SYDNEY BROOME TRIP 2006 - Saturday 12 August to Friday 18 August
SYDNEY BROOME TRIP 2006
Saturday 12 August to Friday 18 August
Broome to Burke & Wills Roadhouse
Blog 16
We said goodbye to our friends and started our journey east along the Great Northern Highway. We spotted 2 magnificent Wedge Tail Eagles and stopped for lunch under the shade of a grand old boab tree. We stopped at Fitzroy Crossing.
We decided to take the short cut from Halls Creek to the Stuart Highway via some dirt roads, through old Halls Creek on Duncan Rd. We stopped for lunch at a place called Palm Springs and finally just stopped for the night off the road in the middle of nowhere. It was a perfect bush sunset, the evening was quiet and the stars VERY bright and abundant.
The next day we bought petrol at Kalkarindgi at $1.80/L, the most expensive petrol so far, even more expensive than on the Birdsville Track.
The Buntine Highway was a bitumen section which gave us some reprieve from the corrugations before the very dusty and corrugated Buchanan Highway section. The corrugations were so bad that the bottom of 2 of our soft drink bottles had holes rubbed into them and we spent the next few hours at Daly Waters Inn cleaning up the sticky mess.
With that experience behind us we decided to change our plans and rather than travel the unsealed Savannah Way we headed to Tennant Creek on the Stuart Highway.
Our first stop was Newcastle Waters, a fantastic old township which is now just part of the Newcastle Waters Station. The old buildings included tin sheds, old petrol pumps and of course a statue dedicated to the drovers who drove cattle along the stock routes. The lake had an abundance of bird life, Fairy Martins, Ibis, Spoonbills and we even managed to see 2 beautiful Brolgas. On our way into Tennant Creek we stopped at the monument to John McDuall Stuart.
After dinner we went to listen to Jimmy Hooker, the bush tucker man at the caravan park. We sat around the campfire listening to his stories and poems. The finale of the evening was sampling some of the local bushtucker including cooked witchety grubs which we both tasted.
The next day was busy with exploring the Devils Marbles 105km south towards Alice Springs. The Devils Marbles are large granite rocks with some amazing formations. One of the boulders had been placed on John Flynn's grave at another location but was eventually returned to its original site as it is part of an Aboriginal Sacred Site.
We both love mine tours so of course the Tennant Creek mine and battery tour was a must. Gold was discovered in 1927 and the gold boom didn't start until 1930 at the time when the country was in a great Depression. The town of Tennant Creek was formed and the population grew to 600 people. There is still mining going on but mainly for copper and gold. Our tour guide Ray was a local miner and had lots of stories to tell.
We finished the day at the Bill Ellen Lookout which gave a 360 degree view of the area around Tennant Creek.
Our bodies were still on Broome time but the mornings had a different cool to them. Before leaving Tennant Creek we read the history of the local people in the beautiful new building of the Aboriginal Arts and Craft Centre, Nyinkka Nyunyu. The stories are always upsetting and there doesn't seem to be a simple solution to our current situation.
We then stopped at the Mary Ann Dam and enjoyed the water and the birds for a while and then headed off to the Old Telegraph Station 10km out of Tennant Creek. The Telegraph Station stopped functioning as a telegraph station in 1935 after the gold was discovered and Tennant Creek became a town.
The station was a repeater station in the link from Darwin to Adelaide and the world map showed the link from London to Adelaide. Building and maintaining this line was truly a fantastic feat. The repeater stations had to service the lines and make sure that all was OK. They also had to maintain the batteries that supplied the 120V needed to send the Morse code. They used MANY copper sulfate and magnesium sulfate with zinc and lead electrodes units each supplying 1-1.5V.
We had travelled across the Northern Territory and into Queensland again, stopping just inside the border at Camooweal. We continued our journey through Mt Isa and then north at Cloncurry towards the Gulf of Carpentaria.
We arrived at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse situated in the middle of nowhere and were surprised to find that it was almost full with travellers. A rodeo was in progress across the road which looked like a scene out of McLeod's Daughters with all the men, women and children in their blue jeans, checked shirts hats and boots. What a fantastic scene with a lot of young people and young families attending and competing.
