Trip stats

Well we have completed our Kimberley Adventure and we had a fantastic time.

In all we travelled 16800km, passing through NSW, QLD, NT and WA.

Stats:

Km travelled: 16800

Fuel used: 2450 litres

L/Km: 15.62

Trip Duration: 84 days

The Prado stood up ok except for the dust, we had 1 puncture, and had to replace the battery but other than that it ran without a hitch.

Well planning is underway for the next big trip to the Cape in 2015.

Kingscliff

Sunday - Today we drove down to Kingscliff from Brisbane, the drive has changed so much since the last time we where up this way, you virtually bypass the Gold Cost and Tweed Heads. We stayed at the Kingscliff Beach Caravan Park which is right on the beach. It is a really pretty location and a place we will definitely come back to and spend some more time here exploring the area.

We have done the full circle of States now, NSW, QLD, NT, WA, NT, QLD and back to NSW.

Tomorrow it's down the highway to Sawtell.

Roma to Brisbane

Thursday - Another day of driving and roadworks, I lost count of the number of times we had to stop. Dalby was a nice rural town with a picturesque Main Street, you then arrive in Toowoomba which is as busy as Newcastle, the road by passes the main centre but it was still extremely busy. You leave Toowoomba and get on the "Darren Lockyer Way" in the Lockyer Valley, we certainly knew we where in Qld. It's then just a drive through Ipswich on the Motorway until you reach the outskirts of Brisbane, we had booked into the Big4 in Aspley, which is a northern suburb, thank heavens the Tom Tom knew where we had to go because I did not have a clue.

The touring part of our holiday has come to an end after 11 weeks, we will be visiting relatives here in Brisbane and Sawtell over the next week as we make our way back to Newcastle. This will be the last post until we get home and I can do a stats update for the complete trip.

It has been a wonderful experience and it will be good to look back on this blog and recall the good times we had.

We hope you have enjoyed following our trip, we enjoyed taking it.

Barrie & Chris

Barcaldine to Roma

Wednesday - Another day of just driving, the countryside is becoming more typical of what is around our own area. Again a lot of road kill, we did see a number of Kangaroos grazing along the edges of the road but they soon scootered when we approached so my roo deterers I fitted must work. 

We saw a couple of large mobs cattle being driven along the road, using horses, dogs and motorbikes.

Droving using the bike.

They are doing a lot of roadworks on the highway, we must have stopped at least 10 times and it added about an hour to the trip. Here we are stopped again 15km out of Roma.

Cloncurry to Barcaldine

Tuesday -  The interesting part to the trip is over, it's now the long days through central Queensland heading home. The road we travelled today we did back in 2008, we remember many of the landmarks such as the Walkabout Hotel, made famous in the Crocodile Dundee movies. The countryside is different from yesterday, flat and very dry. 

We stopped at the Kynuna Roadhouse for a bite to eat and met two friendly cranes.

We decided to drive onto Barcaldine and arrived at a very nice tourist park, we have seen so much road kill it is unbelievable there must have been more than 300 dead roos and feral pigs between Cloncurry and Barcaldine, in one 15 minute period we counted 50 and then stopped counting.

Cloncurry

Monday - The car started first go so we decided to head towards Cloncurry and get a new battery and then work out where we would head from there. It was about 100km of dirt to Gregory Downs and then  a sealed road, it is nice to get away from the dust.  We stopped off at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse for a cuppa and Bacon & Egg rolls, we have noticed that most of the staff in the roadhouses are overseas backpackers.

The area appears a lot drier than the west and the cattle don't look in as good a condition, there are still a lot of people travelling north, there where at least 20 vans at the B&W Roadhouse.

Arrived at Cloncurry and had the battery replaced, turns out it is the factory original so 5 years is pretty good. On the homeward route now, we have decided that we are Gorged out so we are going to give Canarvan Gorge a miss this time and head towards Brisbane to see our relatives on the way home.

