The Cardwell caravan park boasts the only restaurant that is open in the evening. I had walked the dogs about 3kms to the jetty and back. There is a lovely path along the waterfront back far enough from the water's edge to hopefully be out of range of crocs.
After feeding the hounds I put them in their crates and joined Anita at the restaurant. There was a long wait for the food as the place was very busy. After more than half an hour we were still waiting for dinner when dog number 2 entered the restaurant, ears pinned back and on a mission. He had gone around to the front of the restaurant, past the diners on the terrace and through the open doors. I quickly grabbed hold of him and took him out, much to the amusement of the couple seated next to us.
The restaurant was over 200m from our van and the dogs had not been there. We had gone into the restaurant through the main door which was kept closed, so he must have trekked around the building in search of his protector. Fortunately the staff in the restaurant and most of the other diners were oblivious to his brief appearance.
I expected to find he had scratched his way out of the crate, but the flap was wide open meaning I had forgotten to zip him in! I had done that once before, leaving the flap unzipped on the crate of dog number 1, but she stayed put all night not interested in leaving the comfort of her bed.
We drove from Charters Towers to Cardwell where we spent 2 nights looking out towards Hinchinbrook Island.
I drove to Innisfail where I met up with one of my nephews and my 3 year old great niece whose only interest was the party she was going to later that day in Mareeba!
We have now turned south and are heading home. Last night we stopped at the weirdly named Gunna Go caravan park south of Bowen. All of the caravan parks in Bowen were either full or do not allow dogs so we bypassed that town and added it to our list of places to go on our next trip north. Our next 2 nights will be in Rockhampton.
This friendly town once boast having 65 pubs during the height of a gold mining boom. Many lovely historic buildings have survived including the Stock Exchange Arcade. There really was a stock exchange here until 1916 when it closed following the decline in gold mining.
The old department store is now a Target store but the original stained glass windows are all intact.
We stopped for lunch at Hughenden at the quirky FJ Cafe. Food and coffee were both good and great value.
Richmond was our first overnight stop after leaving Mount Isa. The caravan park had no powered sites so we opted for the free RV park. There was more room than in the crowded caravan park even though the only facilities were potable water and a dump site.
The main attraction in Richmond is dinasaur and other fossils. The information centre has this large statue of a Kronosaurus. Squillions of years ago the area around Richmond was a sea so many of the fossils are of fish.
The unusual round rocks at the RV park are known as moon rocks. Every 2 years there is a moon rock throwing competition during the fossil festival.
We have done the washing, will wash the Jeep, and have given the dogs a run in the terrific off leash dog park just along the road near our caravan park. It was shady and free of prickles.
We also found a great store called Worn Out West. There were lots of customers getting their gear for the rodeo which is in a couple of weeks. We will miss the rodeo but couldn't resist updating our outback wardrobes.
Tomorrow we will continue travelling east towards the coast.
Camooweal is a small town of less than 300 people about 20kms the Queensland side of the NT/QLD border. Mount Isa regards Camooweal as a suburb and claims the 188kms of Barkly Hwy between the two places is the longest main road in the world.
We had dinner at the Post Office Hotel and stayed at the hotel's caravan park. There was not much to see during the drive from Renner Springs and the only places to stop were roadhouses.
The Threeways Roadhouse is at the intersection of the north south Sturt Hwy and the western end of the Barkly Hwy. We turned east and the road signs reported the distance to QLD.
Before we could refuel at Threeways we had to hand over ID which was returned when we paid for our fuel. Apparently many vehicles have driven off without anyone paying for the fuel.
Most of the people travelling in caravans, campervans, mobile homes or converted buses could be considered to be grey nomads. Most are retired but some look for local work. Our neighbours at Lake Argyle had been there for 9 weeks doing housekeeping in the villas. We were chatting to them after they came to congratulate us on our well behaved dogs!
We have seen a few Asian travellers but otherwise the demographic is white Aussies and in this large population only the men can drive! The vast majority of grey nomads travel as couples. A few travel with friends but each couple has their own vehicle and caravan.
Most travellers are friendly and behave appropriately, but we have had a couple of strange encounters.
