightings.

The decorated Roadhouse!!!

Our next stop was Karlu Karlu/ Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve .The natural rock formations are of great cultural and spiritual to the Aboriginal owners and the English name came from the quote from John Ross on a Australian Overland expedition "This is devils country, he's even emptied his bag of marbles around the place" in 1870.

The boulders are scattered over a large are, here are just a few.

We also passed through Aileron a small settlement with a large statue that made for a good photo and then stayed at Tennant Creek for the night in a caravan park. We hardly passed any traffic during the day except for Road Trains which were now over 50 metres long. There is an open speed limit on much of this road which means that you drive to the conditions, whatever that maybe!!!

West Mac Donnells Part 3

One of the most popular places in this area is Ormiston Gorge and Pound. There is a camp site and a near permanent water hole. We had thought of doing the pound walk which is a complete circuit of the gorge but it takes 3 to 4 hours and the heat was just too much at over 40 deg. So we set off on the 40 mins Ghost Gum Lookout which went up to a lookout over the gorge with good views.

The view looking down into the gorge

A much needed cool down!

Lloyd with his net on at the top

We made a decision not to stay the night here because of the heat, it was 43 deg and with no  breeze or power for air con we knew it would have been an unpleasant nights sleep.We also felt we had seen enough of the area. I think if you visited it first before exploring up north, the Kimberly's and Karijini you would have been more impressed but we felt it didn't quite live up to our expectations. So we headed back to Alice for the night and prepared to leave early  the next morning. We knew we were going to have some big days driving of over 500kms so needed to be organised with plenty of water and food.

West MacDonnells Part 2

Our next stop in the ranges was Ellery Creek Big Hole where we could camp the night. It has a large swimming hole and cuts through the gorge showing the amazing rocks.
On such a hot day and after the few short walks we had done ,the pool was lovely and cool and very much enjoyed more than once.

Ellery Creek Big Hole

The next morning our first spot was the Ochre Pits which is along side a dried up river bank. The Aboriginals still use the many colours today for their ceremonies and it was interesting to see the many shades.

Ochre Pits

Tjoritja/West MacDonnell National Park - Part 1

The area is commonly known as the West Macs and it is a spectacular section of the ranges showing ancient landscape sculptured over time by climatic elements. It stretches for 160kms west of Alice Springs.

Simpsons Gap

We spent some time in the campsite with a lovely  Australian couple we met in a fifth wheeler and Lloyd did his helpful auto electrical fix it as they had problems with their charging. We so do enjoy meeting travellers and it was unusual to meet Australians travelling in Alice as it is so hot and it is mainly Germans and some Americans as the others wait until it is cooler from May onwards.

Standley Chasm

Our first stop was Simpsons Gap which is one of the most prominent gaps in the West Mac ranges. We did a few short walks before moving on to Standley Chasm.
The chasm is in Aborginal land and part of a land trust that operates the area which cuts through tough quartzite to form a natural alleyway and is impressive at mid day to catch the sun which we did. The walk is a couple of kms and goes past lush plants and there are lots of streams with native  frogs which we saw. They had huge rain about a month ago which has left the area very lush and green which is unusual.

Alice Springs

Yes We are finally in Alice!!!

We managed to get all the shopping done in Alice Springs we needed including the new brake kit  and  found a camp site under the West Mac Donnell Ranges.It had power for our AC and a lovely swimming pool so I could see us here for a couple of days. The temp in Alice was 38degs with clear blue skies so the idea was to get everything done early in the morning.This included the brakes which were done and we had a look around town. There are many art galleries of Aboriginal art but the main attraction we wanted to visit was the Desert park which we did on Saturday morning. 

I loved these Thorny  Lizards, they had such cute faces (you need to look carefully)

The park is owned by Northern Territory Parks Dept and they have done an amazing job. It is set in an area which has over 2kms of walking tracks with lots of shade and water available and the animals and birds are in large areas. We attended the bird display and thought it was better than the one we went to in Vancouver,

We loved getting up close with the red kangaroo and its Joey.

The ranger talks were very informative and there was a large nocturnal area which included many desert snakes, lizards and small creatures. It was a fantastic morning but by the time we left at 12.30 the heat was oppressive . Time to return for a swim and relax!

Barn Owl

On the way to Alice Springs

Unfortunately we were driving in the hot part of the day and as it was about 500kms to Alice we decided to stop over at a road side rest stop at the Finke River. We needed to arrive at Alice early enough on Friday to buy new brake shoes for the caravan as they were starting to squeak.
The idea was that Lloyd would change them at the camp site before we went too much further.
Much to our surprise the Finke River actually had water in it. I have remarked that most Australian rivers are 'vitual rivers'.It was a very picturesque place with a lot of small fish,birds and plants.

Our campsite

Nearly there!!!

Finke River