Barb & John's Hols: Lap around Australia Gracemere to Mt Isa

Gracemere to Mt Isa

Yay! Finally able to get on our way again once Brendan had fitted the new fuel pump and cleaned the fuel tank on the Jackaroo. We didn't get away until 2 pm and the Gracemere caravan park kindly didn't charge us a late exit fee either. Winning at last.
We pushed on through Duaringa and Alpha and arrived at Emeral just as it was getting dark. We were very fortunate to find a spare space at the Emerald Cabin and Caravan village. It's busy on the road! We parked up beside a young couple travelling with their seven month old baby in a camper trailer. The poor bub cried for two hours that evening and was difficult to settle, but luckily slept through the night.

We were off and away again by 8 am. We wanted to get as far as we could today to make up some ground to catch Karen and Steve.
It was a VERY long day of driving. We reached Barcaldine in time for lunch, so we stopped here to stretch our legs and have a bite to eat. We had another look at the Tree of Knowledge in the park near the old railway station.

Tree of Knowledge, Barcaldine

sculpture in the park at Barcaldine

On on to Longreach. Not even stopping this time to see the Stockman's Hall of fame. We were determined to get to Winton for the night.
And we did! When we'd called to find a site in a caravan park in Winton we were told that all the caravan parks were full. The information centre were very helpful and organised a powered site for us at the Winton Showgrounds. Even here was extremely busy with about fifty or more vans crowded in. The amenities here were the worst we've seen so far. Absolutely filthy! We were so glad we had our own on-board shower and toilet. Our fellow travellers were very pleasant though. One gentleman came over to look at our van having never seen one like it before. He has a European brand Adria van and it is almost identical to his.

parked at Winton showgrounds for the night

Fuelling up at Winton

Nasty! The basin in the ladies toilets at Winton

Filthy showers

We got off to an early start from Winton and negotiated a very tight entrance to the servo to fill up for our journey to Mt Isa.
The road to Kynuna was a long stretch of not very interesting scenery. Lots of trucks and caravans on the road too. We stopped in at Kynuna to fill up with petrol and the old couple who we'd seen running the servo when we were here three years ago were still there. Obviously it's gotten beyond them to keep the facilities clean. It was looking very grotty and uninviting. Outside the servo a group of four brolgas flew in and we were able to get quite close to them.

Brolgas at Kynuna

Very dry out here

We travelled on towards Walkabout Creek Hotel at McKinlay. It's the location where Crocodile Dundee was filmed. The young English girl running the bar was doing a great job and everything was clean and well run here so we stopped for a drink on the hotel verandah.

John in the bar at Walkabout Creek

Having a drink at Walkabout Creek hotel

We still had a long trip ahead of us, so we set off to Cloncurry. We arrived early enough to make it feasible to reach Mt Isa before nightfall. Karen & Steve and Kathy & Ian had free camped somewhere between Cloncurry and Mt Isa the night before and were already at the Discovery Caravan Park in Mt Isa by this time, so they were able to book us in too to a site right beside them.
Hurray! We caught up with them before dark.