CHARLEVILLE to MT ISA

Day 5, Tuesday 28-April-2015
CHARLEVILLE to BARCOO RIVER Rest Area 246k. (982k)
We departed around 8.00am and made a short detour off the main Highway into Augathella where we had morning tea at Meat Ant Park, there is a large sculpture (PHOTO) of a Meat Ant in the park and next door is the Q150 Portable Hall (PHOTO) that toured Queensland for the states 150th Birthday celebrations, from there we traveled on to the BARCOO RIVER Rest Area, a roadside bush camp in the Barcoo River about 41k south of Blackall. The Country is

very dry out here and the Old Barcoo was just a dust bowl with a few puddles of water.
Day 6, Wednesday 29-April-2015
BARCOO RIVER Rest Area to LONGREACH 307k (1289k)
18.09 L/100k, 139.9 c/l
An 8.00am start again travelling via Isisford with a side trip out to the Isisford Fishing Club at Oma Reserve, the trip out to the fishing club is 16k of dirt roads, situated on the Barcoo River there was plenty of water here with fishermen in pedal canoes trawling for Barrumundi, the site is dry and dusty with showers and toilets and a couple of sheds for get togethers, after a short stay we headed back to Isisford stopping at the Major Mitchell Monument (PHOTO) and then on to Ilfracombe for lunch among the roadside vintage machinery collection.
Our final destination today was the Longreach Tourist Park, it is on the Highway not far from the Stockmens Hall of Fame , there is not

one blade of grass and we are camped on a sandy gravel, but it does have the usual caravan park facilities so that we could catch up with the washing and refill the water tanks.
Day 7, Thursday 30-April-2015
Went to the Stockmans Hall of Fame today (PHOTO), a great display of the early pioneers to current day Stockmen, Flying Doctor, Communications and the development of the outback, there was also an Outback Show which demonstrated the skills of the Stockman, Stock Horses (PHOTO a bit of comedy during the show) and Working Dogs.
Day 8, Friday 1-May-2015
Today John and I visted the QANTAS Founders Museum (PHOTOs) while Pam and Marilyn checked out the shops in town.
We had booked in for the Jet Tour which includes a guided tour of their 747 and 707 aircraft, they also have a DC3 and a Catalina Flying Boat, there is an musuem and some excellent replicas of the

first QANTAS passenger aircraft in the original hangar.
Day 9, Saturday 1-May-2015
Saturday morning shopping to top up the groceries plus I had been having some problems with my 2 way radio, the local communication guy was unable to fix it so I bought a replacement and installed it in the afternoon.
Day 10, Sunday 2-May-2015
LONGREACH to WINTON 181k (1491k)
14.86 L/100k, 138.9 c/l
Only a short trip today to Winton, we are camped in the Caravan area behind the North Gregory Hotel (PHOTO is in the lounge where Waltzing Matida was first performed), after our walk around town to see Arno's wall (right next to our pub) (PHOTOs) the Matilda centre (PHOTO) we had dinner and a coldie in the pub while watching the Mayweather fight and the Logies on the pub TV.

Day 11, Monday 3-May-2015
The plan today is to go and see the Australian Age of Dinosaurs centre, 12 k out of town (PHOTO Banjo Dinosaur ), this is a presentation and display of the Dinosaur remains found around this area and includes a tour of the Dinosaur laboratory where they do the research on the bones collected from the field.
Day 12, Tuesday 4-May-2015
WINTON to MT ISA 471k (2012 k), 18.06 L/100k 137.8c/l
A big days travelling for us today via KYUNA and CLONCURRY, we have had fine weather , 35deg C with clear blue cloudless skies. The country is very dry I’m sure they would have welcomed some of the rain that flooded Brisbane last week, the landscape is mostly flat plains with brown grass and termite mounds as far as the eye can see, all the creek beds were dry dust with no cattle to be seen until we got to CLONCURRY where we spotted several groups of about 50 head gathered around watering troughs.
Past CLONCURRY the landscape started to change to bush scrub and spinifex with the termite mounds coming and going plus rocky outcrops eventually growing to low mountain ranges, even the road trains are getting bigger, they have increased from 3 trailer to 4 trailers long, up here they can legally go to 53 metres in length, even down the main street of Mt Isa.
We arrived at the AAOK Moondarra Caravan Park at about 3.30pm,

its about 10klms from the city centre and is really a mining camp with a hundred or so purpose built caravans, each has separate, fully self contained accommodation for 3 people, most of them were empty but they are booked out when there is a maintenance shut down at the mine every couple of months.
Day 13, Wednesday 6-5-2015
As you can imagine, planning to be away from home for 10 months we had packed a fair bit of stuff and we had noticed earlier in the trip that the back of the ute was sitting down a bit under the strain, we had phoned ahead at Charleville to TJM to arrange for some Polyair bags to be fitted to the rear springs when we got to Mt Isa, we were on TJM’s doorstep at 8.00am, by 10am the job was done and we picked up the car, went to Bunnings for a Swap and Go gas bottle then Coles for some grocery shopping and to meet up at Donut King with John and Marilyn for coffee. In the afternoon we went up to the lookout for some photos and then to the Mt Isa information centre, we had then planned to go to the underground hospital museum but is was closing (2.30 pm) just as we arrived, we returned again to the Lookout after dark for some night time photo’s.
Day 14, Thursday 7-5-2015
This morning we went out to Moondarra Dam, walked across the wall and then had morning tea in the picnic area beside the canoe club, returned to camp for lunch then went back into town to get the groceries we had missed the day before.