Cloncurry

Day 21 and Polly, David, Michael and Denise opted to stay at Winton the extra night as they were happy catching red claw yabbies. We chose to move on with Jo & Greg and stay a night in Cloncurry, instead of just driving through the town. The 1st stop en route was the Kyuna Roadhouse for coffee. Being swamped with flies the minute we got out the car should have been an omen, but warmer weather none of us gave it much thought, we soon realized this Cafe had never been visited by a Food & Health Inspector. I am learning you take what you get in ‘Outback Queensland’ as you don’t get much choice. The 2nd stop was Crocodile Dundee’s ‘Walkabout Creek Hotel’ at McKinley, a nice little pub with lots of tourists so we had a drink and moved onto Cloncurry.
Jo booked the Caravan Park this time and it was really lovely, her main criteria was location as in ‘not’ near an airport, it was great, it was in Town. It ticked so many boxes I initially gave this Park (5) stars, unfortunately I was forced to deduct (4) of those stars the following day.
I will explain why a bit later.. Not only did we have free WiFi at the Park , we also could use their washing machines and dryers at no cost with unlimited washing powder!. I managed to find (4) loads of washing although BB later had to dry himself after a shower with a flannel as I accidentally washed all three towels (we left home with four I discovered too late ‘someone’ left one behind at Winton). We all slept in, no planes overhead, check out was smack on 10 as we had to wait for my early morning washing to dry. The Camp Kitchen was the best we have come across, but Saturday night we took the easy option and went to the Central Hotel, our meals were awesome. Before we left the Park, Jo and I said goodbye to the ‘knowledgeable and nice’ brunette lady (not blonde) in the office whilst complimenting her and the Park on our enjoyable stay.
We were told that on the way to Mt Isa was the Cockatoo Lake and the Mary Kathleen Mine Site, easily accessible as it was only 7km off the Overlanders Way on a sealed road (suitable for most caravans) so of course Jo and I put this on the itinerary. We took off for Mt Isa and the scenery along the way was so unexpected. Stuff of postcards, stunningly beautiful, big red rocky mountains, wattle, so very green 120km of wine -dee road (probably chewed up lots of fuel) with lots of ‘Kites’ flying overhead. Somehow the Pilot Car the Kotz’s missed the turn off for Cockatoo Lake but that was ok we never reminded them very much, but unfortunately they did find the Mary Kathleen turn off.
If anyone reading this ever contemplates visiting the Mary Kathleen Mine and I believe there is a nice Lake there too DON’T DO IT whilst towing a caravan. In fact just don’t do it full stop!
We followed the signs and crossed over a Cattle Grid on a red dirt road, to one side we saw a cleared piece of dirt where there were two Tractors covered in travel stickers each one had an off road caravan attached and a couple of blokes were leaning on them chatting away. We had been told this entry part was often used by ‘free campers’ so apart from myself remarking on the 2 Way to the Kotz’s “how unusual to see tractors towing vans and that they must be Farmers that like to travel with their tractors” ha ha ha ha maybe they were on some sort of Rally!
BB and I and Jo and Greg thought no more of it as we had been told it was a good bitumen road, right!. So these fellas watched as our vans continued on dirt 200 metres or so towards what ‘looked like’ a bitumen road. Soon we found out the only bitumen remaining on that ‘road’ were remnants around 6 inch potholes. Holes everywhere you could not miss them and there was nowhere to turn back. We inched along so slowly, we had to it was 1km further on that the nightmare ended. I stopped cursing ‘that lady in the office at the Caravan Park’ ’ as we found a spot to turn back. The bloody so called bitumen must have been laid when they first discovered Mary Kathleen! As we made our way back very very slowly to the corrugated dirt the two old fellas with the Tractors came on the 2 Way and were very friendly then they told us “ now you know why, we tow with Tractors'' :-) ha ha I will never believe a brunette again. This is the reason the Discovery Park at Cloncurry has only been rated a *1* Star by me!
Onto Mt Isa and a new Caravan Park where we met up with the rest of the Crew. All I am prepared to say about that Park is David himself only rated it -2 out of 5 stars and he booked it. Another flight path, and other issues end of story as .I believe we are getting a truly unique outback caravan park experience in Queensland. Today we have driven 449.9 km to Barkley Station NT we are resting for the night. The Caravan Park sites are all on the reddest of dirt. It never rains out here in the Northern Territory, but we have the luck of the Irish with us as it is raining right now in Barkley! And it has been raining steadily for quite some time BB reckons we should buy a XLotto ticket tomorrow, not sure he has got that right.. The red dirt will a probably turn into a slippery red mud very quickly so we are not going outside the van to find out. No problems at all with our Viscount Caravan and surprisingly there is an almost identical one in the Park here tonight. Our Colorado is running like a dream and she has been fueled up again for tomorrow. The cost of Diesel is getting up there, $2.76 per litre here today. At this rate we may have to get ourselves a job in Darwin to get home! We travel on 3 Ways tomorrow, just 7 more days and we should be in Darwin.We are hoping that the Coolalinga CPk is nowhere near Darwin Airport.Read more