Day 18 - Mt Isa to Longreach

On the road again................ destination ???

We are going to deviate from the itinerary today, which had a rest day in Mt Isa for us.

Since leaving Alice we have been wondering if we need more time on the homeward leg ie. Longreach to Newcastle, so we've taken the day in Mt Isa out.

On leaving camp, our destination was Winton approx. 500kms drive.

Mt Isa's surrounds are beautiful rocky ranges.

Straight up Scott was in a road train sandwich - eeeekk!

Downtown Cloncurry

Turning South towards Winton.

It was about this time that we started thinking, we would skip Winton for the night and push on to Longreach.

We took a vote and everyone agreed that an extra 200kms in the car today would mean 2 nights in Longreach - no pack up in the morning and a rest day / Stockmans Hall of Fame.  So on we changed destination - Longreach here we come.

More dressed up ants nests.

Lots of 3 trailer road trains today.

McKinlay was our lunch stop.
Home of Walkabout Creek Hotel.

I had to slow for these two eagles feasting on some kangaroo, Scott did well to snap off a few shots at high speed.

Next we stopped for fuel at another small town, Kynuna.

When I went in to pay, I passed two kids running out the door.  They went over and talked to Dec and Mitch, the boy was the same age (8) and the girl 5.

I asked their Mum where they go to school.  They are home schooled and her older son who is in year 9 does school of the air, but these days they use telephone and internet not radio.

The towns population is 20, the son pointed out that over half the town is in their family as his grandparents own and run the service station / store.  There is also a pub in town and 2 houses.  Interesting to see how life is for kids in these tiny towns.

Interesting wildlife at the Servo.

Kynuna Hotel.

Not long out of Kynuna (while Scott was taking some happy snaps) this silver van sped past us.  He cut back into the lane too close to us, forcing me to brake so his trailer didn't hit us.

Karma has a funny way of dealing with things, when we were about 20kms from Winton this same silver van was on the side of the road with it's bonnet up and the owner waving us down.  They'd run out of fuel!


After telling them that they'd nearly run us off the road - their reasoning was they were racing to Winton as they were running low on fuel - Scott filled their van with one of our jerry cans and they followed us to Winton and we both fuelled up.

The thing that surprised me most was they were in their late 40's / early 50's so should have had a bit of common sense and should have  a) carry spare fuel  b) fill up at each town when you are low especially if you don't have a spare  (see A)  c) remember you are towing a trailer when you overtake.

The road between Winton and Longreach is littered and I mean littered with road kill.  We couldn't believe how many dead roo's per km we were seeing.

20km out of Longreach with dusk descending, we saw the first roo dart across the road.

The rest of the drive we saw plenty of kangaroos in the paddocks beside the road but luckily none decided to play chicken with us.

Longreach was a welcome sight after a big drive.

We quickly checked in at Longreach Tourist Park and set up camp, then headed in to town for a pub dinner.  We chose the tavern in the main street as it seemed the busiest and Scott enjoyed a massive mixed grill and the boys enjoyed watching the TV in the bistro while they ate - it's been 2 1/2 weeks since they've seen TV!

Sunset at the van.