Barkly Homestead/Borroloola, Northern Territory

Back in the Civilized world once more with Mobile and Internet access. We have had an eventful week living off the grid. I will combine a few stops together too help me catch up. Saturday morning saw us bid farewell to Camooweal and Queensland as we ventured further West.

We crossed the border to the Northern Territory only a few kilometres from Camooweal. We continued to Barkly Homestead where we had a quick lunch. The highway was good and not very busy so we made good time. Sandra drove most of the way which gave me a bit of a break.

From Barkly Homestead we turned North on the Tablelands Highway towards the Gulf of Carpentaria and Borroloola. The road conditions took a turn for the worse immediately as was basically a single lane developmental road that was quite bumpy. Cattle also roamed freely across the road in numerous places. Didn't deter the authorities from setting the speed limit at 110 Km/Hr for some unknown reason. We met a number of Road Trains as well which basically meant pulling off the road wherever possible to let them pass. The countryside was very flat with little vegetation. I felt a it like I was back in Saskatchewan in Canada as you could see for miles in every direction. Of course the road would have been considerably better!

The weather was hot again reaching into the high 30s. Had a brief (5 minute) rain shower that brought the temperature down 10 degrees. Unfortunately it immediately increased the same amount when the rain stopped. Given the hot temperatures we pushed on a bit further than our original plan before stopping at a free roadside campsite about 100 Km South of Cape Crawford.

The site was decent with a couple of areas set back from the road, and a few shade trees. Huge windmill as well which gave a nice rural outlook. Unfortunately, our caravan fridge decided not to start on gas, so we had to rearrange everything in our portable freezer/fridge as best we could. Damn things!

We had a nice meal outside with the Ransleys and did a bit of stargazing before retiring to our caravans. Was a very hot night so we were all hoping we could get some sleep! We hadn't settled in for more than 30 minutes when we heard a terrible grinding sound. The sound repeated itself every 10-15 seconds. We realized that the bloody windmill had decided to begin turning and obviously hadn't been lubricated for a few years! We all had a good laugh except Stephen who slept through it. Thankfully it only lasted for 20 minutes or so. Unfortunately, our nightly tribulations were not quite over. Around midnight we were awoken by a vehicle pulling in to the campsite and shining its bright lights directly on our caravans. Next thing we knew a couple of fisherman were out with headlamps on trying to find a spot to put their truck and boat for the night. Idiots! Needless to say none of us enjoyed the greatest sleeps and those two fishermen won't be on our Christmas card list!

Sunday morning we were up early and on the road North again towards Cape Crawford. If anything the highway was even worse with more bumps, hills, and winding turns than before. Definitely not a relaxing drive what with Road Trains possibly bearing down on you unseen! We arrived at Cape Crawford which is basically only "The Heartbreak Hotel" and Fuel station. Cape Crawford is a funny name as it is no where close to the Gulf or any water?? We had a quick break before turning North East towards Borroloola on the Carpentaria Highway. Still basically a development road although somewhat smoother and a few more two lane stretches than the Tablelands Highway. The road became two lanes once we passed the MacArthur River Mine. This was a relief although it also meant that we were sharing the road with Mining Road Trains. Fortunately, being a Sunday morning we only passed a few.

We arrived in Borroloola around lunch time and checked in at the MacArthur River Caravan Park. Only choice in town but was quite good. The Managers were really friendly and informative on the local area. Quite a few shady sites and $30 for powered sites with good drinking water. Amenities were a good size and fairly basic, but clean. Would give 3.5 Stars. We got setup and had a some lunch before Sandra and I took a quick tour around town. Well it was a quick tour and given it was Sunday afternoon not much was open. We headed back to the caravan park where we shared a nice happy hour with another couple, Terry and Val. They are experienced off road caravaners/fisherman. They were heading East towards a cattle station to spend a month fishing for Barra. They gave us some good advice about driving the outback tracks and recommended we give Lorella Springs a visit. We have been planning to go there but were a bit dubious after our last driving experience to Adels Grove. We enjoyed a nice BBQ meal with the Ransleys to top off the day. Tried the fridge on gas again after it cooled off on 240V and it worked fine! Bloody Things!

