THE LONG ROAD SOUTH
Uncle
Milton rang me when I was in
Alice Springs and asked if I would like a passenger for the drive back south. He was flying up to
Darwin to visit a friend
Arnhem Highway/
Kakadu Highway/Stuart Highway
After a very restless night at the house of my friends, which is situated near the
Darwin Airport, what with about 20 jets taking off during the night, I got on the road after 8am. Refuelled at Woollies to get the best discount and was full with 330 litres of diesel and then made for Virginia.
Milton was ready when I got there and we set off after saying goodbye to his friends. Then I decided to go and have a look at our home we built at Bees
Creek many years ago. Sadly it is very neglected and run down and with dead cars lying around everywhere. Spoke with a
young fella there who came out of the house. We then took to the Arnhem Highway, seeing sights we had seen before and looking at the development of the outlying areas over the years.
Kakadu Entrance Toll Booth is gone and has been replaced by
toilets and interpretive signs on the values of
Kakadu. Saw a large crocodile lying in the mud as we crossed the
South Alligator River. We arrived at
Jabiru at 12noon and spent an hour and a half with Steve Toms, an ExplorOz Member and Tour Operator in
Jabiru. Later we stopped at
Mary River Roadhouse for refreshments and called in to see a friend at
Pine Creek and enjoyed a cuppa there. I put some more fuel in at
Pine Creek. Once back on the Stuart Highway we looked for a
campsite but everything is fenced off these days. Its progress, I guess! Eventually I spotted a track leading off to the left near the Edith River turn off and we bounced down a washed out track to
camp below the new railway bridge. The river bubbled away over the stones as we set up
camp on the sand. Some dingoes howled later on after we had eaten our feed of chicken fillets and vegies. The frozen mangoes we were given by my friend in
Pine Creek were delicious. A train passed by overhead at 4.34am and starled us. We broke
camp at 8.15am and refuelled in
Katherine.
Milton did some shopping and said that Woollies there had an unhealthy odour. We tootled on down the Stuart Highway and had an early lunch at
Mataranka before pushing on to Elliot where we refuelled again.
Barkly Stock Route/Tablelands Highway/Ranken Stock Route
I had always been intrigued by the road
sign which stated NO FUEL FOR 500KM. Having driven past this
sign on many occasions it was time to explore the Barkly Stock Route. Twenty kilometres south of Elliot we turned east and we were surprised to see a 110kmh
speed limit sign on this gravel road. I always seem to have good luck, as we started on the road only a few days after it had been graded! We managed to find a decent
campsite amongst a few scattered trees on the open plain, away from cattle, and about 60km east along the route. The day has been nice and not too warm. I cooked a perfect damper with the hot coals at my bidding and we sat around the fire staring at the glow or looking to the sky for satellites or meteor showers. The next morning we broke
camp around 8.30am. Vast open plains, covered in native
Mitchell Grass, which is good feed for cattle, lay before us. It is said that between 30% and 50% of the Northern Territory cattle are raised on the Barkly Tablelands. We travelled through Helen Springs, Ucharonidge, Mungabroom, Eva Downs and Anthony
Lagoon Stations. Then it was a short drive south along the Tableland Hwy to the Ranken Stock Route via Connells
Lagoon Conservation
Park. This area is a vast treeless plain, larger than the Nullarbor and growing mobs of Brahman Cattle. We stopped for lunch on the Tablelands Hwy at a
Rest Stop and chatted with some travellers. Then later when we refuelled along the Ranken Stock Route in the shade of a lonely Coolabah Tree, we spoke with an English couple that drive a different country each year for their holidays. We passed through Brunette Downs and Alexandria Downs stations and found a great
campsite next to a
billabong on
Lorne Creek just 20km north of the
Barkly Highway. I rigged the shower up and we had a
well-earned wash. The truck had used a little more fuel this day as we have been driving into the wind. Everything is running
well and the trailer seems to be more manageable with the spring over set-up again. I rang home on the Sat-phone to give our position. There were some insects about but they concentrated on our
camp light and left us alone. No traffic passed through the night.
