Just to give you an idea of the trip around Australia as a whole here is a rough map of the journey. It doesn’t show where I actually stayed - just the centre of the town - nor does it show any of the side trips.
The idea is that it gives you an overall view.
Distance: 59 km
Slept until 6.30am this morning. There was a lot of dew so I used it to clean the car windscreen, lights etc before washing yesterday’s clothes. I think I should have enough clothes to get me home now.
Because it is Saturday decided to go out to the Burdekin Weir first thing before the families get out to the picnic ground there. This is the source of Charters Towers drinking water. The original weir was built in 1902 but has been raised to its current level to increase the water available when the population increased dramatically during the Second World War.
This is a half scale model of the old and new weir.
On the way back to town I detoured past the Columbia Mine Poppet Head.
Followed that by a trip to the Zara Clark Museum. Strange place - absolutely jammed with stuff and vaguely organised into ‘rooms’ with a theme. Spent quite a time there because it covered anything from transport, communications, Flying Doctor, home furnishing to mining and agriculture. There was the occasional exhibit which reminded me of my grandmother’s and great aunt’s homes (the reason why I rarely visit country museums) but overall it was interesting.
The museum was very close to the centre of town so I retraced my steps to follow parts of the self guided walk that I missed yesterday.
I visited the Miners Cottage which was from the same school of curatorship as the museum. Room after room of objects piled upon each other, this however was a private collection with even less organisation and explanation than the Museum. The owner was a prospector who used a metal detector which he demonstrated – it can tell the difference between gold and iron. I had no idea.
Made a return trip to Towers Hill to have a walk to Clark’s Gold mine which I had missed yesterday. To be honest it was not a great miss.
Followed this up with a bit of shopping (postcards and biscuits) before returning to the caravan park in the middle of the afternoon.
Took down the gazebo as the sun went behind the trees, there is dew in the morning and I don’t want to pack it up wet; besides taking it down is a time saver in the morning.
At about 5.30pm decided that I needed a curry so drove to the Charters Towers Indian restaurant.
I had intended to eat there but when I entered it was one of those places designed for takeaway only - absolutely no atmosphere, flouro lighting, plastic tablecloths, bare tables, hard chairs etc so ordered take away. When it arrived (20 mins later) drove back to my site, got out the paper plates and had a delicious Rogan Josh with Nan bread - far more than I could eat. Had to throw half away but for $22.20 who cares?
Moving on tomorrow. This is really the start of the dash for home, I expect to be there by Thursday or Friday - crossing NSW will only take a couple of days I hope because it will be too cold to hang about.
Distance: 321 km
Fuel: 35 L
Another easy drive through varied scenery but a lot skirting or cutting through ranges. Ignored the 130kph speed limit and stuck to my now self imposed 100kph limit. Only overtaken half a dozen times and most of them were not travelling at 130kph judging by the time it took them to pull ahead (one maybe).
Stopped several times during the trip otherwise I would have arrived at some ridiculous hour; as it was I still arrived at a caravan park about 1pm. The park I chose was about 5km outside town which might have been fortunate because one I passed one near the centre of town had a queue of five caravans outside waiting to check in.
I was in Katherine only last year on my Darwin trip and spent several days looking at the sights so am probably only staying one night.
Spend a lot of the afternoon trying to work out rough distances I need to travel each day to see what I want to see and still get back home within the approximate deadline I have set for myself. I want to revisit the Undarra Lava tubes but from now on I am largely in familiar territory. I am only allowing two days to get from the Qld border to home which should be do-able but it is a long drive each day. I just don’t fancy sitting outside in the NSW winter.
The temperature at the moment is just over 30’C during the day and about 20’C at night – it suits me perfectly.
Distance: 281 km
Fuel: 27.93 L
After 20 minutes driving from Kununurra crossed into the NT and lost 1.5 hours of my life.
Note the sign telling you that the maximum speed limit in the Northern Territory is 110kph - about 200 metres down the road was a 130kph speed limit sign (someone must have forgotten to remove the first sign when the NT went back to its old limits).
Driving was easy on a fairly good road through undulating bush. I made a few stops at things that interested me.
Was undecided whether to stop at Timber Creek or push on another 90km to Victoria River. I stopped for a few sights along the way and it was after 1pm by the time I arrived at Timber Creek so I booked a night.
While I waited to book in I enjoyed a bloke going rabid about paying $1.70 for a two day old copy of the NT News (paper) the girl behind the counter was trying to explain that this was a remote location and the newspapers were always a couple of days old. He only wanted to pay $1.40 for it – how he arrived at that figure I don’t know but he was very insistent. He eventually flounced out but rather spoilt the flounce by having to come back to get his money back.
Unhooked my trailer in a nice shady spot and went to see the local sights having seen a couple of signs indicating lookouts as I drove in.
The road in the last picture is the highway from Timber Creek to Katherine (only 290km away).
In the creek and bush at the bottom of the caravan park were some freshwater crocs, turtles, kites and bats. Actually there was a two metre croc (as big as the males get) on the bank when I first walked down but I thought it was a fibreglass garden ornament and walked within a metre of it, it didn’t move. It was only later when I went back and found it gone that I realised it was the real thing.
Power for this town is generated locally at a small diesel power station.
I could do without the power I suppose except I like a cup of tea and some toast, videos and my music (am listening to Captain Beefheart as I type).
