Back in the Northern Territory

We de-camped early from our campsite alongside a billabong (waterhole) located just 1 kilometre outside of the small town of Camooweal and hit the road.  As the driver I was happy that we were headed west which mean’t I didn’t have to squint into the early morning sun.  Just 13 kilometres later we reached a sign welcoming us to the Northern Territory.

Welcome to the NT!  It was nice to be back!

The Northern Territory (NT) of Australia is located in the central and central northern region of Australia.  It is bordered by Queensland to the east, Western Australia to the west and South Australia to the south.  Look to the north and all you can see is ocean.  If you jump in a boat and travel far enough you might run into Timor or Indonesia.

The NT is large and largely unpopulated...
but don't think you will have the place to yourself!

It is a big place at 1.42 million km2.  By way of comparison, the Northern Territory is over twice the land area of Texas (696,000 km2), and is larger than all of the Canadian provinces and territories with the exception of Nunavut (2.09 million km2) and Quebec (1.67 million km2).  On the other hand, when it comes to population it is pretty much empty with fewer than 250,000 people living there.  Of these folks, 145,000 live in the capital city of Darwin on the northern coast of the 'Top End'.  Darwin also happens to be our target destination for a couple of weeks in June.  The next couple of blogs will let you know a bit about what we encounter along the 2,000 or so kilometre route we take to get there.

As mentioned above, there is a whole lot of empty space in the NT.  Once we had stopped for a photo of the border sign it was another 250 kilometres until we came to the next sign of human life in the guise of the Barkly Roadhouse.  I thought about topping up the fuel tank but with the asking price for diesel being $2.00 per litre, I quietly muttered “WTF?!” to myself before WTF? - Where are The Farrows?, chose to drive right on by feeling quite happy with themselves having installed a long range fuel tank in the ute and knowing we would easily make it to a fuel stop with less gouging tendencies!

Another couple hundred kilometres down the road and we came to the intersection with the Stuart Highway.  The Stuart Highway is the main highway running N-S in the Northern Territory - it runs right up the middle from the SA border to Darwin.  Our Free Camps app was advising a camp known as ‘The Pebbles’ existed nearby and was just a few kilometres off of the Stuart Highway so we decided to make that home for the night.

We thought that because of the emptiness of the NT and all, and the fact that we were 6 km off of the highway down a dirt road, that we would have ‘The Pebbles’ to ourselves - a private campsite, if you will.  This was looking to be the case until a couple of hours before sunset when about 11 vehicles appeared within the space of an hour.  Oh well!  We chose to find the silver-lining associated with having to share with others and thus took a ‘Safety in Numbers’ point of view of the situation.  

Kunjarra or 'The Pebbles' campsite was located
near the base of some granite boulders.
When we arrived we had it to ourselves.
Same when we departed.
Overnight was a different story!

Following a quiet night our ‘private’ camp emptied out as rapidly as it had filled the previous evening.  WTF - Where are The Farrows? were first to arrive and last to leave!

In the next post, we follow the ribbon of sealed road known as the Stuart Highway northwards towards the ‘Top End’.  WTF? - Where are The Farrows? come across natural hot springs & waterfalls just begging us to take a dip (but are there any crocodiles in residence?).  The termite mounds we see appear to be getting ever larger and one of our Bush Pubs turns out to be part of an unsolved murder mystery!  Stay tuned for more tales from the Never Never... 

Queensland Pub Crawl Comes to it’s End

I don’t know about you but I am happy to report that our Queensland Pub Crawl has come to an end!  It is not that we haven’t had fun visiting all of these places but it is getting difficult to keep finding new things about bush pubs to describe to you the reader.  Nonetheless, I will finish the job that I started (even if I do go lightly on the pub descriptions)…

We arrived in Longreach in central western Queensland to re-supply the van with food and water, etc, and get some maintenance done on the vehicle (replaced front brake pads).  The town is the home of the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and is well worth a visit.

