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

Mt Isa to Devil's Marbles

What a relief to finally catch up to our friends. Now we can finally relax into the holiday.
It just happened to be State of Origin on our night in Mt Isa, so we all crowded around the computer outside Ian and Kathy's van under their awning to watch the game.
Kathy had made a lovely spaghetti Bolognese meal for us to share before the game, and Karen had even brought some maroon balloons to decorate the annexe. It was a great first night together. Made even better by the Queensland team thrashing the Blues 22 to 6. Yay!

Karen blows up balloons for State of Origin night

watching the Queenslanders win

Kathy cooks dinner

We were all up and hitched up for an early start the next morning. We were aiming to get to Barkly Homestead for the night.
We all stopped at Camooweal to fuel up before heading towards the NT Border. It's 270 km until the next available fuel at Barkly Homestead.
We decide to stop at the actual Qld/NT border for lunch as we wanted to take photos of us crossing the border together. It really feels like we're in the middle of nowhere now. Completely flat plains with spinifex grass.

Drover's statue at Camooweal

We reach the border

Happy to cross into Northern Territory

Cuppa at the border

A welcome break

Happy girls

Happy boys

We reached Barkly Homestead in the late afternoon and were very fortunate to find the last three powered sites available. Poor Karen and Steve were positioned right beside the large generator that supplies the homestead. They said it didn't disturb their sleep once they actually got to sleep that night.

Parked up at Barkly homestead

Nice campsite at Barkly

Karen and Steve's spot

Sunset at Barkly Homestead

We all went to have dinner at the Barkly homestead bistro. It wasn't quite as good as John and I remembered it from our last visit here. Very crowded and quite loud music. The menu also more like just a pub meal, but the servings were quite generous and it was good to have a night off cooking.

dinner at Barkly Homestead

Seafood platter

The next morning we were able to get on our way early as the drive through sites at Barkly Homestead allow you to remain hitched. We all met up at The Three Ways Roadhouse to refuel, and decide to push on to Tennant Creek to have a bite to eat in a park there. Little did we know that it was Annual Show day in Tennant Creek. So when we drove through town there were crowds of Aboriginal people straying all over the place wandering in the general direction of the park where the show was underway. We drove on.

Dawn at Barkly Homestead

Steve, Karen, Kathy and Ian at ThreeWays Roadhouse

We were pretty glad we didn't dally in Tennant Creek because by the time we reached the Devil's Marbles camp ground in the early afternoon it was already near full. We had to take whatever space we could fit into. John and I found a rather awkward position that required the use of wheel chocks and two jockey wheels to get the van level enough for our temperamental Dometic fridge to work.

Lunch at Devil's marbles

Lunch with all the crew

Karen and Steve

Ian and Kathy

It turned out to be a great site because there was a large low picnic table under a tree which we commandeered for lunch and our evening meals. perfect!