At Kununurra Anita was cooking dinner outside our van and had the TV on the 7pm ABC news. A sole female traveller in a campervan asked her to turn the TV down. Anita obliged even though she couldn't hear the TV herself when outside. She was not so obliging when this woman told her to turn out the light she was using to see her cooking and let her know it wasn't even 7.30 and her request was unreasonable.
Yesterday morning at 5am the couple next to us made a lot of noise packing up. We were already awake but were not impressed when they reversed their motor home out of their site and the loud safety reversing beeper woke up anyone who had still been sleeping.
While the wine label is catchy, the contents of the bottle were not up to the expectations created by its origin being McLaren Vale.
We drove on to Renner Springs and set up camp at the roadside caravan park. This is just a one night stopping place and everyone backs in and leaves their vans connected to their vehicles.
There is some sort of spring but the water is murky and green. There is also a 17m swimming pool but it has an unattractive greenish bottom and
wrigglies in the water. Noone was swimming.
I asked the young Englishman who served me what enticed him to be working in a place like this. He said it was to get a second year on his visa. I couldn't help thinking that was akin to blackmail, but the workforce in these remote locations is mostly young Europeans so the policy it is working.
Daly Waters is "famous" for having the NT's oldest pub and first international airport. We managed to find a shady tree to park the Jeep under to keep the cats cool while we took the dogs for a sit down lunch. There were tables in the shade where we could keep the dogs under the table.
The food was acceptable and the quirky pub was interesting. Every wall and tree branch is covered with collections of things such as number plates, foreign currency, thongs and road signs.
We could have stayed at the caravan park but decided to keep driving south down the Stuart Highway.
I remembered Mataranka from 1976 when I was notionally in charge of an Army convoy of semi trailers taking supplies to Darwin after the cyclone. This huge tree was there in 1976 and doesn't look any bigger for its extra 40 years of growth.
It was heart breaking then to see the way the Aboriginals lived under decrepit tents, and we saw this again today.
In 1976 there was one store which was also the hotel. The proprietor had total control over the locals' money and most of it was spent on alcohol.
Today there are other facilities to service the caravan/travelling non Aboriginal population, but I only saw Aboriginals congregated outside the original pub. Their accommodation now includes car wrecks parked amongst the tents.
In 1970 the Ord River was dammed to form Lake Argyle which is a massive body of water estimated to equate to the volume of 20 Sydney Harbours. The dam water is used for irrigation downstream in and around Kununurra. The infrastructure built to house the workers who constructed the dam is now used by the Lake Argyle Resort which is where we have stayed for two nights.
The term "resort" seems to have a fluid definition but here there is a licensed restaurant, expensive fuel, boat and helicopter tours (for a fee), and an infinity pool. The pool is located above the lake and positioned so that the pool water and the lake water can appear to be the one body of water. It is a lovely pool and we can admire the view from the cool water.
I took a 2 hour breakfast boat tour which was informative and enjoyable, particularly as there was no wind so the trip was in calm water. At the boat ramp there were hundreds of fish visible in the crystal clear water. Later we took the dogs to the boat ramp so they could have a swim.
Busloads of tourists come through the park each day and there must be more than 200 caravan and camping sites. Fortunately we arrived early enough to get a powered site. The main drawback here is the lack of telephone and internet service. The park provides WIFI for a couple of hours in the afternoons, but given the number of people here every dry season it is outrageous there is no telephone/internet communications tower, particularly as Kununurra is only 70kms away.
Tomorrow we head for Katherine but we may not get that far depending what time we get away in the morning and the number of stops we need to have. Dog number one seems more willing to get into the Jeep now we are in areas where the temperature is 35 degrees plus. I cool down the Jeep and she has happily hopped in. Hopefully she will do the same tomorrow when the van is attached.
We drove the 90 odd kms from Kununurra to Wyndham on the coast. There is a terrific view of five rivers but a wide angle lens is required. The recreational jetty was especially built for fishing, but the is no shade. It was 35 degrees so I didn't fancy fishing from a concrete jetty - and this is winter so summertime fishing would be worse.
The Rusty Shed was the only place open for lunch and it was doing a roaring trade. We settled for takeaways because it was too hot to have the dogs out of the car.