Bronze statue of Stockman out the front of the Stockman's Hall of Fame

While in the region we drove about 100 kilometres to the east to visit the town of Barcaldine and it’s ‘Tree of Knowledge’.  The Tree of Knowledge was the shady gathering place / headquarters for striking shearers in 1891 and now symbolises the foundation of organised representation of labour in Queensland.  The tree itself was a grand old Ghost Gum that was over 100 years old at the time of the shearer’’s gatherings and was added to the Queensland Heritage Register in 1992.

Unfortunately, it was poisoned and killed in 2006 by an act of senseless but wilful vandalism - not much ‘knowledge’ deployed in performing that low deed.  The perpetrator has not been found.  Now all that remains on the site is a monument.

The 'Tree of Knowledge' monument in Barcaldine

There is however, a small part of a happy ending to offer...  Before the tree was officially declared dead, i.e.: while it was visibly sick and dying but not yet dead, several cuttings were taken from the tree which were successfully nurtured and re-planted.  These are now growing in and around the town of Barcaldine.

Upon departing Longreach the next three, and last, pubs on this part of our journey were visited. In order these were: The Middleton Hotel, The Blue Heeler Pub, and the Gregory Downs Hotel.

Middleton Hotel - 2 May 2019

Blue Heeler Hotel, Kynuna - 3 May 2019

Gregory Downs Hotel - 7 May 2019

After spending the night out the back of the Gregory Downs Hotel we travelled to the town of Camooweal just 13 km inside the Queensland / Northern Territory border and thereby wrapped up our Pub Crawl through Queensland.

In summary, our pub crawl took us a month to complete.  We visited 14 Bush Pubs and travelled 4,866 km in doing so.

It was a long and winding route through
outback Queensland but we 'got er done!'

In the next episode when you ask WTF? - Where are The Farrows?, I will no longer be able to answer your question by saying ‘Queensland’.  We are Northern Territory bound!

London, Paris, Thargomindah?

When you think of major cities of the world the likes of; London, Paris, New York, etc, typically spring to mind.  You don’t often hear people citing ‘London, Paris & Thargomindah’ as a peer grouping.  When WTF? - Where are The Farrows? first heard this trio mentioned in the same breath they thought (because they would never say it out aloud), firstly, ‘WTF (Where The…) is Thargomindah?’ and secondly, ‘WTF (Who The…) are they trying to kid?’.

Well, dear reader, WTF? - Where are The Farrows? now knows the answer to the first question (because we have been there), however, for your benefit, the answer is illustrated in the image below:

Located in SW Queensland atop Australia's Great Artesian Basin, Thargomindah is 1,000km from Brisbane & 1,200km from Adelaide

The answer to the second thought may surprise you as much as it did us - They are not trying to kid anyone!  Please allow me to fill you in…

In 1891 drilling commenced on a bore (that’s a ‘well’ for the folks in Nth America and elsewhere), to supply the town with water.  In 1893 an exceptionally good supply was struck at a depth of 808 metres (2,650 feet) with water at a temperature of 84C being pushed to the surface by the natural artesian pressure.  Thargomindah was the first town to have reticulated Artesian Bore water.  The bore was also the source of energy for Australia’s first hydro-electric power scheme when in 1893, Thargomindah’s streets were lit by means of a generator coupled to a water turbine that was driven by the bore’s natural water pressure.  Thargominda was the ‘Third after London, One Day after Paris’ to have street lighting generated by hydro power!

The artesian bore and Thargomindah's original hydro power plant

Home of Australia's first hydro-electric power plant.
Who would've guessed?!

I thought the ‘third in the world’ claim to fame could have perhaps been displayed a little more prominently on the sign placed at the entrance to the old Thargomindah Hydro Power Plant but maybe that is just me?  Look closely at the lower left of the photo of the sign below (click on the image to enlarge it if that will help you), and you can see the words ‘Third after London, One Day after Paris’.

