The Plenty Highway to Home
28 June 2017 -
Our stay in Alice Springs was all about getting ready to cross the Plenty Highway into Queensland. Everything was washed, food was stocked up on and the car and caravan were made ready. I was able to purchase a replacement stabilizer leg for the rear drivers side of the van as the old one lost its foot and inner shaft on some rough road in the Flinders Ranges a while ago.
The Plenty Highway really starts just after Gemtree Roadhouse and Campground. Gemtree is an easy 140 kilometre drive north then east from Alice Springs. From the Sturt Highway the Plenty is bitumen but only single lane. Oncoming traffic is best to slow down as they pass each other as flying stones can damage windscreens. After about 20 kilometres on the Plenty the oncoming car with camper trailer didn't slow down so sure enough we copped a windscreen chip about the size of a 5 cent coin.
Gemtree is a good and easily the best paid camp spot on the Plenty. We jagged a nice site with power (24 hours) and water under some desert trees. Although cold with a breeze blowing we were able to put the back of the van to the wind and sit in the sun for the afternoon. A breakfast and dinner menu is offered each day by the owners so we opted for dinner. The menu is typical pub grub and is delivered to your site by one of the owner's young sons on a 4WD quad bike. Quite novel and a bit of a treat as I didn't have to prepare, cook, wash and dry up or put away for once!!
The Plenty Highway east of Gemtree to Boulia is 674 klm long and has about 100 klm of varying widths of bitumen on it.
The rest of it is dirt that varies from good gravel, narrow corrugations, awful wide corrugations, horrible loose sharp stone, bull dust pits ranging from bathtub size to two kilometre stretches and various combinations of these in no particular order. If you're not driving over a bump you are about to. Throw in creek crossings (all dry), dips, floodways and washouts it is fair to say it is not an easy drive and is very hard on car and caravan and everything and everyone in them. Fuel is available at Gemtree ($1.89 per litre), Jervois ($1.88 per litre), Tobermorey Station ($2.02 per litre) and finally Boulia ($1.50 per litre). So that is a picture of what we did for two days on the Plenty Highway which becomes the Donohue Highway at the Queensland border.
We had no particular plans for where we were to camp after leaving Gemtree. We thought, given the spacing, we could stay at Jervois and Tobermorey for a night each as they have basic facilities.
As it turned out we camped at neither of these as we opted for a great bush camp 140klm east of Jervois. We were the only ones there and if ever there was an isolated bush camp this was it. The clear skies and tepid weather allowed us to stay outside until dark before the cold set in. Again the Milky Way looked down on us together with the half moon rising in the east. Satellites traversed the sky as well and oh the silence - just so special.
On the way to this camp, about 20 klm short of Jervois we started being overtaken frequently by up to 20 cars driven by the local indigenous people. They were courteous and friendly but we could not work out what was going on. One of the cars pulled up on the side of the road in front of us and they all got out and started mingling around some trees. We carefully drove past them and then came to about 30 cars, some on the side of the road, some on the road and others just off in the scrub. We drove by them all slowly but purposefully without any problems. Then lots of other cars started coming the other way obviously headed for the same gathering. Shortly we arrived at Jervois Station to fuel up and again there was a short queue of cars to get fuel. When paying for fuel we found out that the gathering was for an aboriginal funeral. Where all the cars were all pulled over is where an aboriginal cemetery is. After having lunch at Jervois we travelled the 140klm to our bush camp for the night - Limestone Rise in Wiki Camps.
Breakfast was enjoyed outside in the cool morning air. The sun rose behind us and slowly lit up the landscape below us. With no breeze or flies the whole scene was so tranquil. Reluctantly we packed up and prepared for another day of assorted rough road surfaces.
The road turned out to be marginally better than yesterday which was a relief, sort of. The bulldust holes were longer, wider and deeper and on several occasions 4WD was necessary to get through them. It was not unusual for the caravan to all but disappear behind us in a cloud of red dust while the car worked hard in front of it. Soon the Queensland border loomed which meant we had only 250klm to go to Boulia. After a couple of hours mostly spent in a cloud of thick dust, there appeared the most treasured sight in the world - bitumen as far as the eyes could see. The rest of the drive was deliriously smooth.
The car got through without any troubles and the caravan suffered two cracked drawer latches as the rocking of the van tried to push their contents back out. I swapped them over with two rarely used latches and will replace them when we get home. The only other thing was dust ingress, not major at all, only requiring a sweep and wipe down. For the first time dust came into the shower at the back of the van through the roof hatch showing just how much bulldust was going over the top.
