Arrived at Chris and Alison’s home around lunchtime and were greeted by beaming faces. They were standing outside in anticipation of our arrival. Backed the van into a small space in the backyard, but couldn’t quite fit in, having to leave the gate open and the car on the road. Mark and Wendy parked their camper under the carport, but then found they couldn’t open it up to get their clothing, towels etc out, that night. They slept inside the spare bedroom and we slept in the van. We all drove out to the Philip Creek Mission block waterhole for afternoon tea. It is on aboriginal land and the site of the Presbyterian Mission where the indigenous mob were ‘rounded up’ in the mid 1940’s and essentially fenced in so that they wouldn’t be in the way of the mining operations in Tennant Creek. The ruins of the old buildings could still be seen, and the handmade bricks and a wall has been preserved as a monument to those times. The bricks and some of the floors, were mad from the numerous termite mounds in the area. The mounds would be left soaking in 44 gallon drums, dissolved and then formed into bricks. Rock hard.

Again, woke to a chilly 8 degrees. Had to get up during the night and get the doona out as we were both cold. Out this morning to try and get the airbag suspension replaced and also have a battery in the car, which has decided it has had enough of the outback life.

Well, as happens in the outback, the parts for the suspension will take at least a week to come from Brisbane so we will be gone from here. Can’t get that fixed, but the battery is fine according to testing equipment. Just one of those glitches that happen, I suppose. This afternoon, Chris, Mark, Beryl and I drove out on the Peko Road, to the Gosse River. I thought that it was a nature/sightseeing trip but it turned out to be a firearm sighting in session. The boys were happy but Beryl wasn’t as impressed. Back in the dark to arrive home and be served with a baked lamb dinner, courtesy of Wendy. I also found the best way to lessen the impact of the gravel road corrugations – travel at 120kph.

Today we had a rest day and just drove out to Mary Dam for a look, Katerina’s Café for morning tea and then floor cleaning and tidying up the caravan for our Thursday departure. After lunch, Mark and I did the Battery Hill underground mine tour. Unbelievably hard work done by miners to extract the gold from the ironstone. The girls joined us a little while later, to see the stamping/crushing machine which pounded the rock into fine powder in order to extract the gold. The machinery is very old and is now only used for the tour to demonstrate what it did. A piece of it broke off a few years ago and fell to the concrete floor below, almost giving the tour guide a heart attack. It weighed several tonnes and put a big hole into the concrete. Interesting to see how the mine operated way back then. The ore is reported to be the richest in Australia but to my mind the amount of gold per tonne is negligible. Later that afternoon, we drove out for a sunset hill view of Tennant Creek and the sunset was just glorious. Lots of mozzies though and they punctured long clothing, so we left not long after dark and picked up some pizzas for dinner. Ali was a bit sad to see us go and said her house was much quieter without us.

We left with a breeze into our faces and it soon turned into the infamous ‘Barkly Breeze’ just a few klms up the road. It really increased fuel consumption and making headway required a bit of a heavy foot. Even so, my car changed down to 3rd gear in places, just to maintain 80kph. Stopped at the Barkly Roadhouse and joined the queue waiting to fill up the petrol tanks. We continued on in the same vane to Camooweal where we stopped for the night at the Drovers Camp lagoon. Lots of other caravanners had the same idea and we drove in 4klm until we found a spot to pull in. The wind was brisk and cold so we all had an early night. Woke up to 6 degrees and the beginning of the breeze again. We drove on to Mount Isa, where we had ‘brunch’ and filled the tanks again for the next stop at Wal’s Camp, Cloncurry. I overheard some people next to us saying how good it was to have a tailwind pushing them along from Winton. Well, guess who is driving to Winton in the morning, into the headwind again. Yep, it’s us.

Well, we drove the stretch from Cloncurry against strong headwinds and were in a procession of vans, campers and road trains all affected by the wind. Average speed with my foot down, was around 75kph. It was worst around MacKinlay where we passed the Walkabout pub from the Crocodile Dundee movies but thankfully lessened in the afternoon just out of Longreach. We were going to stop at a rest area just out of Winton, but it was packed by 2pm so we kept going and found a very big mostly empty one just short of Longreach. Much better. The 200klm section we have just travelled, was littered by road kill. Hundreds of kangaroos lay on and alongside the road with the attendant crows, eagles and hawks gorging themselves. They were mostly western red kangaroos with their attendant female ‘blue flyers’ killed together as they bounded across the road. Huge animals, which would have seriously damaged a car, so they must be victims of road trains. Looking at the desolate, barren landscape, it is hard to see where the ‘roos would be coming from or where they shelter during the day. It is like a moonscape of brown desert with few scraggly bushes every now and then. Today as we head off through Longreach and Barcaldine, there will be another intense few hundred klms of kangaroo carnage, as we retrace our track from a few weeks ago, until we branch off towards the coast.

We drove on today, stopping for morning tea at Barcaldine and then taking the Capricorn Highway turn towards Emerald. The road was good and then rough in turn, with many steep hilly sections. There was also the inevitable headwind slowing our progress and increasing our fuel consumption. We passed the gemfields which make this location a desirable spot for fossickers to visit until we came into Emerald. It is quite a large town and we drove to a caravan park to book in. There was a line of vans waiting in the street, so the girls walked in to try and get a spot. We were lucky to get two of the last sites available and settled in for the night, enjoying the showers. I am glad that we have a shower and ensuite in the van, but a proper shower is very nice. Leaving the next morning, we drove east again for endless hours, but the changing countryside was nicer than what we had experienced in the west. There were long lines of traffic behind us on occasion, as we drove at a sedate 95kph and they wanted to get where they were going, much faster. It was getting to mid afternoon and we saw several rest areas were already full of vans, so we hoped that the one we chose near Gin Gin was available. We drove in to see that most spots were taken but we found two and set up for the night. It turned out to be a noisy one though, with trucks and cars roaring down the highway the entire night. One road train pulled in and couldn’t get past the entrance. Lots of yelling from him as he backed up in the dark to try and get around so he could drive back out. Very skilful driving on his part, but there was no other option for him. So many vans on the roads. It is also the start of school holidays, so many are travelling at this time.