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2 June 2021 - We had a drive of three hours and twenty minutes from Cloncurry to Camooweal and it wasn't long until we were on the road with our coffees on hand. We had intended to stop off at Mt. Isa on the way but when we drove into town we decided to keep on going, the only thing we had time to do was to drive up to the lookout and we did this last time and we didn't have time to do any of the mine tours so we couldn't see any reason to stop. Mt. Isa is a mining town and I find something entrancing about it and would like to have a good look around, we may need to put this on our list on a future trip. We drove on and it wasn't long until we arrived in Camooweal, we were very low on fuel so our first stop was at the fuel station, from here we drove to the Post Office/Supermarket to pick up a couple of items we needed and then onto the Pub to book a site for the night. We booked in and then drove around to find a site that suited and then set up, I had a bit of cooking to do to use up the vegetables we had in the fridge because otherwise we would have to throw them out at the border check point. So I made a potato bake we will have for dinner tomorrow night and a tomato sauce I will freeze and we can use with pasta one night. When I went outside I found we had people pulling into the site next to us and they were facing us so when they set up we had a bit of a chat. Robb and I wandered over to the pub for a drink before dinner, while we were there our neighbour called in so he sat and had a chat with us until he returned home. When we returned I put dinner on, I had prepared a sausage tray bake for dinner so we sat outside enjoying the sunset until we went inside for dinner. We are only here for one night because there isn't that much to do in town, we visited the Outback Museum last time we were here and didn't feel the need to do it again.
3 June 2021 - We drove out from Camooweal heading towards Barkly Homestead, so far, we are repeating our earlier trip up here by staying at all the same destinations but the thing is there isn’t anything in between so we all hop from one stop to another. The stops are very cleverly placed in that it takes a tank of fuel to get to each one so we often come across people we have met up with at other stops on the way, quite nice really. Each roadside stop has fuel, food and sites, either powered or unpowered but I must admit there are more people here tonight at Barkly Homestead than we have seen anywhere else along the trip. We set up and then wandered over to the restaurant/bar for lunch. I had used up all our supplies before crossing the border into NT and couldn’t make up our usual salad, we will need to pick up supplies somewhere as we go along, I think Tennant Creek is the next stop where they have a supermarket. Tennant Creek is only 25kms from the turn off to Threeways Roadhouse so we will have to decide whether to turn off to Tennant Creek before proceeding to Threeways or unhitch there and drive down to Tennant Creek.
We returned to our van after lunch and then back to the bar at happy hour at 4.00 – 5.00pm where drinks are only $5 each compared to $10 each when we were there earlier in the day. The thing with pricing up here is that there isn’t any alternative and we appreciate they have fees for bringing produce in this far up and are generally happy to pay, by the way Diesel fuel to fill up today was $1.94 a litre but I think this was cheaper than when we were here last time. There is entertainment in the bar at happy hour and it is always country music as you would expect. The entertainer today was very good and we enjoyed his performance. We had two drinks each before returning to our van where we struggled with the internet to do the things we wanted. I have dinner prepared for tonight I just need to remember to put it on. I took the opportunity to plan our next few days travel to include the places we really want to visit and stay at. Barkly Homestead is worth a visit and a stopover when you are up this way.
4 June 2021 – We are driving to Threeways Roadhouse today where we will take another one night stopover because once again there isn’t much to see here. Tennant Creek is 27kms down the road but we exhausted all the tourist sights here last time in the area. We badly need supplies and we were going to drive to Threeways to unhitch and set up and then onto do the shopping but we decided to drive directly to Tennant Creek and then back to Threeways. We were worried about parking at the supermarket but we needn’t have been concerned because the old supermarket had burned down and it had been set up in an empty building beside the BP station as you enter town and they had made allowance out the back of the store for caravan parking; we were now glad we had decided to come here first. I had used up all our vegies before crossing the border so I had to replace all of these and we were nearly out of meat and on top of this we needed a few other goods, basically we did a full week’s shop by the time we were finished. We filled up with fuel here before driving to Threeways where we booked a site and once again, we drove around until we found something that suited. It is a bit too chilly today to sit outside so we made ourselves busy until 4.00pm when we will wander over to the pub and have a drink, while there I will take the opportunity to snap some photos. We haven’t had internet for the past couple of days so I am unable to post my blog I will have to wait until the service is more reliable.
5 June 2021 - By the time we left Threeways Roadhouse everyone else was gone, a lot of people were traveling on further than us and wanted an early start. Our destination today was Elliott, 226kms away. Last time we planned to stop at Elliott we took one look at all the bars over the shop windows and the high mesh fences around the properties and decided to drive on. We didn't want to do this again as our next destination is Daly Waters and if we arrive too late in the day we won't get a spot there, our plan is to head off fairly early and arrive just on 10.00am when the overnighters are expected to move on and hopefully we are successful in getting a spot here. This is a great stop with a fantastic pub which has entertainment every night and it is a favourite with caravanners. Hopefully our plan works out. Back to Elliott though we manned up and after filling up with fuel drove to the caravan park to book in. To say this is not a particularly attractive caravan park is probably being a bit generous and we were here by ourselves until mid afternoon when a few people started arriving, I feel much better to know there are other people around but we will make sure we don't leave anything outside tonight and that the car is locked up nicely. One benefit we have is that we have good service here, we had missed not having that the last few nights. The other thing is the park is teaming with peahens who are obviously quite used to people and came right up to us to see if we had food for them. We are looking forward to moving on tomorrow.
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