Saturday 12 August to Friday 18 August
Broome to Burke & Wills Roadhouse
Blog 16
We said goodbye to our friends and started our journey east along the Great Northern Highway. We spotted 2 magnificent Wedge Tail Eagles and stopped for lunch under the shade of a grand old boab tree. We stopped at Fitzroy Crossing.
We decided to take the short cut from Halls Creek to the Stuart Highway via some dirt roads, through old Halls Creek on Duncan Rd. We stopped for lunch at a place called Palm Springs and finally just stopped for the night off the road in the middle of nowhere. It was a perfect bush sunset, the evening was quiet and the stars VERY bright and abundant.
The next day we bought petrol at Kalkarindgi at $1.80/L, the most expensive petrol so far, even more expensive than on the Birdsville Track.
The Buntine Highway was a bitumen section which gave us some reprieve from the corrugations before the very dusty and corrugated Buchanan Highway section. The corrugations were so bad that the bottom of 2 of our soft drink bottles had holes rubbed into them and we spent the next few hours at Daly Waters Inn cleaning up the sticky mess.
With that experience behind us we decided to change our plans and rather than travel the unsealed Savannah Way we headed to Tennant Creek on the Stuart Highway.
Our first stop was Newcastle Waters, a fantastic old township which is now just part of the Newcastle Waters Station. The old buildings included tin sheds, old petrol pumps and of course a statue dedicated to the drovers who drove cattle along the stock routes. The lake had an abundance of bird life, Fairy Martins, Ibis, Spoonbills and we even managed to see 2 beautiful Brolgas. On our way into Tennant Creek we stopped at the monument to John McDuall Stuart.
After dinner we went to listen to Jimmy Hooker, the bush tucker man at the caravan park. We sat around the campfire listening to his stories and poems. The finale of the evening was sampling some of the local bushtucker including cooked witchety grubs which we both tasted.
The next day was busy with exploring the Devils Marbles 105km south towards Alice Springs. The Devils Marbles are large granite rocks with some amazing formations. One of the boulders had been placed on John Flynn's grave at another location but was eventually returned to its original site as it is part of an Aboriginal Sacred Site.
We both love mine tours so of course the Tennant Creek mine and battery tour was a must. Gold was discovered in 1927 and the gold boom didn't start until 1930 at the time when the country was in a great Depression. The town of Tennant Creek was formed and the population grew to 600 people. There is still mining going on but mainly for copper and gold. Our tour guide Ray was a local miner and had lots of stories to tell.
We finished the day at the Bill Ellen Lookout which gave a 360 degree view of the area around Tennant Creek.
Our bodies were still on Broome time but the mornings had a different cool to them. Before leaving Tennant Creek we read the history of the local people in the beautiful new building of the Aboriginal Arts and Craft Centre, Nyinkka Nyunyu. The stories are always upsetting and there doesn't seem to be a simple solution to our current situation.
We then stopped at the Mary Ann Dam and enjoyed the water and the birds for a while and then headed off to the Old Telegraph Station 10km out of Tennant Creek. The Telegraph Station stopped functioning as a telegraph station in 1935 after the gold was discovered and Tennant Creek became a town.
The station was a repeater station in the link from Darwin to Adelaide and the world map showed the link from London to Adelaide. Building and maintaining this line was truly a fantastic feat. The repeater stations had to service the lines and make sure that all was OK. They also had to maintain the batteries that supplied the 120V needed to send the Morse code. They used MANY copper sulfate and magnesium sulfate with zinc and lead electrodes units each supplying 1-1.5V.
We had travelled across the Northern Territory and into Queensland again, stopping just inside the border at Camooweal. We continued our journey through Mt Isa and then north at Cloncurry towards the Gulf of Carpentaria.
We arrived at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse situated in the middle of nowhere and were surprised to find that it was almost full with travellers. A rodeo was in progress across the road which looked like a scene out of McLeod's Daughters with all the men, women and children in their blue jeans, checked shirts hats and boots. What a fantastic scene with a lot of young people and young families attending and competing.
posted by Mike and Carol at
12:00 PM
