Qld - Airlie Beach

Well, here we are back on the east coast at Airlie Beach after traveling the longest distance we have covered over a few days on our entire trip. In the past eight days from Darwin to Mackay, we have travelled 2,350 kilometres with a fuel bill of $847.00, our most expensive week of fuel so far.
We stayed at Sapphire for two days on the way and spent the time fossicking for gems and found a few sapphires and zircons, only small ones but it is a lot of fun.

Our weather for the past few months has been sunny with barely a cloud in the sky. We spent two days enjoying the stunning Airlie Beach area and visiting with my cousin Jeff and his family. Then the weather changed. We had 300cm of rain in a few hours, cutting the roads north and south from Airlie Beach. The caravan park roads became water ways with kids floating down them on their boogie boards. The washers and dryers were running overtime as people were trying to dry their soaked clothes and bedding. Some of the families in tents were flooded out and moved into cabins, others just went home. Water was lying in the fields and the sugar cane farmers that were in the middle of harvesting will now have to wait for them to dry out.
Day four after the storm and still no blue sky.

So much for the Queensland slogan - “beautiful one day, perfect the next!”

Qld - Longreach

The two major attractions in Longreach is the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and the Qantas Founders museum. The Stockman’s Hall of Fame is a very modern building containing every thing related to the cattlemen and farmers in the area, past and present. They also have many “horsey” and cattle events on the grounds throughout the year.






Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service) began in this area in the 1920’s as a way of tying the outback together. If you are entering Longreach from the south, you see the tail section of a jumbo jet at the Qantas museum, which is something that you certainly don’t expect to see at a small country airport. The many planes and memorabilia here makes you appreciate how Qantas has grown so much over the years.

The area had flooding rains this past summer and the fields were green and lush with healthy sheep and cattle everywhere. Years ago this area was sheep country but now beef is predominant.


We spent a couple of hours at the Longreach school of the air. Children on cattle stations and remote communities no longer have to use the two-way transceivers. It is now done over the phone with computer support. Most children now have access to satellite internet. We watched a typical “classroom” in progress with a teacher in the glass walled studio and were fascinated with the interaction between the teacher and students over the phone and on the computer.

Qld - Winton

Winton is a very typical western Queensland town with lots of pubs, beautiful old buildings, wide streets, the main one divided by a treed and grassed strip. The country side is very barren and I always wonder what the cattle eat. They all look very healthy so there is good “tucker” somewhere.

Winton is famous for being the town where Banjo Patterson’s “Waltzing Matilda” was written and first performed. In the main street is a “jolly swagman” statue and dinosaur footprint rubbish bins as Winton is part of the "dinosaur trail."

110 klm out of town at Lark Quarry is the world’s only record of a dinosaur stampede. Apparently a huge carnivorous dinosaur ran into a herd of smaller ones causing the panicked rush. In town there is a life-size diorama of these foot prints and many bones which was fascinating to view.

NT - Daly Waters

We began our trip south from Darwin heading to Mackay on the Queensland coast. From there we would begin the final leg towards home in Newcastle. Weather in Darwin had been around 35 degrees each day and very humid so we were hoping to be in cooler weather soon. No such luck!
Each day south of Darwin the weather was between 35 and 40 degrees. As soon as we had settled into our campsites we turned on the air conditioning. We were planning on doing a few free camps by the side of the road on this leg but due to the heat we opted for caravan parks and a powered site.


We stopped at Mataranka and had a swim in the beautiful clear thermal pools. The air temperature was 40 and the water temperature was 34. Normally it would have been very pleasant but in 40 degrees the water needed to be a little cooler to make it more refreshing. I can imagine that in cooler weather traveling to each of the many springs would be a wonderful trip in itself.






Daly Waters was our second overnight stop after Darwin, and very entertaining. We stayed in the camping area at the back of the pub, had the renowned Barra and Beef barbeque dinner and enjoyed looking at all the memorabilia in the pub. This pub is 3 kilometres off the Stuart Hwy and well worth the stop. During the cooler months, there is live entertainment but we were a couple of weeks too late for this. Watching the locals was entertainment enough!

NT - Darwin

Darwin, the multi cultural capital of the Northern Territory, is Australias’ most modern city due to the flattening by cyclone Tracy in 1974 and the subsequent rebuild. There are now many multi story buildings, mostly apartment blocks over- looking the beautiful blue waters of the harbour and local bays. Parliament House and adjoining library is an impressive pillared building which is down town and easily accessible to everybody. Inside the building is very open with wonderful local indigenous art gracing the walls.

Darwin, being close to Asia has a multi cultural feeling with every type of restaurant here to enjoy. Darwin is a city of markets, with six held over the weekends and during the week. They all have delicious foods, clothing, handmade crafts, jewellery, massages, and everything else imaginable.

Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in WW2. In 1942, 115 tonnes of bombs were dropped, more than at Pearl Harbour by the same Japanese planes just 10 weeks before. Over 250 people were killed and many more wounded. There are still many visible reminders and tours to see first hand how close we came to having the Japanese invade.

Darwin has something for everybody: crocodile and wildlife parks, fishing, shopping, dinning, fabulous museums and art galleries, bike and walking tracks, wonderful parks and great sunsets. There is no excuse to be board in this city.