DAY 162
29th July 2021
We went to Normanton in the morning. Did some washing at the laundromat there, then had a look around town. It’s where there’s a life- size (apparently) statue of the biggest croc ever killed in Australia, it was HUGE. Glad we didn’t meet up with it. There was also a Burns Phillip and Co building there, which was weird because I worked in the Sydney building with the same name when we paused our trip after the gearbox broke.
We got water from the water point there then stopped in to the bakery. It was only morning but Josh, Rachel and Jayden had pies. Too early for me, so I had a lemon tart.
We drove lots that day, then stopped at a rest area at about 3pm. It’s a good thing we got there early because it got really busy later in the evening! Lots of budgies.
DAY 163
30th July 2021
Drove to Mt Isa. We went shopping for food and did a few other errands.
We’d organised with Rachel and Jayden to meet up at the golf club to camp, it was $10 a night with showers. The amenities were SO FAR AWAY from the camping area, which was just a huge dust pit. Possibly the worst camp we’ve stayed at, as it was also breezy so the dust was going everywhere. But unfortunately there weren’t too many options so that had to do.
Josh patted a cow and was very happy about it.
DAY 164
31st July 2021
It was time to say goodbye to Rachel and Jayden, after travelling with them for almost 2 weeks. We also left that horrible campsite and horrible Mount Isa so it wasn’t all bad. We were off to the NT!
We headed towards the Plenty Highway, which is named after a river, not the landscape, as there was not much around!
Oh it was so dusty. There were patches of the road where it was almost like driving on sand – there was no formal road, really, just tracks in the dirt. Other times we’d drive over an innocuous bit of road and it was like an explosion of dust behind us. Crazy how a fairly main road is in that kind of condition, since it is used by cars and trucks as well. We saw a cattle truck coming towards us. It was going very slowly through a really sketchy part of the road.
We camped for the night outside the Jervois station at a rest area. The road for the rest area extended quite far back so you could get well off the road (and away from the dust) and it was a bit more secluded. It was on a dry riverbed but the rest area had a water tank which was nice so I had a bucket shower. We had some cows come by later in the evening. It was a pretty nice spot.