Day 23 - 65 km to Hale River Homestead via Arltunga We called in to have a look at the Arltunga Ruins before continuing on to Old Ambalindum Station, which is now known as Hale River Homestead. Before getting to the ruins you go past the campground adjacent to the hotel, which is really just a tin shed.
When we were looking into this area the only info online indicated the camping was closed, which is obviously out of date. It's pretty basic but would still be a good spot to stop.
Some buildings at the Arltunga ruins have been restored and it's a bit interesting for a quick visit, mainly to marvel at the lengths people went to to try and get rich back in those days. It's a harsh, unforgiving and pretty bleak area.
Our stay at Hale River Homestead coincided with a major Kimberley Karavan get-together. This had nearly derailed our plans, as the former station owners were not going to honour our confirmed booking. Well the KK people and the new station owners could not have been more accommodating and friendly to our little group and we had an absolutely great day/night there. Wished it had been two or even three nights actually. http://www.haleriverhomestead.com.au The camping options have been expanded at the homestead and the KK organising committee had set aside a nice little area by the horse yards for us.
Lots of Kimberleys in these photos, which gives an idea of the available room.
The new owners of the station are doing a fantastic job of setting up something authentic and we couldn't rate it high enough really. It's a station experience rather than the natural scenery or national park focus of most places you visit and this makes a nice change & a real point of difference. They are used to running cattle on larger properties and are new to outback tourism. Based on what we saw, they will be very good at that too!
As another option, the original homestead is available to rent out for up to 10 people. This would be a fantastic place for a week's break. It's full of period details and furniture, not through interior design but because it's the actual stuff from the former owners. There's also a smaller cabin to stay in as well.
The photo below is the old machinery shed, only recently converted into a semi-outdoor dining/cafe/reception area. Dinner is basically sharing the family meal, they just cooked extra.
Kicking back here, watching the sunset and having a chat about their experiences and plans was a real highlight of the whole trip.
If we are ever passing through this area again we will be staying here for sure. It would be the ideal place to day trip to Ruby Gap and Trephina Gorge and there is also stuff to do on the property if able to stay a few days.
Day 24 - 506 km to Tobermorey Station (Qld Border)
Long day driving part of the Binns Track and then the Plenty Highway through to the Qld border aiming to get to Birdsville the following day. We took the Pinnacles Road north to the Plenty Highway, coming out near Gemtree. This is a section of the Binns Track, which we heard was a good way to continue north towards Darwin but that wasn't for this trip.
The Pinnacles road was a really nice drive with lots of gates to pass through. More of a track than a road but still in good condition with just a few fairly mild corrugations.
It didn't take too long and we reached the Plenty Highway just a bit east of Gemtree.
It's much wider and with some traffic, including a few road trains to negotiate. I never enjoy the total dust-out, hoping you don't get a broken windscreen.
Quick stop for fuel at Atitjere & lunch at a rest stop outside Jervois Station before we arrived in the late afternoon. Tobermorey is a little oasis for camping. The facilities are basic but good and the grassed camping area is excellent.
After all those km's and rough tracks it was actually inside Tobermorey that we got our first flat tyre. Jill noticed a rear tyre looked a bit low after dinner and sure enough, less than 20 psi. So unhooked the camper and changed to the spare that night so as to have no delays the next day. I think it was a nail or screw at the area out the front of the station fuel bowser where lots of workshop type activity happens.
Day 25 - 620 km to Birdsville
Another long driving day but a pretty good one and worth it so that we could spend two nights at Birdsville. Back into God's Country first up ....
We fueled up and had lunch in Boulia and a quick pee stop in Bedourie but other than that kept moving. Couple of interesting sights along the way .... Huge number of hawks and crows on a dead cow that swarmed up like flies on approach.
Lots of shags in a flowing river (can't actually remember which one).
We all got set up at the Birdsville Caravan Park. I'd say free camping by the river would be almost as good but the showers were worth it. It's pretty expensive, dry and dusty but well located & handy to everything. And so glad to not be there when it's wet because it really looks like it would be a boggy hell.
After getting home we heard about the boiling water spring just out of town, so that's something to check out for next time. Dinner at the pub was another thing to tick off the bucket list. It's been the quintessential outback place in my mind since childhood.
The dog in the window belonged to a local bloke inside. He kept watch until the guy got up to leave after a couple of beers.
I didn't get too close because I wasn't sure how friendly he was. This inside photo cost me a donation to the RFDS which I was more than happy to contribute.
And tomorrow is play-day out at Big Red, can't wait.
Day 26 - 85 km to Big Red and Back
Thought we'd just go out and have a quick go and that would be it. Ended up out there until lunch time and had an absolute ball. Took on Little Red first just to get the eye in and experiment with tyre pressures a bit. Then over to Big Red.
It was a beautiful day and for most of the time there was quite the crowd. But we did also get to be out there by ourselves for some of the time too. Now I will confess to a couple of failed-to-make-the-top attempts when playing around with pressures from around 22 psi down to 18 psi. And also one time when I poorly executed the turn that's about half way up the more difficult runs. I've only done beach driving and so big soft dunes was a learning curve. But as soon as I put the tyres to 16psi up she went no trouble at all across 4 different lines one after the other. Only saw one other guy get up easily first go in a Toyota ute with huge tyres and tiny wheels.