Bush modesty at it's best!  Click on image to enlarge
in order to read small print at centre right:
'Third after London One day after Paris'

Following a night in the metropolis of Thargomindah where we enjoyed electric lighting inside our caravan (because the mosquitoes were too thick to enjoy anything at all sitting outside), we rolled westward to the Noccundra Hotel in search of the next autograph in our Bush Pubs book.

I believe I have mentioned in previous posts that the flies and mozzies in these parts, after the better than typical rains, are abundant!  As we arrived at the Noccundra Hotel during daylight hours, it was the flies that greeted us.  Heather broke out the metal detector and her bug-hood and tried to do some detecting around our campsite.  She soon gave up.  The flies were too thick!

Flies and even more flies!

The Noccundra Hotel is different to most of the Queensland pubs we have visited far in that it was made of stone - built to last in 1883!  She is a handsome old girl from the outside but not much to speak of on the inside - oh well!.

Most things in Queensland were built out of timber.
Most things in Queensland have been eaten by termites!
The Noccundra Hotel was built out of stone in 1883 and
is still looking good.

One of two ‘claims to fame’ for the town of Eromanga where our next pub was to be found is that it is ‘The Furthest Town from the Sea’ in Australia.  The other is that Eromanga is/was the home of Australia’s largest dinosaur.  We requested and received a signature in our book from the publican and had a chat over the obligatory cold beer before heading back to camp.

The Furthest Town (and thus Pub) from the Sea

The last pub in the SW corner of Queensland that we were to hit during this part of our tour was the Yaraka Hotel in Yaraka.  Due to the recent wet weather and the subsequent road closures we could not take the most direct route from Eromanga to get there.  The Stonehenge publican (publicans are always the fount of all local knowledge), assured us that our vehicle would be able to get there but we "certainly would not be able to tow the caravan there" on the only route that was open to us which was an ill-defined track across 130 km of farmland.  So, we parked in the shire-provided caravan site across from the pub, unhitched the van and set off down the 130km long farm track to get to Yaraka.

Upon arrival we found a sign on the door indicating the bar was closed for ‘Siesta Time’!  WTF?  It was getting late in the day and we did not want to wait too long to start our return trip as driving into the setting sun on a poorly defined track with kangaroos and cattle all over the place is no fun.  At the same time, we didn’t want to leave empty handed.  Luckily for us, the publican, Chris, showed up and after exchanging brief pleasantries, we secured his signature and then had to leave.  Long story short, we made it home with an autograph and a whole lot of grasshopper guts splattered across the front of the vehicle.

Chris was more than happy to sign our book
after the effort we had put in to get to his pub!

Out the front of The Yaraka Hotel

The next episode of WTF? - Where are The Farrows? sees us in the town of Longreach (and surrounds) to re-supply after a couple of weeks out in the SW Queensland wilderness.

Toompine Pub - The Pub with No Town

With tyres re-inflated to highway pressures we set off in the direction of the South Western Hotel, aka, Toompine Pub which is also known as ‘The Pub without a Town’ given it is the only thing there!

South Western Hotel - Toompine Pub, QLD (pop: 2)

With the forecast wet weather closing in, we decided to stay the night.  As we were the only folks there we had our choice of the camping spots available.  There was a great one under cover, straight across from the showers and toilets and with a power outlet nearby that our host, ‘Rocket’, invited us to go ahead and plug into.  The cost of overnight camping at Toompine Hotel? - No Charge, Free, Gratis, $0.00!

Power, Water and Under Cover 'camp-site' across from the Toompine Pub

No sooner had we got ourselves set-up for the night than the promised rain arrived.  Instead of sitting within the confines of the caravan we went into the pub for a beer and a chat and to get Rocket’s signature in our bush pubs book.

Publican 'Rocket' with Heather after signing our book

The budget friendly cost of camping made it very easy to decide to have a pub meal that night.  We each had a T-Bone steak with salad and chips (fries).  Rocket threw a couple of prawns onto the plate as well for good measure.  After several disappointing pub meals thus far in our travels, this one certainly met and even exceeded expectations!

Huge T-bone steaks with a couple of large prawns
thrown in for good measure!

