Australia's Longest Shortcut - the Outback Way

Although the Outback Way officially commences in Winton, QLD, I started this section of my Big Lap from Clontarf on Brisbane's eastern coast (and my last blog post). I headed West stopping at Free Camps and pubs where possible and interspersing the overnight stops with a weekly stop for 2-3 days at a Caravan Park in order to attend to mundane but essential tasks, such as washing clothes. Having bought a small portable 240V washing machine at the start of the year, I have subsequently only used it twice. It uses @20L of precious water per load (to a maximum of 3kg when wet....which isn't much and cannot even cope with my duvet cover on its own!). I won't mention how poor it was at spinning even 1kg of wet clothes, but suffice to say, the machine has now been donated to the nice people running the Caravan Park that I stayed at in Alice Springs - a 'Lessons Learned' experience, for sure! The significant space left behind in the pod trailer, however, seems to have been magically swallowed up by other stuff...

As I head further west from the bigger cities and towns such as Toowoomba, smaller places in this enormous State tend to need to find ways to attract visitors. One of these ways is Silo Art (this example here was in a little town called Yelarbon, QLD, but I was not there at the right time to capture it in the best light as I passed through). Some examples (though not this particular one) are incredible in both size, scope and execution, and there are specific Silo Art trails you can follow in most states.

Another avenue to attract visitors used by other small towns are Sculpture trails (an example here in Goondwindi, QLD).

Just before I headed northwards into Central and then W QLD, I stopped for a couple of nights at the Charlotte Plains Artesian Borehead Campground. The water comes out of the pipes at @42 C and the mineral content of the water is supposedly beneficial for us 'hoomans'.

As the mornings were still somewhat chilly, the mineral baths were much appreciated...even if i didn't notice any positive transformation in the rejuvenation stakes!

Cunnamulla was the town where I turned right to start heading northwards. I only stopped briefly for a coffee and a stroll and took this photo of "The Cunnamulla Fella" - made famous by singer Slim Dusty....not alot else going on in Cunnamulla!

My next significant stop was Charleville (pop. @ 3000). Charleville is probably best known for the Royal Flying Doctor Service visitor centre and the secret WW2 base where @3500 US Air Force were stationed in 1943. It also boasts a stargazing centre, but the activity I was recommended to do was the 'Charleville Bilby Experience' which runs a captive breeding programme for the vulnerable greater bilby. Being nocturnal creatures, the viewing was under red lighting. This was one of the few shots that didn't involve the male of the species (the one on the right) trying his darndest to procreate!

The 'visitor attraction' point of difference for the tiny town of Tambo was Chicken racing at one of the local pubs, the Carrangarra Hotel (the other pub was almost next door!). This activity occurs every night during a 4-month 'season' and raises money for disadvantaged country children (as opposed to urban ones!). It was quite a fun event that the pub owners have down to a fine art - raffling off the colourful chooks then running the race. I did video it, however, I am struggling to successfully edit it...when I do, I will post it!

I did successfully bid for a chicken in the race, with the name of 'the Ginger Ninja'. Despite some previous form, she failed miserably on the night (but happy to report that she did not end up as a Chicken Schnitty or two!).

Blackall was the next stop. This town's 'claim to fame' is the origin for the expression "beyond the black stump". Similar to the UK expression "beyond the Pale", it denotes being ridiculously far from civilisation. The black stump in Blackall was used by surveyors as an astronomical point from which Latitude and Longitude coordinates were established to then accurately position nearby towns (including Boulia, Charleville and Roma) from Brisbane. The original stump survived until the 1980's when it was destroyed by fire.

I then spent a few nights at Barcaldine - mainly to do my washing! The town's principal attraction would have to be the Tree of Knowledge. The tree was a Ghost Gum that survived on this site until it died in 2006. Beneath this tree became a key meeting place that witnessed the struggle between Shearers and Pastoralists over wages and working conditions during the 1891 National Shearers' Strike. This led to the formation of the labour union movement, the establishment of the Australian Labour Party and the formation of the Pastoralist Union....so quite a historic tree, then!

I only spent one night in a free camp just outside Longreach, so did not take the opportunity to visit the Qantas Founders' Museum or the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame there. My next stop (and the formal Easterly start point of the Outback Way to WA) was in Winton on a campsite at the back of the North Gregory Hotel (est. 1879) famous for being the venue for the first public playing of Australia's unofficial anthem: 'Waltzing Matilda' and where Qantas airline was first formed. The area is also renown for dinosaur fossils

Heading West from Winton really started to deliver on the definition of 'Outback Australia'. The main road was down to a single lane, traffic was sparse, the countryside sparse, and the temperatures started to climb, somewhat uncomfortably. This picture of snailspace was at a free campsite opposite the Middleton Hotel. The hotel has virtually no regular patrons and is maintained by the owners of the Middleton cattle station for the benefit of travellers passing through. Beer is provided in cans and not on tap, because the latter goes off too quickly with too few regular patrons to drink it! The couple looking after the hotel turned/opened up at 4:30pm and me and three other campers and two drilling contractors were the sole customers for the night (but they did knock up a reasonable Chicken Schnitty!). After Middleton, the only substantial/elevated features in an otherwise arid and flat landscape was the Cawnpore Lookout - islands in a vast inland sea of a bygone age.

My final Queensland destination before hitting the dirt road (euphemistically named the Plenty Highway) was Boulia. I think it is most well known for holding an annual camel race there during the winter. For me, with the steadily climbing temperatures, the town's saving grace was a municipal swimming pool, which was both refreshing and, surprisingly, free!

The landscape as I headed West across the Plenty Highway was definitely Outback Australia. The colours of the sky and what little vegetation existed were both 'bleached' and faded by the sun. The Plenty was also was my first real experience of driving on dirt roads for any significant distances. While infrequently able to find a sweet spot of travelling @80-90km/h on the recently-graded parts, much of it was trying to limit the bone-jarring juddering of the dreaded 'corrugations'. These rock-hard 'waves' and ripples are formed by vehicles travelling when the ground is wet and can cause some serious issues for motorists. For me it was principally the catastrophic failure of my aluminium bike rack which collapsed backwards but the bike was fortunately held on by a number of straps and did not hit the ground...again. I added a couple more ratchet straps and lashed the bike against the lid of the trailer, which was enough to keep it together until I could get it repaired in Alice. Another near disaster was the fact that my jockey wheel had vibrated/unwound itself to the point that it was very close to dropping down! The only item actually lost overboard was one of the four aluminium 'nuts' securing the recovery boards to pins mounted on the trailer, which had also unwound itself in protest at the corrugations....cable ties are now my best friend!

After hitting the border into the Northern Territory (NT), I stayed at a couple of stations along the Plenty Highway, which provided a shady haven from the heatwave being experienced in central Australia at the time. The last 100km before hitting Jervois Station were the most trying and at times I was crawling to avoid the horrendous, hateful corrugations. The last stop before hitting Alice was at a roadhouse called Gemtree, where I once again bought a bag of raw wash to sort through (as opposed to fossicking in the dirt) and managed to find a couple of garnets that I will add to the gemstones to send to Thailand for cutting. Arrived in Alice during a continued heatwave, but fortunately the campground had a life-saving pool. I extended my stay there from three to five nights to enable me to get the bike rack fixed and partake in a balloon excursion at dawn....but more of that in the next instalment!

Take care and best regards,

Jimmo / James