Monday morning we took a drive out to Caranbirini Conservation Reserve. We hadn't heard too much about it but saw the sign on our way into Borroloola, and thought we would give it a visit. Wow! What a nice surprise! A short walk from the parking lot found us crossing a beautiful waterhole with lillies and bird life. A well marked path then led us to some incredible rock formations. A bit like the Bungle Bungles maybe although haven't been walking in them yet. The pathway wound in amongst these incredible rock formations before we began moving through small spaces between them. Great experience. There is no charge to take the walk and only took us about an hour to complete. The town should really publicize this more as is very impressive. I've included some pictures below but there are several more in the photo link for our adventure if interested.

We returned to the caravan park for some lunch and another quick tour around town. We did a bit of grocery shopping which although limited was still considerably better than our recent stops. There is a large Aboriginal population in Borroloola as there was in Normanton, Gregory Downs, Camooweal, etc. While they seem to congregate in public areas and mill around they pretty much keep to themselves and leave the tourists alone. The town itself could use a good clean up as is a bit run down. Love this picture of the new Pharmacy! Would you trust it??

After lunch we took a drive out towards the Gulf to visit King Ash Bay and Bing Bong. Our first stop was King Ash Bay which is not really on a bay at all. It is really just a fishing village that fills up with caravans from down South every year. About 20 Km of dirt road takes you into the Village which is on the MacArthur River. A huge area that stretches for several kilometres along the river. I would think the population of King Ash Bay would outnumber Borroloola in fishing season. Not our cup of tea but obviously we aren't avid fishermen.

We returned to the main road before heading North again for the final 40 Km to Bing Bong and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Road was uneventful until we arrived at Bing Bong which is the shipping port for the mine. We took a short drive past the mine/port complex down to the boat launch/river. Heavy corrugation made for an uncomfortable and slow trip. Nothing much to see as no good view of the Gulf and no activity at the boat launch. Disappointing really but at least we can say we've been there. We won't be returning anytime soon. Climbed a small lookout at the mine/port where we could at least see the gulf and the loading systems. Followed a Road Train home to Borroloola where we had an early dinner.

Stephen contacted Lorella Springs again to verify road conditions. The girl assured him they were good and although recommended for off road caravans only, we should be fine if we took our time. Given this was one of the locations on our trip planning wish list, the group of us decided to proceed there for our next stop. We both topped up with Diesel as was $.62/litre cheaper in Borroloola than Cape Crawford! We planned on getting an early start so completed the majority of our pack up before turning in for the night.

Camooweal Queensland

We finally made it back to the Civilized world. I never thought I would be so happy to have power again. 6 Days/nights of non powered camping proved to be a big challenge on the charging systems and fridges. That being said we survived and probably learned a bit from our experience. Hopefully we can adapt some changes for our next extended stay off the power grid.

Wednesday morning saw us up at 6AM and on the road by 7AM. We only had about 300 Km to Camooweal but much of the road is 4WD dirt so we are allowing for very slow travel. We took the road towards Lawn Hill National Park again before turning towards Riversleigh (Myumba). We travelled some 50 Km South East towards Riversleigh Fossil Area D. The road was rough with lots of sharp rocks and varying widths. No traffic to speak of as we were very early. Encountered our first Gregory River crossing just before the Fossil location which we crossed with no issues.

We stopped for a break and a quick tour or the Fossil Discovery at Riversleigh. Interesting but very hot even by mid morning. Nice display area under cover with information about the discovery. Had a quick look at 3 or 4 Fossil areas before returning to the cars.