After our meal we returned to the van for the night and with full bellies it was not long after that we were both sound asleep!

With the caravan being undercover we did not hear the patter of rain on our roof through the night.  Next morning we rose to find that the water level around the pub had also risen.  Despite just 13 mm (~1/2 an inch in the old language) landing in the pub's rain gauge overnight, the rains had been far heavier upstream around Quilpie from whence we had escaped the day before (new readers please refer to previous blog posting).  Subsequently, the road from Toompine to Thargominda that we had intended to use upon departure (which normally crosses over several creeks/channels of the Barcoo River along the way), now had flash flood waters flowing over it.

A few calls from Rocket to his local connections soon confirmed several roads in the district had already been closed.  As we had no place to be at any particular time, rather than get upset about something we had no control over we readily accepted we would be spending another night in Toompine.  We had the best camp site in the Pub with no Town and the pub had plenty of food so it made it easy to deal with.

During the day we kept ourselves amused by checking the water level flowing across the road.  It continued to rise throughout the morning which was a little concerning, and a brief discussion about 'sand-bagging' took place but it started to recede later in the afternoon so we all relaxed a bit.  While Rocket wasn’t going anywhere himself, his concerns about the road closures revolved around the 'non-arrival’ of a party of travellers he was expecting.  It wasn’t because the travellers were in any sort of danger it was that they had pre-ordered 10 dinner meals of fish and prawn cutlets which he had prepared for that they would no longer eat.  He also had some large local Blue Claw Yabbies that he was quite proud of that he had available & ready to cook up.

Rocket with a plate of giant Blue Claw Yabbies

When we went into the pub that evening for a sundowner and looked up at the chalk board menu to consider what we would order for dinner, Rocket informed us that:

“The special for tonight is Fish and Prawn Cutlets - and it will be a generous serving too!”.

Normally, when in a bush pub situated in the midst of cattle country and located 1,000 km from the coast, I would not order the seafood.  However, under these circumstances, how could you not?

The Seafood Plate was a beauty
and (almost) more than you could eat!

What a serve it was!  4 pieces of fish, 8 prawn cutlets (butterflied, crumbed and deep fried), potato salad, pasta salad, rice salad and a large bowl of chips - for each of us!  It was delicious!

We promised Rocket we would take a few photos of the inside and outside of the pub as well as some of great food we had been served so that he could use them in his advertising material, e.g.: Facebook page, etc.  Below is one example of a collage that we created for him.

Collage of images of the Toompine Pub created for
Rocket to use to promote his establishment

He seemed to appreciate them as the one above is now the banner image of the Toompine Hotel facebook page.  We hope he gets plenty of requests for the his T-Bones and Seafood Plates!

The next morning the water was no longer flowing and the roads in our general direction of travel had been re-opened so we were free to go.  With the green light to move-on, WTF? - Where are The Farrows?, overly well fed, rolled off down the highway.

PS: WTF? - Where are The Farrows? are certainly glad to have departed our Easter camp site at The Lake near Quilpie when we did as those that remained (even those on high-ground) ended up getting ‘rained-in’.  One such couple sent us a photo showing the campsite that we were in was now well underwater.

Over Easter we were camped at the base of these
trees about 20 m from the edge of The Lake.
If still there, we would be IN The Lake!

We would have been unable to get out of there for at least a week, maybe two, until the water receded and the sticky mud dried out.

Easter 2019 at 'The Lake' (near Quilpie, QLD)

Our wake-up cups of coffee in hand we enjoyed the dawn watching the stars fade as darkness transitioned to yet another sunny blue sky day in outback Queensland - you can’t really get tired of it!

With a gentle tailwind behind us all the way we travelled, achieving excellent fuel economy, ~ 200 kilometres due W from Charleville to our next destination.

Small blue & white sign against a similar background can be hard to see
when driving down the highway.
Lucky they also have a bright orange caravan parked by the gate.
You can't miss it!