Boulia caravan park was just a delight. They don't take bookings and fortunately we arrived around 2.30pm to snag the last powered and watered campsite. I did have to use both our 20 metre power leads and three hoses to reach the outlets but we did get connected. By 4pm the park is chockers with rigs of all types and parked everywhere.
With a combination of school holidays and the Birdsville Big Bash on in two days, the little town of Boulia is very popular at the moment. People were turning up and driving off up until dark as the van park was full. Next morning the place was half empty by 9am.
2 July - we are staying two nights in Boulia as by chance friends of ours, Ann and John, are here to meet up with two other couples to largely do what we have just finished doing but in the reverse direction. So it was too good an opportunity to just miss by a day so we have stayed on to catch up with them tonight.
Tomorrow we start heading home in earnest having one night stops through Queensland until we get to Tewantin where Mum lives. In Tewantin we stay two nights before packing up, including Mum, and heading to the Gold Coast. So the next few entries will be quite short as it will be a "we drove to here, stayed a night and drove out the next day" kind of trip. That being said we tried to book a night in Winton tomorrow but they are booked out so we will drive towards that town and search for a bush camp.
The Kennedy Developmental Road runs from Boulia to Winton and is single lane bitumen all the way. We came across Cawnpore Lookout along the way where we stopped for morning tea followed by the climb to the lookout. From there we had spectacular 360 degree views of the beautiful coloured landscape in this area.
When we were 86 klm from Winton we pulled over into one of many rest stops we were going to evaluate for a possible overnight camp. To our delight a track went out the back and we could set up camp high up above the plains below. Lunch was had, our evaluation was completed and we set up camp at Poddy Creek around 2pm.
The rest stop has toilets and rubbish bins and given all the westward traffic from Winton had already gone through only late leavers from Boulia were expected. As it turned out only a few cars stopped for a break and by nightfall we had the place to ourselves, except for the flies. They disappeared at sunset and once again the Milky Way and the half moon did their thing in the night sky above. After retiring for the evening about 8.30pm we heard a car pull in and its occupants started to set up camp. To our relief it was a young family with two young children. We think we were a great relief to them as well, two harmless oldies. So a pleasant night was had far away from booked out Winton and chock-a-block Longreach.
From our bush camp we travelled to Barcaldine and stayed in a van park while road trains whizzed past all afternoon and sporadically overnight quite close to our site so it was all a bit noisy after the peace and quiet of our bush camps.
Then on to Emerald where we stayed in another van park. We had a good site and retired for the evening expecting a good night's sleep. At midnight a van pulled in the unpowered site next to us and out rolled five young Indian men who babbled away, laughing at something that was only funny to them, while they put up their tent that required at least 500 tent pegs all of which had to be bashed in with a hammer. They must have finished their late shift on the Telstra help desk or something to come in so late. At around 2am they finally quietened down. During that two long hours I meticulously planned my revenge for early the next morning - loud noise was to be a big part of it. At 6.45am they were up and started babbling away again! My revenge was thwarted. As it turned out they were nice guys harmlessly enjoying themselves, so it was hard to stay angry at them.
We set off around 9am and travelled further east through Blackwater and on to Biloela for the night. Although tired all went well with a couple of roadside stops for morning tea in Bluff and then just short of Biloela for lunch. Nothing too much to report of our stay in Biloela other than the van park was all ensuited so that was a little different. We did a little shop and filled up with fuel.in readiness for the trip to Mundubbera.
Next day we were off to Mundubbera, another bucket list item for those who have a very, very shallow bucket. As it was just a short 2.5 hour trip we left late and stopped for morning tea after just 10 klm (not a misprint). The rest of the drive was through very hilly and windy roads which were a little more interesting than our recent travels through central Australia. Mundubbera was just fine for our planned overnighter. Drizzle set in just as we arrived so the awning went out before doing anything else. Again, after unhitching, I went and fuelled up in readiness for tomorrows drive to Tewantin.
While having morning tea today I noticed the microwave shelf was a little askew. I had previously fixed the microwave mounting following the trip across the Plenty. The metal strapping had come loose and the microwave had popped out of its fixed metal stand. Now I noticed the shelf was loose on its mountings so after fueling up I visited the local Mitre 10 hardware store in Mundubbera and fashioned a reinforced mounting brace for the shelf.
So tomorrow we head to Tewantin for the weekend to do a final clean of the van before we head to the Gold Coast on Monday. We will pick up Mum and take her home for a week or so. So this is the end of our trip. The only thing we didn't get to do was Chambers Pillar which we had to cancel due to the rains when we were in Alice Springs.The dirt roads were closed so that item still remains in our bucket for another time. As for everything else we wanted to do, well we did it.
