The plan for this trip is to revisit some favorite places in the Kimberley and see lots of new places, including a drive along the Great Central Road from Laverton,WA to Uluru, in the Red Centre, NT.
Here is the map of our proposed route (taken from the Wiki Camps planner). The red line shows where we’ve been and the green line is the plan for the rest of the trip.
In order to focus on what we really want to see in WA, we decided to travel quickly through NSW, Queensland and parts of the Northern Territory (NT). Then Dick found a music festival in Queensland that sort of fitted with our itinerary, so we included it.
We’ve had some really nice camping spots in the first two weeks, and we’ve enjoyed hot pools, spa baths and bathtubs. There’s always something interesting to find when you look for it.
Moree is known for thermal springs so in an ordinary caravan park there, we scored a campsite by the river and a soak in the 41C thermal pool. We also used the last of our NSW free dinner vouchers so we could leave NSW with a clear conscience. The NSW government gave each citizen 2x$25 restaurant vouchers and 2x$25 entertainment vouchers to stimulate business in the state. We did our bit on the eating!These painted silos at Thallon encourage people to stop or camp there.Here I am with the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat, Queensland’s most endangered mammal. In the 1970’s only about 35 remained, so a conservation program was started and now there are more than 200 in two colonies.
So between visiting the silos and William the Wombat, we covered the sights of Thallon; and then found a lovely free camp along the Moonie River.
No one else around so we could play our ukuleles, and we did a walk along this beautiful river which is available for free camping.Enjoyed our first campfire for the trip and used Dick’s handy device (chunk of wood with a slot in it) to get our photo.
Dick did his balance class on Zoom before we left the free camp and headed for Charlotte Plains Station (sheep or cattle farm) with its hot bore and bath tubs. The owner told us the property has been in her family for 98 years. Dick told her she didn’t look that old!
The bore water comes from the Great Artesian Basin, one of the largest underground reservoirs on earth. It is 100-250 million years old and takes up one-fifth of Australia. The oldest groundwater has been dated to near 2 million years old. The depths of the aquifer systems range from 100m-3000m and the water is predominantly fresh and safe for human and animal consumption.So of course, we had a bath! We also had a nice, quiet night in a pleasant setting. Good to see stations coming up with ways to attract paying customers.
Scored a pleasant riverside camp in a good caravan park in Cunnamulla, explored the town, Dick bought appropriate outback style boots and we took the mandatory photo with the ‘Cunnamulla Fella’ made famous in a Slim Dusty song of the same name.
The town of Cunnamulla has erected a statute of ‘The Cunnamulla Fella’ as a tribute to the writer of the song (Stan Coster) and the singer (Slim Dusty). The statute is double life size bronze.Fossils of the Diprotodon, the largest known marsupials to have ever lived, have been found in the Eulo area and are on display in the Eromanga Natural History Museum. This life size statute is in Eulo. Diprotodons are giant wombat-like marsupials who lived in Australia between 1.6million and 45,000 years ago. Their name means “two forward teeth”. Another Queensland dinosaur area!