Car troubles

Sunday - The plan today was to set off to Julia Creek, that was until the Prado decided it didn't want to go anywhere. It started ok and I moved it a small distance so we had access to the back door, when I went to start it again no go. It appeared that the battery had gone flat but after trying to jump start it and using a number of different batteries it appears it may be the starter motor. A call to the RACQ who transferred me to the NRMA and it is tow job to Mt Isa, 400km away. This will not happen until tomorrow so we are not sure how long we will be there, luckily before we left I upgraded my NRMA to Premium Care so the cost of towing and accommodation is covered. It's going to be great sitting in a truck for 4-5 hours.

Afternoon update, we where having drinks with some other campers who where cow cockies from the Moree area and we decided to look at the car again, we checked the starter solenoid and everything appeared ok, Mick said he had some really heavy duty jumper leads he uses on his Header on his property and did we want to give it another go using his 4wd, guess what, it started so we put it on charge using the genny and I went and cancelled the tow. Hopefully it will start tomorrow and we will set off again and get a new battery along the way.

Adels Grove

Saturday - We ended up staying at Edels Grove all the sites where booked at Lawnhill Gorge, it ended up being a nicer location. Adels Grove occupies an area of some 30 hectares and is boarded by Lawnhill creek on one side to Louie creek on the other side, it was first surveyed in1904 and declared a "Miners Homestead Perpetual Lease", in 1930 the lease was purchased by a French botanist Albert De Lestang, the Adels part of the property name is taken from his initials and as such perpetuates his involvement in developing the property.

This morning we hired a canoe and went for a paddle up the river.

In the afternoon we booked on a sunset tour to Harry's Hill to watch the sunset with a wine and nibbles. Harry's Hill was named after an Aboriginal elder who to come to Adels Grove and took tours up to the hill and explained about the history of the property and watch the sun set, when he passed away the owners decided to continue the tours and decided to call the hill, "Harry's Hill".

Tomorrow it's off to Julia Creek.

Lawnhill Gorge

Friday - today we ventured out to Lawnhill Gorge, due to the steepness of the walks we decided to only do the Casades walk, which is 2km round trip, there are 6 different walks you can do.To really appreciate the Gorge you really have to do a canoe ride, the handout you get at the Rangers Station indicates you can canoe 3km of Lawnhill Creek, just walking it probably doesn't do it justice. What we saw was nice but we saw nicer Gorges in the Kimberley's. When we got back to Adels Grove Chris went for a swim, and then caught up on the washing, I had a Poppy nap.

The track to Adels Grove

Thursday - There are two ways to get to Adels Grove from Kingfisher Camp, go back the way you came and take the "main" road which is 260 km or take the " 4wd track" through Bowthorn Station which is 153 km, we chose the track. It was an incredible drive, you are literally in the middle of nowhere. In places the track got rough and you where down to a crawl and other times you could be cruising at 70km, because  you are traversing a working property there are the usual gates to open and close, Chris got really good at this. 

We where surprised an how may people use the track to get to Kingfisher, we passed at least 12 going the other way. We came across a group of blokes stopped after a tyre on one of their 4wd blew out, it's hard work changing tyres in the dust so they all had to have a beer afterwards, it was only 11am.

We saw plenty of cows, they all looked in good condition, noting the countryside was pretty dry. There are always interesting wrecks along the way.

Kingfisher Camp

Wednesday - We where made aware of Kingfisher Camp by a couple from Maitland who where camped alongside us in Darwin, it is 260km from the Robinson river so not as long a drive today. We continued on the dirt until we came to the Hell's Gate Roadhouse. The sometimes bloody history of the cattle driving era gave the landmark its name as it was the final escort point for drovers and settlers heading for the rich pastoral land of the Northern Territory. Today it is a roadhouse where you can get food, fuel and a campsite if you wish, it also has an airstrip and there is a Kirkby sign on the fence when you arrive.

The scenery doesn't change much along the route, at the moment it is fairly dry.

After you leave Hell's Gate you get onto sealed road until you turn off to Kingfisher Camp which is 40km of dirt. At the turnoff there a number of signs to Kingfisher, but the one that got our attention was "KFC Open", how many kids would ask there parents can they have Kentucky Fried for tea. The camp is set alongside a 7km billabong, it is spaciously set out with generator and non generator areas, it has porta cabin amenities with a "Donkey boiler" providing hot water, old fashioned but effective. It is a place we could come back to, a very relaxing location.