Our next Blog will take us to Italy and Greece in September/October later in the year.
So bye for now.
JeffnJulie - the Grey Gonads
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| Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn north of Alice Springs - cold wind coming through |
The Plenty Highway really starts just after Gemtree Roadhouse and Campground. Gemtree is an easy 140 kilometre drive north then east from Alice Springs. From the Sturt Highway the Plenty is bitumen but only single lane. Oncoming traffic is best to slow down as they pass each other as flying stones can damage windscreens. After about 20 kilometres on the Plenty the oncoming car with camper trailer didn't slow down so sure enough we copped a windscreen chip about the size of a 5 cent coin.
 |
| The signs are looking good |
Gemtree is a good and easily the best paid camp spot on the Plenty. We jagged a nice site with power (24 hours) and water under some desert trees. Although cold with a breeze blowing we were able to put the back of the van to the wind and sit in the sun for the afternoon. A breakfast and dinner menu is offered each day by the owners so we opted for dinner. The menu is typical pub grub and is delivered to your site by one of the owner's young sons on a 4WD quad bike. Quite novel and a bit of a treat as I didn't have to prepare, cook, wash and dry up or put away for once!!
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| Gemtree camp |
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| Dinner is delivered by quad bike |
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| Dinner is devoured |
The Plenty Highway east of Gemtree to Boulia is 674 klm long and has about 100 klm of varying widths of bitumen on it.
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| Airing down for the dirt road |
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| Morning tea |
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| Who would be a semi driver - Whizz Bang passing on the inside, oncoming car the other way. We were stopped on the side of the road to let the semi safely through as it wobbled across the road |
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| Bull dust hole |
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| Jervois campground - very ordinary |
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| More bulldust |
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| Different coloured bulldust |
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| Common coloured bulldust |
The rest of it is dirt that varies from good gravel, narrow corrugations, awful wide corrugations, horrible loose sharp stone, bull dust pits ranging from bathtub size to two kilometre stretches and various combinations of these in no particular order. If you're not driving over a bump you are about to. Throw in creek crossings (all dry), dips, floodways and washouts it is fair to say it is not an easy drive and is very hard on car and caravan and everything and everyone in them. Fuel is available at Gemtree ($1.89 per litre), Jervois ($1.88 per litre), Tobermorey Station ($2.02 per litre) and finally Boulia ($1.50 per litre). So that is a picture of what we did for two days on the Plenty Highway which becomes the Donohue Highway at the Queensland border.
 |
| Flocking birds as well |
As it turned out we camped at neither of these as we opted for a great bush camp 140klm east of Jervois. We were the only ones there and if ever there was an isolated bush camp this was it. The clear skies and tepid weather allowed us to stay outside until dark before the cold set in. Again the Milky Way looked down on us together with the half moon rising in the east. Satellites traversed the sky as well and oh the silence - just so special. |
| Limestone Rise Bush Camp, Plenty Highway - just the two of us |
On the way to this camp, about 20 klm short of Jervois we started being overtaken frequently by up to 20 cars driven by the local indigenous people. They were courteous and friendly but we could not work out what was going on. One of the cars pulled up on the side of the road in front of us and they all got out and started mingling around some trees. We carefully drove past them and then came to about 30 cars, some on the side of the road, some on the road and others just off in the scrub. We drove by them all slowly but purposefully without any problems. Then lots of other cars started coming the other way obviously headed for the same gathering. Shortly we arrived at Jervois Station to fuel up and again there was a short queue of cars to get fuel. When paying for fuel we found out that the gathering was for an aboriginal funeral. Where all the cars were all pulled over is where an aboriginal cemetery is. After having lunch at Jervois we travelled the 140klm to our bush camp for the night - Limestone Rise in Wiki Camps.
Breakfast was enjoyed outside in the cool morning air. The sun rose behind us and slowly lit up the landscape below us. With no breeze or flies the whole scene was so tranquil. Reluctantly we packed up and prepared for another day of assorted rough road surfaces.
