Our West Australian travel news

Alice Springs (NT) to Boulia (QLD) (Plenty highway June-July)
Reluctantly we left Alice Springs travelling north until we turned onto the Plenty highway. This highway is a sealed single track to Gemtree with some vicious drop off’s on to the gravel roadside.
We met quite a few caravans coming our way. Stopped at Gemtree with its shop and fuel bowsers ($1.14) for diesel. We wanted to use the toilet but the only one available is in the caravan park (no visitors allowed to drive in) so we had to walk over 500 metres up the hill. Asked about the condition of the highway and were advised the last person through had punctured 5 tyres between Tobermorey NT/ Queensland border and Gemtree.
We set off onto the gravel track with 450 kms to reach the border. The road had plenty of corrugations, rock chips and dust but the surface was generally good. Our road speed varied between 20 kph and 80 kph and we erred on the side of caution. We only met two other cars before we got to Tobermorey. We had no mechanical problems or punctures.
Arrived at Tobermorey station at about 5.00 pm about 6 hours from Gem tree, the road was a bit more predictable than the road from Docker River, the scenery wasn’t bad but nothing to write home about. . As we drove in there were a flock of brolgas in the paddocks but unfortunately no film left in the camera, I wonder if they’ll still be there in the morning?
Tobermorey is a working station that has converted a paddock into a camping ground, with power, ablutions, and barbeque, $20.00 a night cash in hand and fuel at $1.50 a litre which is better than no fuel at all. We spoke to the two other caravanners camping that night at Tobermorey and they had both had one puncture travelling from Boulia to Tobermorey. In the morning we waited until the other 2 vans had finished in the ablutions and got ready to go for a shower when suddenly from no-where a coach load of backpackers arrived, poured out of the coach and made a dive for the loos, we waited until they had all finished and then went.
The plan had been from Tobermorey we would go north through Urandangi to Camooweal and on to Lawn Hill, another ?*!**?! kms of unsealed roads. Clive by now was thoroughly sick of dirt roads, he had done a magnificent job of driving approx. 1500 kms. on them but we decided to change our itinerary and we would carry on into SW Queensland to Boulia via the Donahue highway and reschedule to do Lawn Hill at the end of the trip.
We left Tobermorey at about 9.45 heading for Boulia on the last of the gravel for a while, no brolgas in the paddock to take photos of but there is this large sign saying we are at the border and no livestock are allowed in without permission, bit concerned that the cows that were wandering back and forth hadn’t got their permits, but we didn’t stop to ask them. Reports on this part of the road vary from not bad to bloody awful, and we’re lowish on fuel so we keep our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to get to Boulia, on principle we were not paying $1.50 a litre. The last part of this road was the worst ruts, corrugations, broken surfaces more rock chips. No real challenge for the 4WD and the campervan because we had plenty of clearance I am not so sure how a standard caravan would cope. Basically the Donahue is an all weather dirt road that could cause problems if it received heavy rain.
Arrived in Boulia on the smell of an oily rag and paid $1.07 for our fuel – big difference – and the guy at Tobermorey apparently buys his fuel from this roadhouse, not too sure how he justifies the extra 43 cents but we have paid almost as much in other remote areas. The man at the Boulia roadhouse was very friendly and cooked us the best hamburger and chips we’ve had in ages (beats the microwaved one we had at Tjukilura hands down) it included egg, cheese and all the salad and cost $4.50 great value for money.
The caravan park was on the banks of the river where legend has it Burke and Wills filled their water bags before carrying on up north. It was a VERY basic park, but at $12.00 you can’t grumble, there were hot showers and power and whilst the ablutions were old they were clean. Took a drive around the town and saw the biggest windmill I have ever seen , saw the corroborree tree which they call a waddi tree, looked like a long needled pine tree that drooped a bit to me. The streets are very wide, a throwback to the years of the camel and bullock trains, but for such a small town with a large itinerant population very clean and tidy.
Boulia is the home of the ‘Min Min’ lights, lights that inexplicably appear on the side of the road or in paddocks and lure people out of their car. It’s not known whether they are a natural phenomenon or supernatural, but it makes a good story. The tourist centre has a Min Min encounter centre and is very well set up. We arrived for a look around about 4.15 and asked about the Min Min experience show, unfortunately the last one was at 4pm. However, another couple arrived at the centre, they had just flown in on the mail plane, and also wanted to see the show so the lady very kindly offered to stay behind and do another show for us, it only cost $11.00 each. This sort of kindness was something we experienced throughout outback Queensland. The show was brilliant, a little spooky but gave an insight into the lights but no solutions.
Another drive around the town then into the local pub for an hour or so. We considered having dinner there but it was getting very crowded with all the local people and a few tourists and very noisy with a group about to start playing. We bumped into the couple from the mail plane and had a chat to them, they had won the trip in a raffle and were travelling with the plane for a few days, the lady thought we were very brave travelling like we were, I thought she was brave flying in such a small plane, each to his own. Time to leave and cook our own tea – much too loud for me.

Reset Nov 2001