Lake Corella

Leaving the Gregory River we are travelling on the Burke Development Road in a southerly direction. Along the way we pass the Burke & Wills Roadhouse which is a fairly large establishment and even has a large caravan park. But the establishment and management have a bad reputation because they have very restrictive rules on dogs. They supposedly are dog-friendly, but there are signs everywhere restricting where dogs can go and you can’t even take a dog on the outside balcony or garden area of the cafe. As a result caravanners have given the place a big thumbs down and the caravan park was empty.
Burke & Wills are two of the most famous Australian explorers. Along with Gray and King in 1861 they were part of an ill-fated government sponsored expedition that took them from Melbourne right up to Darwin, however on the way back they ran out of supplies and eventually died. The infamous Dig Tree is a key part of this journey. The only survivor was King who was rescued by a passing aboriginal tribe and he eventually returned to Melbourne where he became good friends with Peter’s great grandmother.
We left the roadhouse after Carolina had a discussion with the staff about their dog policy and continued our drive to a quaint place with a good reputation, the Quamby Pub, known as “The Pub in the Scrub”. The owners bought this pub 2 years ago for about $100k in a very rundown condition and since then have upgraded it. It is now for sale again for $1.1m. The owners are very friendly and the pub food is very good so we stayed the night in the caravan free camp behind the pub which was very popular and filled up by the end of the day.
We met a very nice couple in the caravan next to us, Kelly and Dwayne,, from Perth travelling for a year with their 2 kids and had a good chat over a very nice pub dinner.
This morning we packed up and headed out again on the Burke Development Road for the short drive to “The Curry”. This is the affectionate name given to Cloncurry, the home of the Royal Flying Doctor Service in 1928 and the birthplace for the meeting which started the airline of QANTAS. It is a very nice town of about 1200 people. Of course we had an obligatory cappuccino at the Urban Leaves cafe (5 stars in the reviews), and yes they allow dogs in the garden area! We did a tour of the RFDS museum where it all began, and then a bit of grocery shopping which included some of the curry pies for which Cloncurry is famous.
As we left Cloncurry we happened to see the Perth family and joined them to head for tonight’s campsite.
The campsite is on Lake Corella about 40km out of “the Curry”. This is a lovely big lake built to supply water to the area and the nearby Mary Kathleen township. It has become a very popular free camp area and when we arrived it took us quite a long time to find a good camping spot. But luck was with us and we finally found a very nice area right on the lake shore with lovely views. There were a number of other caravans nearby with friendly occupants.
The Perth couple then came over and invited us to sundowners with jam damper. Carolina did not know what damper was so she was very interested to watch the other family members prepare and cook the damper. We all then enjoyed fresh warm damper with butter and strawberry jam with a beer, a very Aussie way to watch the sun slowly set.
The day finished with Peter BBQ’ing a tomahawk steak with jacket potatoes and pumpkin, and mushrooms. The night sky was clear and full of stars.Read more