‘The Lake’ campground is located on a working sheep and cattle station just 4 km E of the town of Quilpie (pop~ 650).  It caters to any style of campers ranging from caravaners wanting to park adjacent to the station house ‘Caravan Park style’ with connections to power & water with nearby showers and toilets, through to those that simply want to ‘bush camp’ and pitch their tent (or caravan in our case) away from station facilities beside the lake.  Being ‘fully self-contained’, i.e.: our van carries it's own power (solar and battery system), water and toilet facilities, we chose an option that lay between the two book-ends and proceeded to set-up a nicely private camp (just us, the cockatoos at sunset, and the flies (all daylight hours)) on the lakeshore a couple of hundred metres away from the homestead.

We had a great campsite beside the lake

Once we had made camp and unhitched the vehicle we drove straight into Quilpie to fill up the fuel tank and pick up some minor provisions (hot-crossed buns and chocolate - it is Easter after all!), before everything closed down for the long weekend (a typical occurrence in small towns on holiday weekends).  As it turned out, there was no need to worry as there were two or three 24hr card-lock Fuel Depots used by long-haul truckers to choose from that never close down.

Being the Thursday before Easter and a lovely spot by the lake secured, we decided we would settle in and stay for 3 or 4 days.  Being off of the roads during the long-weekend is generally a good idea too - not that it is very busy way out here over 1,000km from the nearest city!

As soon as we had returned to camp, out came the metal detector!  Within seconds of starting her hunt Heather was cursing the flies.  A minute or two later and she was back in the caravan to get her ‘bug-hood’ so that she could: a) see, and b) breathe without inhaling any of them!  Not long after donning her hood a cry of joy as she had made a find!  It was a Sterling Silver (92.5% Ag), Three Pence coin!  Who would have thought there would be something to be found less than 20 m from our campsite?!

H in bug-hood found this 1943 Three Pence coin
just metres from the van.

On Good Friday, our camp hosts at The Lake, Sally and Mike, invited everyone on site (about 4 couples and 2 families) to join them around the homestead camp fire for a Sundowner (BYO beverage of your choice as the sun goes down) and some ‘Sun-dried Tomato and Olive’ damper.  

Arriving about 30 minutes before the sun went down, we (and everyone else), were accompanied by our ever-present entourages of flies.  It is tough to enjoy a drink while wearing a fly hood and hard to conduct a conversation without, so we reverted to chemical warfare!  Liberal application of ‘Aeroguard’ kept the little blighters at bay until, with the arrival of darkness, some natural relief arrived and they (the flies) just go away!  They must be scared of the dark!

Don't forget the Aeroguard and 'Avagood Weekend'

The respite that comes with the setting of the sun and the subsequent departure of the flies, is however, unfortunately brief.  In what could be considered a cruel quirk of nature for living things out here, the annoying flies are no sooner gone than they are duly replaced by a ‘nightshift’ of peskie mosquitoes!

When camping by water it has never been truer that you need to make sure that you ‘Don’t forget the Aeorguard’ in order to ‘Avagood Weekend!’.  All Aussies will know exactly what I am talking about here as the two phrases above are a reference to some classic advertising for bug spray from their younger days and childhoods.  The ads are now part of Australian popular culture. 

OK, after that little tirade against bugs trying to make their living from our blood, sweat, & given enough persistence on their behalf, maybe, tears, I must say that the Sun-dried Tomato and Olive damper was delicious!  We enjoyed it so much that I asked Sally for the recipe which she was good enough to provide.  I will be giving this a go in the camp oven myself at some point in the future and will let you know how it turns out - might even make a video of the event!

In just two days and nights at The Lake we had almost emptied the can of Aeroguard that we had on board when we arrived so we made a stop at about the only store in Quilpie that was open on the weekend to get some more.  With ‘bug security’ reinforcement now in hand, for our entertainment on Saturday we drove, sans caravan, about 100 km out to the town of Adavale as this was the location of the Adavale Pub to obtain the next signature in our Bush Pubs book.