The sand coming through and out of the wheels looks pretty cool.
The face of a man having a ball.
YouTube video. The soundtrack is funny from my cheer squad (young nieces).
Then it was back to town to get down to the Birdsville Bakery to have a Curried Camel Pie and a beer.
Now this is one of those cliched things you read about but do anyway. But I was amazed, the pie was really excellent.
Day 27 - 425 km through Cordillo Downs to Innamincka
The original plan was to head east via Windorah and onwards to home from there. However, we had been hearing reports of Windorah getting cut-off due to flood waters moving south from Winton, so we had a lot of uncertainty about which way to go. In the morning we got some good advice from the Birdsville tourist office to head south to Innamincka and cross the Cooper Creek down there. Typically the water would take a week to get there and would be more spread out and at lower levels anyway. Well this turned out to be great advice and added another few interesting places to the trip as well. The drive through Cordillo Downs is impressive just because of the shear size of flat nothingness out there. Flat plains of gibber rock as far as you can see, occasionally cut through by dry creek beds. And the distance you can see is a really long way with nothing to break the view.
We stopped for lunch at one of the dry creeks.
Called in at the old wool shed, which is right beside the homestead. Largest in Australia apparently although a bit of googling suggests there may be other contenders. Not much wood around hence the use of local stone.
The drive through the Innamincka Reserve was one of the nicest drives for the whole trip but no photos that do it justice. The road was mostly in good condition but there was a couple of extended sandy sections that had us wondering if we'd get stuck. The ford over the Cooper at Innamincka had water flowing over it. Not sure if this is typical.
We fueled up and continued on a few km's to Burkes Grave and camped there for the night. It's a really beautiful spot right on the Cooper that we had all to ourselves. We did note that the camping at Innamincka looked pretty good too but wanted to push on further because of the distance to be covered the following day.
It's quite difficult to comprehend starving in a place so abundant with water and food options.
It's interesting to think about the two sides to the Burke and Wills story. On the one hand stupidity and arrogance leading to a lot of death and suffering including Burke's own. But on the other hand amazing courage and willpower to make it to the gulf and back to here under the conditions that they set themselves up for to a large extent. And then also how close things actually came to being a success. Just a couple of slightly different timings or decisions even at the end would have snatched victory from the jaws of ultimate defeat.
It's always seemed a strange thing to celebrate and remember so strongly but I see more shades of grey & less simplicity to the story now.
The campsite was pretty good but strangely all of the best sites have been fenced off, perhaps due to damage although it all looked in good shape to us. Getting the feeling of being close to the end of the trip now.
Day 28 - 756 km to Bollon via Dig Tree / Thargomindah / Cunnamulla
Early start for another long driving day, the longest for this trip. We felt we could make Brisbane the following day and have a full day at home before starting back to work and normal life. :( Only stop of real interest was the Dig Tree which nicely rounded out our Burke & Wills focus of recent days.
It was also amazing to really experience "Channel Country" properly. Something we'd heard about all our lives as Queenslanders but I guess never really appreciated fully until actually seeing what it means in real life.
As expected, the Cooper was up but not over any of the road. It's width is amazing. The open road somewhere that day.
Saw plenty of roos, emus and goats throughout the day and especially into the afternoon so was pretty happy to arrive into Bollon at around 5:30pm. This is later than we prefer for arrival due to increased risk of roos on the roadside but it did set us up well to get home the next day. Here's a shot of the creekside free camp at Bollon. Very well setup and also quite popular.
Day 29 - 653 km home to Brisbane
via St George / Goondiwindi / Warwick to avoid going through Toowoomba traffic and this was a good drive. The last day is always a bit strange, nice to be going home but sad to be not in travelling/camping mode anymore. And time seems different because every day is so full of experiences and highlights, even long days just driving. It's like every day is a week. We really conceived this whole itinerary from scratch without direct help other than internet research (mostly on MySwag), whereas the Cape last year was planned by my Dad based on his previous trips up there. So we were pretty proud of how well it all hung together.
I think we wouldn't change too many things if planning it all again, for example: - perhaps take the Old Andado Track up to Alice rather than Old Ghan - travel through Finke NP rather than Meereenie Loop - at least 2 nights at Hale River Homestead But really these would be only slight improvements I think. This trip included a lot of fairly high-profile, well known and touristed locations. These are places we hadn't been to and had always wanted to see but you always have concerns about the more touristy places not living up to expectations. Well this was not the case at all, virtually everywhere exceeded expectations in some way. Summary repeated from first post:
Total km: 8,589
Cameron Corner > Strezlecki Track > Oodnadatta Track Flight over Lake Eyre Mt Dare > Old Ghan Track West MacDonnell Ranges Palm Valley, Finke River NP Kings Canyon, Ayres Rock & The Olgas Rainbow Valley/Owen Springs Trephina Gorge/Arltunga/Ruby Gap Binns Track/Plenty Highway Birdsville & Big Red Innamincka via Cordillo Downs Dig Tree/Cooper Creek
Return to the start of this trip report.