We had another 30 Km of rough road to tackle before we hit the more significant gravel road between Gregory Downs and Mount Isa/Camooweal. This section was challenging with two more River crossings. The first one was crossing the Gregory River again and was fairly high/strong current. We both made it across but was a bit of an unnerving experience for all of us! The crossing at the O'Shaunnassy River was much easier and less stressful. Very slow going travel as we were taking it easy for safety and reduced stress on our cars/caravans. Completed the first 80 Km of our trip in about 3 hours!

The road improved marginally once we joined the gravel road between Gregory Downs and Mount Isa/Camooweal. That being said we still needed to keep our speed down as conditions varied with a lot of dips/floodways and sharp rocks. Country side was very pretty for most of the trip with beautiful reds/whites/greens on either side of the road. A couple of nice water scenes but no water crossings. Another 120 Km of gravel/dirt/and some sealed sections took us a further 3 hours. We finally rejoined the Barkly Highway for our final 70 Km into Camooweal. Was really happy to see a real highway with shoulders and lines!

Arrived in Camooweal in late afternoon and checked into the Post Office Caravan Park. Nice site with all gravel sites. Has a lovely swimming pool, mobile coverage, and best of all power! I'm sure there electricity meters started cranking like crazy when we hooked everything up and powered up the Air Conditioning, Washing Machine, and every electrical device we had that needed charging! From a speedy setup straight to the swimming pool. Very, very long day of travel and not one we look forward to repeating. We certainly have a feeling of accomplishment from our off road experiences over the last week but also a healthy respect for living/traveling in Remote Outback Australia.

The caravan park is very nice and tidy with the swimming pool being a bonus. Pricing was reasonable at $30/night. Still quite hot but much more comfortable than our last week even without the air conditioning. Nice breeze and some shade. Amenities are good and clean with a 3.5 Star rating! The park appears to be an overnight stay only for travelers heading to the Northern Territory or Northern Queensland. The park fills up quickly most afternoons although not to capacity. Only one other couple spent more than one day here during our stay. We enjoyed an easy dinner and an early night as we were all exhausted.

Thursday was spent cleaning and performing minor repairs/maintenance to the cars/caravans. Sandra and Carol had most of our clothes to wash and the insides of the caravans were a dusty mess. I spent quite a few hours blowing red dust out of the outside of the van. Had a couple of repairs to the electric brakes on the caravan as some wires were disconnected. Rechecked all the tyre pressures on both sets of cars and caravans to ensure everything was back up to highway pressures again. Enjoyed the pool for a few cool downs during the day as well. Topped up the Diesel on both cars for our next leg into the Northern Territory. Had a nice meal with the Ransleys before doing some more stargazing.  Sandra and I spent a few hours going through about 400 photos that we had taken over the last week. We weeded them down to 125 that we uploaded to our Web Album.

Got another couple of nice Sunset photos during our stay as well.

Friday saw Sandra cleaning the caravan and car while I got stuck into Blog updates. Got Leichhardt Lagoon and Adels Grove done before lunch. Gave Sandra a bit of help with the car as well. Back into the updates for Camooweal in the afternoon. Warm day again but manageable with a bit of a breeze, swimming pool, and of course Air Conditioning. Spent the afternoon doing a bit of R&R around the pool. Didn't see too much of Camooweal during our visit as have been busy cleaning. I don't think there is a lot to see regardless. That being said we have certainly enjoyed the caravan park and the modern conveniences of mobile coverage, fresh water, and power!

Tomorrow we are leaving Queensland behind as we make our first foray into the Northern Territory. Our plan is to travel West to the Barkly Homestead before turning North on the Tablelands Highway.
It may be awhile again before we have mobile coverage as we are heading up to the Gulf of Carpentaria again. Will talk again when we can.

Gregory Downs & Adels Grove, Queensland

Saturday saw us on the road again heading first West than South some 200 Km towards Burke & Wills Roadhouse. The Matilda Highway is another Development Road with sections of Single lane traffic. Luckily there wasn't much traffic and no Road Trains. Long sections of both single and two way traffic. Sandra took a turn at the wheel as well.

