We were packed up, filled up with
water and on the road fairly early this morning, knowing we had a long day
ahead of us. A large part of our driving
south today was dirt road and it included a couple of water crossings. One of these was across the Gregory River
over a causeway. The water was running a
little strong from right to left and the causeway was slippery. Josh kept the car to the right of the
causeway but misjudged where the causeway was – my heart sank as we fell off
the side of the road beneath us.
Fortunately there must have been some rocks running along the side of
the causeway so we didn’t fall too far and Josh was able to amble across and
complete the crossing. No damage done –
phew – and we continued on. After about
the first 60ms, we made a brief stop at Riversleigh Fossil Mammal Site. It was to be a self-guided tour starting with
the interpretive centre and taking us through a field containing some fossils
from millions of years ago. None of us
would have said it was much to write home again. That was until after we reached the top and
had a magnificent view of the area, and then on the way down saw a fossil of a “big
bird” from millions of years ago. That
made it worth our while. So – that was
our exercise for the day. Back to the
car and sitting on our butts for the rest of the day. We continued on about another 100kms of dirt
track, some areas were a bit bumpier than others but lucky for us we didn’t
have the bikes on the back. We came to a
fork in the dirt road and had to decide: should we a) veer left and now drive 125kms
along sealed road to Camooweal (my option) or b) drive about 90kms of entire
dirt road which took us straight to Camooweal (Josh’s option). Yes, Josh was driving and we took option
b). Fortunately we were only about
10-15kms into this dirt road before we were waved down by a 4WD bus tour advising
us that the road ahead was extremely slipper due to recent rain and a truck had
already gotten stuck in it. We took the
driver’s advice and turned our rig around and went back to obtion a). Not too much time wasted! When we finally hit Camooweal, we topped up
the fuel, grabbed a couple of items from the local shop and then continued not
far down the road to the Northern Territory border. Finally we have reached our 3rd
state!!! We pulled into the sign for a
happy snap and on doing so met another great couple and exchanged the opportunity
of getting a complete family photo in front of the sign. Upon leaving, not far down the road, we
witnessed a cheap way to get around the country. There were two camels pulling along a small Suzuki
Sierra. They had just pulled to the side
of the road to refuel – hence the camels were grazing in the paddock and then
they would have hooked them back up to the harnesses and continued on their
journey. It was a great idea and I’m
sure a great money-saver compared to the fuel prices we’ve been paying! We continued on about another 120kms west
along the Barkly Highway and Josh decided that he’d had enough driving for the
day so we pulled into the Soudan Bore Rest Area and free camped for the
night. The lovely folk who we’d met at
the NT sign, Bruce and Jenny, had also
pulled in to free camp here so we set up some chairs and grabbed a few drinks
and settled into some great conversation before retiring for dinner and bed for
the night.
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