South and Across to QLD

The aim of this part of the journey was to get to QLD as quickly as possible. What this meant was four days straight of many hours in the car to travel the 1400kms on flat straight roads to get from Cooinda in Kakadu to Camoweal, just inside the QLD border. This was the view for the most part…

…even ‘I Spy’ didn’t last too long, as you can imagine!

So, it was important to have a bit of a breather and stop briefly or overnight, in some interesting or beautiful places. I guess the other good thing that worked out nicely, was we managed to stay at, or stop at places on the way back down the Stuart Highway, that we hadn’t done on the way up. Here’s how we broke up the journey:

The first night, we stayed at Edith Falls, in the northern section of Nitmiluk NP near Katherine. This was our first attempt at ‘Unpowered camping’, and we found that the rock damage to the gas components of our trailer meant that it was too dangerous to use it. It only meant we were fridge-less though, so not too bad. Anyway, Edith Falls was nice enough, but we found it not as interesting (snorkelling wise) or beautiful as the falls we’d loved at Litchfield NP, or the hot springs at Mataranka. 

Looks pretty nice doesn’t it? So you can imagine how special our ‘favourites’ were!

The next stop was the famously quirky Daly Waters. It’s basically a big pub about 6 or 7kms off the highway, that is packed out with caravaners and campers. It’s so well known, that they continually have a line up of performers, and they use a big field next to the pub to accommodate everybody. There was a real sense of fun there, and another great example of the innovative, creative and resourceful folks that live in remote areas of Australia. I don’t even know why Daly Waters exists to be honest! We had to go unpowered again as the field for camping was chokkas. Lucky we got a space at all really! Here’s the pub (well worth the stop if you’re nearby in the NT):

It’s done out ‘Real Aussie’, with the stage area corrugated iron, thongs nailed to the posts, pot plants growing out of dunnies and so on. Inside, there’s barely a surface not covered with some wacky paraphernalia, like bank notes, number plates, undies and bras. Yes, pretty full on actually!

 This was just one of the many pubs Elliot and I frequented. That would never happen in Sydney! Basically, in most of the remote settlements we visited, the pub/hotel is the only building there, and it acts as ‘reception’ for campsite bookings, a petrol station, a restaurant, and sometimes where you can buy basic supplies. It was nice actually to hang out with my son in the pub! You meet lots of characters too!

Visited the virtually uninhabited, semi ghost town of Newcastle Waters on our way to our next overnight top at Threeways Roadhouse. It used to be a pretty busy place in its heyday as a drover’s crossing point of the east and south stockroutes, and real ‘rough and ready’. This info board was quite interesting:

The pub, again, was the focal point of the place, with punch ups happening to pass the time! The place kind of gave me the creeps actually. There was one house I went in that had a really bad vibe in. Shame really, as it’s one of the few buildings there that has a bit of history written up about it, but I couldn’t stay in there too long. This is what’s left of it. It gives you a bit of an idea of how rough it was back then living in this harsh environment, doing blimin’ tough work! Not for me!!

 The wall is made up of old bottles. Good idea for recycling! Nothing goes to waste!

And the pub…

Very 1930’s – would have been the cutting edge of architecture back then, eh?

And the next two are of the church:

Finally, we reached Camooweal, just inside the QLD border. The only ‘sight’ was two sinkholes, that were too dangerous to go too close to the edge, and are approx 75m deep. Elliot and I just chucked stones into the middle and listened for how long it was before we heard them drop – there were lengthy pauses each time we threw a good one!

Jeepers! Looks a little too close to the edge here!