We stopped at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse for a break. We bought a bottle of Kirk's Ginger Beer for $5.20. Wow! Liquid Gold but needed something cold! From Burke & Wills we turned West on the Wills Development Road towards Gregory Downs. The road was in good condition with very little traffic for the 150 Km to Gregory Downs. As always in this part of Australia you need to be cautious re animals. Lots of road kill with Hawks/Wedgetails, and cattle that don't react predictably!

We booked into the Caravan park there for one night as we were getting conflicting information about the free camp area by the River. Apparently a lot of people do camp there but it is not an approved site. There is an approved site up closer to the road but we didn't discover it until later. The caravan park was empty when we arrived. $10/person was reasonable with drinking water on tap but no power. Sites were shaded and was significantly cooler than Leichhardt Lagoon. Amenities were of the en-suite variety but hadn't seen a cleaner in several days. 1 Star only which Sandra feels is being generous. Too bad as could have been much higher with a decent cleaning.

Stephen got out his generator in the afternoon to give it a test and we both topped up our batteries for an hour.  We again got conflicting stories about the road condition and the open/closed status out to Adels Grove. We talked to someone who had been on it that day (without a caravan) who thought we would be OK as long as we took our time. We all went to the Pub for a cold drink in the late afternoon where we had a general meeting and decided to venture on to Adels Grove with the caravans in the morning. The Pub was an interesting place with interesting people but wouldn't be on our list for living locations.

Sunday morning we hit the road again for the relatively short trip (90 Km) to Adels Grove. The first half of the trip was on sealed roads of varying quality but easily passable. After the Century Mine turnoff the road was indeed marked with Road Closed indicators. We lowered our tyre pressures and removed our Sway bars before heading off for the final 45 Km of unsealed road. We took our time and didn't find any sections of the road that we considered too difficult or dangerous for us and our caravans. Arrived safely in Adels Grove around Lunch time.

We checked into a couple of caravan sites on the upper level. This area was fairly open with limited shade. On the plus side was good for our Solar Panels and generator usage was allowed. Nice camping area with individual campsites. We got adjoining sites so we could share generator. Water on tap but not recommended for drinking so we didn't hook up to the caravan. A couple of amenity blocks with one more modern than the other. Both were clean however so a 3 Star rating! We checked out the lower or Grove section of the campground during our stay and wouldn't recommend for caravans as crowded and very little sunlight. On the positive side was lovely and secluded and considerably cooler.

We got setup with Awning and Shade cloths to protect the fridge and ourselves as best we could. We ventured down to the swimming hole at the back of the Reception/Restaurant area to explore and cool off. A lovely shaded and shallow area in the creek was directly behind the Restaurant Deck. Another deeper and more open area was located at the back of the Grove camping area. The deck area of the complex also featured Telstra 3G coverage so we were able to catch up with some phone calls and internet access. Had been without both for 3 days so was good to reconnect! We all enjoyed a quiet afternoon catching up and keeping cool. Was very hot again but significantly cooler at the restaurant/swimming area which was shaded.

Monday morning we headed up the road to Lawn Hill National Park (Boodjamulla) where we were booked onto a 10AM Gorge River tour. The road in was fairly rough but easily passable. Arrived just in time to join another 2 couples and our tour guide, John on an hour long tour of the Middle Gorge. Is a really beautiful area with beautiful gorge and abundant plant life. We journeyed down as far as the Indarri Falls which are fed by the Upper Gorge. Only about 2 metres of height difference but large amounts of water spilling over  in a number of locations. From there we returned to our starting position enjoying the views and colours of the Gorge from a different angle. Quite a reasonable tour at $75 for two of us.

