The Great Outback

On the road again..... to Mount Isa,

What is there to tell about Mount Isa? It's a pretty big city in the Outback, and yeeeeh with Woolies! Didn't see Woolies for a few weeks now!! Go shopping!!

There is not much to say about Mount Isa because it's a mining city and that's, to my opinion, not very interesting, but I can say a lot about the OUTBACK! I’ll came back on this later.

Still I have some pictures of Mount Isa on which you may be feel a bit of the outback already;

The mine in the distance is copper mine

A visitor who liked wine

It looks very dry hey! But there was water to, Lake Moondarra, water supply for Mount Isa;

On the side is a big recreation park

What exactly is the Outback;

Most states in Australia do have an outback, f.i. Queensland which sounds very tropical doesn't it? still more than half is outback. New South Wales, Northern Territory, most of Western Australia is outback and even South Australia has outback, except Victoria and Tasmania don't have an outback.

How does the outback feel? Most probably when you read my statement you think you don't want to be there but I can tell you, it's fascinating! Ok here's what the outback is like:

Dirty feet - 

Bloody hot.........

Dirty finger nails - for 99 % sure the sun is shining and no rain - the water is always warm and has a bad taste and thus also the coffee, to buy a bottle water, without bad taste is about $ 3,50 - warm swimming pools - never a cold shower - the groceries are very very expensive, fruit and vegetables are hardly to buy and not fresh, you wonder how people can stay healthy - petrol is twice as expensive,  normally we drive on LPG, that’s hardly to get in the outback so we have to drive on petrol - sweating all the time.

Dust -dry - dry rivers - 

always having water regulations. 

It's not my intention to be discriminating but there are a lot aboriginals who live in the outback 


and lots of them having trouble with alcohol which also means restrictions for us, you cannot buy cartons of wine before 4 o'clock and sometimes even before 6 o'clock and the prices again are outrageous. The most important haha is the beer that is soooooo expensive, the worst is: $ 66.00 per box with 30 cans.

Red earth - 




always being alert for animals on the road, dead ones and the ones who want to jump in front of your car, it's better not to drive late and in the early morning - cows on the road - 



very big distances - signs like "next 500 km, no fuel" - 

all drivers of cars waive to each other. 

But.....even in the middle of nowhere, when you haven't seen people for a long time, even then you will find a toilet with toilet paper and water!!  Terrific!!

Wiping your table three times a day 

- dry eyes, I cannot weir my lenses - as soon as you expose bread in to the open air, it turns into toast in a few seconds without even using a toaster, isn't that economical?

Road trains; 

That's it again folks!

If you ever come to Australia for a holiday, don't ignore the OUTBACK, it's got a special feeling!

Cheers!

Nothing in between

G'day mates!!

We are continuing our journey, so we now go from Karumba to Cloncurry but we first have to go back to Normanton. In Normanton we filled up the tank and off we went.......

I always start very neat you know; with the bible on my lap and since a few weeks on top an I-pad so I can wright my stories during boring moments and of course when I suddenly get an inspiration.

and then at the end of the trip I can hardly move my legs because of the mess....

You have seen ant castles look like an Elephant bum but these ant homes look like a graveyard...

On our way, we bumped into a car rally, we saw a whole lot and here are a few I could take a picture of;

It seemed to be the Variety Bash that raised $ 1.277 million for sick, disadvantaged and special needs kids,  this year.

They had started on Monday 5 August and drove through towns such as Blackall, Stonehenge, Winton, Boulia, Mount Isa, Normanton, Georgetown and finished in YES; Mission Beach on the 14th of August. 

If you follow my Weblog, you know must recognize most of the towns!

In Cloncurry we stayed in an odd place again, Wal's Camp Tourist Park, It was cheap and a bit dusty and the amenities were awkward but hey, what can you expect for just $ 20.00 ? 

Overall it was nice and we did meet some nice people again......

And again we did something stupid folks, you think we had learnt but no way…

Our neighbours also were prospectors and we went with them gold searching, its always better to go with more people and they had a 4WD so they could pull us out of trouble when needed. The road, 16 k’s dirt road, sometimes looked more just a track. We had never had to use our UHF radio before and now we found out that theirs, or ours didn’t work. They could hear me but I couldn’t hear them so they had to stop several time to wait and see if we were still coming.

My God, this road was bad for our car, the red earth was sometimes that loose and slippery it looked like we drove on snow haha, well that’s a comparison with 35 degrees outside!! A few times we had to make speed otherwise we would have got stuck, the dust went everywhere. Anyhow, we nearly wrecked the car again, fortunately we didn’t had the caravan with us. 

NO, we didn’t find anything.

Back to the caravan park;

this was the camp kitchen haha.....

ah well, everything you need. is there! 

just outside the camp, they were digging for (no not gold) water AND they found it......

They even thought about giving us some entertainment......

and then it's time to move again........

going to Mount Isa.....

just enjoy this site seeing.....

See you next time in Mount Isa!!

Cheers!

Three in one

Not everything is exciting, f.i. Karumba, but we're not there yet. From Flat Creek station we drove via Georgetown to Croydon for a one night stop, it was a good caravan park with free washing machines so of course I did some washing and we had a little walk through the town.

Next day we drove to Normanton, Normanton is again a very small place but we had a lovely caravan park which was very welcome after these hard days, especially the swimming pool!! 25 meters long and a very nice temperature to cool down a bit.

There are a few nice things to see in Normanton but we also saw that nearly the whole town was wiped away with the 1974 flooding.
Look at the replica of the biggest Crocodile ever hunted (8,63 mtr), named Krys.

 

General Store established in 1879

Albion Hotel, built in Croydon 1880 relocated in 1900 to Normanton

We had a lovely dinner;

Sign in the toilet, well we know why!! Don't we!

And then Karumba, everyone goes there and most of them are in an awe of Karumba, there are people who stay there for weeks, even months. If you want to stay that long the most essential thing you MUST have is a boat because we really can't think of anything else to do there than to go fishing!! I had booked a caravan park for 2 nights but really was sorry because we were there early (Normanton is only 70'ks away) and we had seen it all in half a day, even walked from our caravan park to the point which was approx 3 km and back, which I must admit was a nice walk, bit hot, but hey, we're in the tropics!

Anyhow, I'll leave you here with a few pictures because even though boring, the nature is always beautiful in Australia. By the way, with giving you these last two exiting and long blogs, I think I deserve to have a break  and do a small one now.
 

Brolgas

Till we meet again!!