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| Flocking birds on the Plenty Highway |
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| Bull dust |
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| Entering Queensland from Northern Territory |
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| Morning tea stop day 2 on the Plenty Highway |
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| The van bathed in dust with the landscape bathed in sunshine |
The car got through without any troubles and the caravan suffered two cracked drawer latches as the rocking of the van tried to push their contents back out. I swapped them over with two rarely used latches and will replace them when we get home. The only other thing was dust ingress, not major at all, only requiring a sweep and wipe down. For the first time dust came into the shower at the back of the van through the roof hatch showing just how much bulldust was going over the top.
 |
| Boulia and the Burke River |
Boulia caravan park was just a delight. They don't take bookings and fortunately we arrived around 2.30pm to snag the last powered and watered campsite. I did have to use both our 20 metre power leads and three hoses to reach the outlets but we did get connected. By 4pm the park is chockers with rigs of all types and parked everywhere.
 |
| Boulia main street |
2 July - we are staying two nights in Boulia as by chance friends of ours, Ann and John, are here to meet up with two other couples to largely do what we have just finished doing but in the reverse direction. So it was too good an opportunity to just miss by a day so we have stayed on to catch up with them tonight.
 |
| Catching up with John and Ann and their friends in Boulia |
Tomorrow we start heading home in earnest having one night stops through Queensland until we get to Tewantin where Mum lives. In Tewantin we stay two nights before packing up, including Mum, and heading to the Gold Coast. So the next few entries will be quite short as it will be a "we drove to here, stayed a night and drove out the next day" kind of trip. That being said we tried to book a night in Winton tomorrow but they are booked out so we will drive towards that town and search for a bush camp.
 |
| Cawnpore Lookout |
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| Cawnpore Lookout |
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| Cawnpore Lookout |
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| Poddy Creek Rest Area |
The rest stop has toilets and rubbish bins and given all the westward traffic from Winton had already gone through only late leavers from Boulia were expected. As it turned out only a few cars stopped for a break and by nightfall we had the place to ourselves, except for the flies. They disappeared at sunset and once again the Milky Way and the half moon did their thing in the night sky above. After retiring for the evening about 8.30pm we heard a car pull in and its occupants started to set up camp. To our relief it was a young family with two young children. We think we were a great relief to them as well, two harmless oldies. So a pleasant night was had far away from booked out Winton and chock-a-block Longreach. |
| Our campsite, Poddy Creek Rest Area |
 |
| Poddy Creek Rest Area |
From our bush camp we travelled to Barcaldine and stayed in a van park while road trains whizzed past all afternoon and sporadically overnight quite close to our site so it was all a bit noisy after the peace and quiet of our bush camps.
Then on to Emerald where we stayed in another van park. We had a good site and retired for the evening expecting a good night's sleep. At midnight a van pulled in the unpowered site next to us and out rolled five young Indian men who babbled away, laughing at something that was only funny to them, while they put up their tent that required at least 500 tent pegs all of which had to be bashed in with a hammer. They must have finished their late shift on the Telstra help desk or something to come in so late. At around 2am they finally quietened down. During that two long hours I meticulously planned my revenge for early the next morning - loud noise was to be a big part of it. At 6.45am they were up and started babbling away again! My revenge was thwarted. As it turned out they were nice guys harmlessly enjoying themselves, so it was hard to stay angry at them.
 |
| Joshua in Jericho |
We set off around 9am and travelled further east through Blackwater and on to Biloela for the night. Although tired all went well with a couple of roadside stops for morning tea in Bluff and then just short of Biloela for lunch. Nothing too much to report of our stay in Biloela other than the van park was all ensuited so that was a little different. We did a little shop and filled up with fuel.in readiness for the trip to Mundubbera.
 |
| Morning tea stop |
Next day we were off to Mundubbera, another bucket list item for those who have a very, very shallow bucket. As it was just a short 2.5 hour trip we left late and stopped for morning tea after just 10 klm (not a misprint). The rest of the drive was through very hilly and windy roads which were a little more interesting than our recent travels through central Australia. Mundubbera was just fine for our planned overnighter. Drizzle set in just as we arrived so the awning went out before doing anything else. Again, after unhitching, I went and fuelled up in readiness for tomorrows drive to Tewantin.
 |
| Roadside lunch stop near Boulia |
While having morning tea today I noticed the microwave shelf was a little askew. I had previously fixed the microwave mounting following the trip across the Plenty. The metal strapping had come loose and the microwave had popped out of its fixed metal stand. Now I noticed the shelf was loose on its mountings so after fueling up I visited the local Mitre 10 hardware store in Mundubbera and fashioned a reinforced mounting brace for the shelf.
So tomorrow we head to Tewantin for the weekend to do a final clean of the van before we head to the Gold Coast on Monday. We will pick up Mum and take her home for a week or so. So this is the end of our trip. The only thing we didn't get to do was Chambers Pillar which we had to cancel due to the rains when we were in Alice Springs.The dirt roads were closed so that item still remains in our bucket for another time. As for everything else we wanted to do, well we did it.
Our next Blog will take us to Italy and Greece in September/October later in the year.
So bye for now.
JeffnJulie - the Grey Gonads
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