The Adavale Pub, is listed 1st in our Aussie Bush Pubs book
for no other reason than it's name begins with the letter 'A'

Our visit to the pub made for a pleasant outing.

We had a good chat with the publican, Koss, who, over a beer, and along with his signature, provided us with a bit of history about the area.  He also told us that a book, titled ‘Kings in Grass Castles’ written by Dame Mary Durack and made into a TV mini-series, is about The Durack Family and how they first established a large land holding in the area. 

Heather with Publican 'Koss'
He is the 17th publican to have signed our book (so far).

Sunday was a lazy day back at the Station.  As we took refuge from the flies in our van we decided to watch the mini-series we were told about the previous day (good 4G network service allowed us to watch via YouTube).  It was entertaining and a little disturbing in parts but we also learned a bit more about some of Australia’s pastoral history too.

All of the chat around the campfire that evening was all about the weather and the forecast of up to 75mm (3 inches) of rain for the district across Monday and Tuesday.  Given the fact that Queensland ‘black soils’, unaccustomed to moisture that they are, get as slippery as clay (because that is essentially what they are), after just a couple of mm of rain, we resolved to be gone by 10am on Monday before it was forecast to arrive.

We were settling up our camping fees under cloudy skies and on dry ground with our hosts around 7am on Monday morning when somebody mentioned metal detecting and somebody else (hello Sally), let slip that ‘in the old days there used to be Chinese garden patches on the other side of the lake’.  Too tempting an opportunity to resist for a Metal Detector, rather than hitch-up the caravan right away, we drove about 4km by road and then across a paddock to get to the bank on the other side of the lake (despite it being just 200m ‘as the crow flies’) directly across from our caravan, in order to ‘take a swing’ for an hour or so.

This time, wearing her fly-hood from the outset, Heather once again struck ‘pay-dirt’ almost immediately at the base of an old tree near the water’s edge.  Two coins in the one hole!  A 1949 Kangaroo Penny and a 1942 Kangaroo Half Penny.  

With bug-hood in place, Heather found two coins in one hole!
Above L) 1949 Kangaroo Penny, and R) 1942 Kangaroo Half Penny 

Then the fun really started… No sooner had we identified the coins than the first drops of rain started to fall.  We scrambled back to the car and by the time we had got into it the rain was coming down heavily.  We immediately set off back to camp.  Despite the rain having stopped after just a couple of minutes, already the tread on the tyres of the ute were caked slick with slippery mud making it difficult to steer.

Mud quickly turned the chunky tread on our tyres into smooth slicks!

Back at the van, we got taller with every step we took just moving around getting ready to try and leave.  A couple of minutes of rain, dropping 2 or 3mm at most, had turned our campsite and the track into, and more importantly out of it, into a greasy clay slick.

The track into and out of our campsite had
become a greasy slick in just minutes!

Seeing what a mess a couple of mm of rain could make of the tracks, experiencing the lack of traction available to a vehicle on the wet clays, and with forecasters predicting over 25mm more rain to start falling within the next hour or two, WTF? - Where are The Farrows? needed to GTF! - Get The Farrows! outa there ASAP before the rain really arrived!  If we couldn’t move to higher ground we would be stuck (literally) for days (again, literally!).

I openly admit that I was not sure if the ute would be able to gain enough traction to tow the van up the clay laden slope.  We took some time, but not too much time (because it was soon going to start raining again), planning our way out.  

The time had come to act.  After letting air out of the tyres to improve traction, down to 20psi all around - ute & van, I selected Low Range 4WD to tow the 3 tonne van to higher and drier ground.  As it turned out the ute pulled the combination out without much drama but we couldn't have done it so easily without lowering the tyre pressure first.  I was very relieved!  Now parked safely on high ground we re-inflated to correct pressures for the highway and down the road we went with dark clouds looming.

Next stop for WTF? - Where are The Farrows? was to be the South West Hotel in Toompine - the next of the classic outback pubs on our Bush Pub Crawl!  Was it a regulation 'stop, sign & and go' or did the rain cause a change in plan?