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Beer… Currency of the Outback

Posted by on September 20, 2013

So it seems that beer is the best incentive there is when you want something in the outback.

Shortly after my post this morning, Mark headed to the showers and was about to undress when his phone rang… “Your car is ready”

He bolted back to the caravan stating that the car was ready, and shower forgotten Mark and I leapt in the car and raced around to the mechanics. All fixed!!

Was a little early for the bottle shop to be open, so Mark slipped the mechanics a few dollars without the boss Billy seeing saying thanks for fixing the car so quick, have a drink on me. They had stayed back last night, draining the tank and getting it going again, so…

…we are back!

We wasted no time, back at the park we quickly packed the caravan and taking the mechanic’s advice… got the hell out of Cloncurry!!

We made for Mount Isa to restock the van for the real outback ahead. Thankfully we found a Coles in town (we don’t like to shop anywhere else), but unfortunately we shopped hungry buying far too much. Was a real squeeze to fit it in the van, then we headed to a local park for lunch.

Was nice to just sit in the shade, and we spent a few hours there as Mark went to find somewhere to fix the stone chip in his window. He really has had bad luck with his car this trip.

We got visited by a flock of wedge tail eagles who were circling and swoopng to collect the kids lunch. Should have got a few pictures, but I was too enthralled just watching them. They are a magnificent bird up close.

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Nearly forgot, on the way to Mount Isa, we finally found a Historical Marker on the side of the road and had to stop so Kate could get a picture. Seems her memories of travelling as a child involved stopping at every historical marker along the way!! You got a lot to answer for Ian, but now we have done one… no need to stop at anymore!!

By the way, this is the location that Burke and Wills past in 1861. Not that interesting really unless you consider some ofthe local terrain. With no road to follow this would have been tough going!!

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Anyway, back in Mount Isa with Mark’s car finally road worthy we decided to get some kms behind us. We drove on to Camoweel for fuel, arriving about 4pm in the afternoon. This is officially the most expensive diesel I have ever purchased at $2.09 per litre!!!

Was getting late and there was a caravan park here, the last for about another 260kms. A quick family meeting and we decided to move on and try for Barkly Homestead even if that meant it was dark by the time we arrived.

Not too far down the road, we finally crossed the border out of Queensland and into NT. Four states in 3 weeks!! Of course we had to pause for a few photos.

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Turns out as we crossed the border, the road trip just got that little bit faster with a speed sign I just hadn’t seen before…

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130kph!!! You ripper! We wound up the cars on the open road, and while we could just get up to 130kph (on a slight downhill) towing a van, all we noticed was that the fuel consumption went through the roof!! At the cost of fuel out here, we decieded to wind it back and sit on about 120-125kph.

At least with the “legal” increase in speed we were able put a few kilometres behind us as we raced the sun to get where we needed to go. Good news was we didn’t see a lot of roadkill on this road, so hopefully that meant there weren’t a lot of Kangaroos to look out for. Of course driving west meant we were driving into the setting sun, which was a little too much for the girls in the back, who need a couple of pairs of my sunglasses to see their “in flight” movie.

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Anyway, the good news is we made it to Barkly Roadhouse just before the sun dipped below the horizon. Did a good 600 odd Kilometres to day which was good considering we didn’t leave Cloncurry until 10am and wasted a couple of hours in Mount Isa. Still got a long way to go on today the 3 week anniversary of our departure from Melbourne, but a lot more comfortable now we are in NT and well on our way to the centre.

As we ate our meal at the Barkley Homestead “Pub” we watched the full moon rising.

 

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As long as there are no werewolves out here, we should have another big day on the road tomorrow. I’m just glad to be moving again 🙂

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