Returned to the caravan park where we tried our best to keep cool in very hot conditions. All our fridges and freezers were struggling with the heat as well. Our's were working fine but working very hard and running down our batteries faster than the solar could replenish. The Ransleys were having the same charging issues and temperamental caravan fridge as well! We fired up the generator for a good session in the afternoon but still struggled to keep up with the battery drain. Sandra and I headed down to the restaurant/swimming hole again after lunch to keep cool and talk to the girls. Had a relaxing few hours before returning to the caravan to begin a BBQ Baked dinner. Not the most pleasant task at 40 degrees but we certainly enjoyed it when completed. Setup our table and chairs in another shaded site for dinner. The bugs here are fairly bad as well so had a variety of defenses trying to keep them at bay while we ate. Enjoyed a cold shower at the amenity block before sitting under the stars for awhile. We spotted quite a few Sputniks (satellites) and a few Shooting Stars. Still really hot at night and not a lot we can do about it with our power supply dwindling! We had a really poor nights sleep highlighted by realizing our portable Waeco freezer had gone off at 4AM. Relocated it to the car battery pack where it lasted until morning. Unfortunately, that didn't help our sleep or our neighbours who heard us rummaging around at 4 in the morning! Oops!

We had an early start booked for Tuesday morning as we planned to return to Lawn Hill and do a few walks along the Gorge. While we weren't in the best frame of minds at 6AM we carried on with our plans. We started our first walk by 7AM which was good as the temperature quickly heated up again. The morning colours of the Gorge and surrounding escarpments were beautiful. Our first walk took us back along the Middle Gorge to Indarri Falls. We made it in good time so decided to continue on to the Upper Gorge which was another 1.5 Km. Very nice walk along the base of the Gorge walls that was mostly shaded for the first half. The last half involved a bit of a climb to the top of the escarpment overlooking the Upper Gorge. Beautiful! We got a bit of a real life nature show when we looked farther up the Gorge from our view point. Saw a Freshwater Crocodile and a wild pig at a creek mouth. Also saw some large fish feeding on a dead bird. Great experience!

From there we headed back down the escarpment and returned to the Indarri Falls. We all enjoyed a welcome swim there as it had really started to heat up. Lovely swimming area where we were able to swim right up to and under the falls. Very refreshing as well.

Once again we headed back out on the walking trail. This time we completed a fairly steep climb to a lookout overlooking the Falls. Great to see it from a different perspective. Proceeded along the escarpment which had a number of viewpoints looking down into the gorge and back towards the Ranger residences and campground. Duwadarri lookout in particular offered a 360 degree view of the Gorge and surrounding area. We were all getting hot and tired by this point and our water supplies were dwindling. We continued on down a very steep climb before rejoining our original path from the Ranger Station. We were all exhausted by the time we made it back to the cars. That being said, it was a great walk and well worth the effort. Make sure you do it early and take lots of water especially when it is hot!

We had a quiet trip back to the caravan. We enjoyed a lunch at the restaurant as quite frankly no one had the energy to prepare a lunch! We all took advantage of the swimming area and restaurant area throughout the afternoon to keep cool and catch up with family and friends. Unfortunately, we discovered that the Ransley's generator wasn't functioning properly when we turned it on that afternoon to recharge. We think it may have cut out the previous evening but can't be sure. Motor runs perfectly but is not providing any power output! We all got a pretty decent Solar charge during the day so hopefully we will all last through the night as our battery levels are fading fast! Enjoyed a meal of leftovers cleaning out our fridges as much as possible before our next move. Another quiet and early night conserving energy and trying to keep cool. We are aiming for a very early start as we have a fairly long rough road to contend with getting to Camooweal which is our next stop.

We really enjoyed our visit to Lawn Hill/Adels Grove and would recommend highly. The Gorge is beautiful as is the restaurant/swimming area at Adels Grove. The downsides would be the lack of power, high costs, and the difficult roads into this location. You really have to want to see it! $18 per person/night for non powered with no drinking water is pretty steep as well! That being said, We would have probably stayed a few days longer if we had power as was a beautiful location. There is also a canoe rental at either Adels Grove or Lawn Hill which we would have done if we had stayed longer. Would be a repeat of the River Tour at Lawn Hill but you can take the canoe over a portage to the Upper Gorge to explore as well. You can use your own canoes as well if you have them which is good!