Sunday, Sep 22, 2013 at 16:38
Planning is half the fun, isn't it?!
We sort of live your way and went trekking around western Qld at
Easter...
Emerald (and a number of towns in this area!)...be aware that it's very busy with FIFO workers and caravan parks etc are
well occupied. We went out to
Mitchell and up from there instead because I'd read that it was often hard finding somewhere to stay in
Emerald,
Springsure,
Rolleston etc.
Muttaburra...wow. Be careful of the black soil roads. We had a storm through the night before when we were in
Alpha and had no idea of its extent to the west. The rest of the countryside was bordering on drought conditions, but not this black soil road!!
The road closure sign gave 3 choices of roads to take (all dirt) and said that the road we chose (to Prairie) was open.
OH MY GOODNESS. By the time we realised someone had it very wrong we were at the point of no return. Turning around would've certainly seen us stuck because the edges are worse that the compacted centre of the road. There were times that "we were all passengers" as we slipped and slid and prayed. We honestly thought we were going to get bogged and have to stay for a few days on a wet black soil road, but somehow we made it!!
By the time we got to
Hughenden we had to stop at a servo to clear the windows so we could see through the caked on clay... The windscreen was the only window we could see through and we had just run out of wiper water for it, too. Thank goodness for the bloke at the caravan park and his high pressure hose.
It's hard to say which road to take because we're all different. We like the
Toowoomba,
Chinchilla,
Mitchell,
Barcaldine run, but that's us. Last time we diverted from
Tambo to
Alpha before heading west for something different.
We do a big day 1 and stop at
Mitchell because we've done all the closer towns numerous times.
Barcy...if you're a pie connoisseur, try the pies at the
bakery in
Barcaldine's main street (next to the
IGA). Very nice. Oh...there's more to Barcy than pies, of course!
Blackall...a bigger town than you expect! Nice stop over for the night or a few hours.
Longreach...worthy of a few days at least by the time you do the Stockmans Hall of Fame, the Qantas museum the stagecoach ride, the sitting by the Thompson River...
Muttaburra...teeny little caravan park with just about no shade. Camping out by a lake out of town has no power.
Hughenden...great dinosaur museum. And don't leave without tasting a burger at FJ Holden's Café. Take a history walk and
check out the plaques on the rocks in the pioneer park on the north side of the river.
The road through
Eidsvold etc can be a little windy (that's "wIndy" with bends not "windy" with a good breeze!) so we head for the open roads. But that's just us.
:)
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