Barkly Highway/Austral Downs Road/Sandover Highway/ Urandangi Road to Tobermory
We made an early start. Had smoko at
Avon Downs Rest Stop where free coffee was on offer. Then we travelled the road past Austral Downs to the Sandover Highway and turned left to Alpurrurulum Community and then Lake Nash Station where we called in for some route information. They weren’t overly friendly when I asked to use the short-cut route to Headingly Station. We had lunch in the shade on the outskirts of Lake Nash and I refuelled again using my trusty home made Tanami pump. Then after lunch I drove to the end of the track at Lake Nash to take some photos but it was a track where most people fear to tread and I had to do a seven-point turn with the trailer to get out again. The road to the next connector road was ordinary with a few wrecked cars along the way. We got there eventually and then made for the Urandangi Community. The place still looks the same and pretty derelict at that. We talked to a couple of old fellas along the road who were heading in the same direction as us. We looked for a
camp spot on the Woodroffe River but could not find one suitable for our needs. The Barkly Tablelands were still with us and only petered out when we got near Tobermory Station. Along the way we had a good look at a large
sinkhole on the side of the road. After Tobermory Station we made
camp a short distance across the Queensland Border in a road works area. I rang home and also rang our friends in
Darwin to give them an update on our position. This day we saw Wedge-tail Eagles, Red Kangaroos, a Perentie Goanna and a snake and of course, lots of cattle and station horses. Later in the evening I cooked some pancakes. It took a while to get it right but we ate our fill and fell into bed by 9pm and no traffic passed during the night. The auxiliary battery has a low voltage reading. It may be the solenoid playing up. At sunrise the following morning I disconnected the solenoid and then connected the batteries in parallel. We broke
camp at 8.15am and made for
Boulia.
Donohue Highway/Eyre Development Road
The Donohue Hwy was quite good in
places and only a small section was rough. There weren’t any corrugations. We refuelled at
Boulia and drove around the town looking at things including a tree full of Corellas. We had lunch a short way out of town in the shade. The Australian Agricultural Company owns, excluding Lake Nash Station, from
Elliott in the Northern Territory, to
Boulia in Queensland, every station we had driven through. I did some research on them when I got home and they state that they own 43 properties throughout Australia, covering close on 8,000,000 hectares and they run 500,000 head of cattle. The long road to
Birdsville then lay before us. There were some stretches of bitumen and some stretches of dirt. Overall the road was good until about 50km out of
Birdsville. Close to
Birdsville some wag had left a cast iron stove at a road
junction and someone else had put a TV and a remote control on top of it. I refuelled at
Birdsville and rued my decision not to refuel at
Boulia where the fuel price had been 11 cent a litre cheaper! I caught up with friends and a distant cousin in
Birdsville and our friend, Ruth Doyle, very kindly showed us a secret
campsite, where few people have camped before. Today the cordial bottle had leaked and I had to clean the fridge out. It had made a bit of a sticky mess!!! I also tightened up the U-bolt nuts on the trailer. Today we saw funny signs,
Brolgas, Wedge-tail Eagles, a Goanna, Galahs and Corellas (in their hundreds). The auxiliary battery has recharged again and is working
well.
Birdsville Track
We were out of
camp by 8am and then on to Ruth and Ian for a cuppa and a chat. Ruth also very kindly filled our flask and
Milton and I inspected Ian’s “Garden Shed”. A short while later, Steve (Gone Bush), of Exploroz fame, and his wife, dropped by for a chat. We then said our goodbyes and got out of town by 9.30am. The
Birdsville Track is a bit of a misnomer these days at it is a wide, graded road, and most of the time in good condition. There were a couple of roughish patches, where the road crossed stony country but otherwise I could maintain a good average speed of around 90kmh. It was a 460km drive to Claytons
Bore and we got there just on 4.30pm. We had lunch along the way and collected firewood. We had a lovely tub in the spa at Claytons and I rang Ruth to give her an update on our position and then Gina at Warraweena to say that we would be there the next day. It was slightly overcast and for a short time we thought it was going to rain when about twenty raindrops fell from the sky. We had a lazy start to the following day with breakfast and I went for another dip in the hot spa that bubbles
forth artesian waters. We chatted to other campers about this and that and then set off to
Marree after signing the visitor’s book and donating some funds for the upkeep of this great facility. A fierce wind sprang up and soon we were driving into a dust storm. Road workers were completing the all weather sealing of the last 50km of the
Birdsville Track to
Marree. We stopped and had a quick look at the
Lake Harry plaque, which depicts a courageous but failed attempt to grow dates in this barren area. At
Marree we drove to
Hergott Springs (the original name of
Marree), which lies 4km out of the town. Then we headed southeast into an endless dust storm. Dropped in to
Farina to have a look around in some of the old buildings, as
Milton had not been there before. Then we pushed on to
Leigh Creek and did some shopping. On the way to Warraweena we stopped and had a cuppa with Keith Nicholls at
Beltana, the former owner of
Warraweena Station, now in his 87th year. We were afforded the Old Warraweena
Homestead as accommodation for the night. W had tea with Stony and Gina and we all had a sip of my specially imported African Barbed Wire Moonshine. Yeeeehah!!!!
The Home Run
I refuelled in the morning and found one trailer tyre looking airless so I changed it. Then
Milton and I did a few small jobs around the yard before getting away by midday. I put more fuel in at
Hawker and we arrived in
Peterborough at around 4.30pm.
It had been an interesting and rewarding trip to the Tropics and back again. I had seen some new country some old country and had caught up with friends. I covered around 10,000km of driving distance and the Nissan ran faultlessly. Due to the high cost of fuel however, I will have to start saving for future trips from the end of the last one!
Cheers