Get the hell out of here!!

G'day Mates!

With the car fixed again we now finally can start our journey towards Queensland. Its still a long way so it will take some time before we hit cooler weather. OK lets go, Queensland here we come!!;

From Katherine we decided to have two stops at roadhouses before we would take the road to Queensland but we were soo fat up with the heat, we halfway decided to go straight to Tennant Creek and stay there for two nights, it was terrible hot but we still did the 660 k's in one go and were exhausted when we came there.

OF COURSE, the last 20 k's we had to drive like a snail as the temperature of the engine went into red and on top of the 42 degrees I had to turn on the heater to get the engine cooling off a bit. My God what now, again issues with the car!! Fred poured three litres water into the radiator and we hope it was just because of the heat. When we later realised that we had this heat already for a few months and never looked at the radiator fluid, we hoped that it was just that, and I can tell you to my relief that it's still OK now. (28th Nov.)

We had a caravan park in Tennant Creek what was run down a bit when we were there two years ago, then we went to another more expensive one. Now this first one in town looked better and I read already on Wiki camps that it was better now and it was!  Can you imagine, the first pool in ages that was nice cool!! And this was our view;

After Tennant Creek we drove back the 20 k's to the intersection and turn onto the Barkley highway to Queensland. We are hoping for cooler weather but it looks like that not coming soon, we have to cope a little longer.

Again we went in one go to Camooweal, just over the border in Queensland.

It's still hot. We stopped at the Post Office hotel caravan park and that was great. We can't do free camps at the moment because it's too hot. After this we came in Mount Isa were we stayed 2 nights at the Sunset caravan park, also very good, nice pool which you really need with these temperatures. By the way, the road to Mount Isa and from Mount Isa to Cloncurry was very beautiful. We have been here 2 years ago so if you want to know more of Mount Isa, go to my story of 27-09-2013.

Just after Cloncurry we took the road to Winton, the Landsborough highway and from there all the way to Longreach, is incredible boring!! But that's not the only matter, this was the first time we had the same what happened years ago, we didn't had seen another car for about an hour and that's not so common anymore.

Our goal was to stop in Mc.Kinlay behind the Crocodile Dundee Hotel

which has a few powered spots, but we were there already at noon and there was no shade and only dust so we decided to drive on to Kynuna.

Its just a roadhouse but these people hadn't seen rain for 5 years and maybe that's why the lady was so grumpy, Crikey, was she bad! Because it was a roadhouse where people come and go tanking, Fred didn't want to be in the way so he already drove into the caravan park and waited for me to come back. The lady came with me and saw Fred there then she yelled at me that he had to wait because she decides where we were parked! Jeez.... there was only one caravan parked so the park was empty for god sakes!!

Anyhow, we had a nice spot with lovely visitors;

And then......... it started to get a bit dark and there it was, RAIN!! Yeeeh!!

So no cooking outside tonight;

just be creative, a can Tuna and a can beans will do....

Next day we drove off but not without taking a picture of Fred's fascination;

We passed a few nice little towns, like Winton were we stopped for two nights.

 As soon as we parked at the caravan park and started to get organised, we saw we had a hitch hiker;

Winton is a very nice little place.....

Banjo Paterson's song Waltzing Matilda was first song in public in 1985. The song is most loved and embraced by the Australian people as their unofficial national anthem.

And to bring back memories (we've been here years ago) we went for dinner at the pub at Tattersalls Hotel which is a gracious old building, built in 1882 and is also the owner of the caravan park opposite the hotel off the main road were we were staying.

Next day we visited a few more things to see in Winton like Arno's Wall.

The wall is 2 metres high and 70 metres long and is made of concrete and rocks brought in from Arno's opal mine and is studded with old lawnmower parts, boat propellers and other old machinery.....

and we went to the Musical Fence.....

So grab a stick and head on down to make some music,

its music...   uh, movie time;

I'm pretty close catching up with where we are now, just a few more k's with little towns and then we are at Gladstone where we are on a house sitting right now and guess what:

 Its a lot cooler, thank God!

Next; the last few k's to the coast!

Cheers!