Step 93 Avon Downs – Fountain Springs via Mt Isa – 324 km's.

Wednesday 27^th July – TED

Awoke refreshed and raring to go. Probably more so than the French backpackers who had slept the night in their Nissan Micra. That's going a little too minimalist I'm afraid.

Although we are away early in half an hour it will be an hour later. Come again Steve? As we head off this morning we are only 50 kilometres from the Queensland border. At that point we return to Eastern Standard Time, back on the same time as Melbourne.

But before we can get started we stop to have a chat to the local policeman while he does a random breath test on Steve. I guess that's part of the price you pay for the security of stopping opposite a Police Station. Luckily when Di asked “do you want Vodka on your muesli this morning?” I had said no. The police man appears to be from somwhere in the North of England. Bit of a different beat to the streets of Leed, because to be honest I'm still not sure what a police station is doing out here anyway. It's 50 km's from the Qld border, there's no town within a 200km's and even Barkly station (which is just a petrol station and caravan park) is over a 100km's away. How bizarre, as they say in the song.

Just up the road we cross the Shakespeare Creek so it's a bit of an English theme today: English Bobby; Shakespeare Creek; Avon Downs. 

Still plenty of red dirt about though

There was a queue to get your photo taken with the sign.
This is a couple who were ahead of us in the queue

Half an hour later, as predicted, we cross the border into Queensland. So that's the Northern Territory covered, from West to East anyway.

Di's so excited about getting into Queensland that she takes her cardigan off. (It's always warm in Queensland don't you know).

The drive into Mt Isa is as picturesque as Mt Isa isn't.

We passed Bob Katter's office in Mt Isa and amazingly he is more attractive than the town. 

I think it's the mine works and slag heap at the end of the main street that put me off. On the other hand we were able to fill up with diesel at $1.37 per liter (with the Caltex Woolies discount). That makes it 68 cents per litre cheaper than the last fill. Unattractive as the town is, it does have a big Woolies supermarket so we stocked up a bit for the “wilderness” ahead.

After a quick sandwich in a little park on the edge of town we hit the road for our overnight stop.

Twenty km's out of Mt Isa and we saw our first wild (feral) camel fo rthe whole trip. Apparently there are thousands of them out here somewhere. Oh well at least we saw one.

Another free camp tonight, 60 km's out of Mt Isa, halfway to Cloncurry. No power obviously, but loooxury, it has flushing toilets. And Internet reception.

Despite the fact that I thought we were getting the second last spot about 8 more groups manage to squeeze in after us. Including a full size coach (towing a car trailer) and 3 French girls who squeeze in next to us as if we are parked in a supermarket car park. To be fair they did ask nicely if that would be alright. I replied “mais oui mademoseille. Enchante.” See four years of studying French at Mentone Grammar didn't go completely to waste. All I need now is to meet some attractive Russion girls and my education will have paid itself off.

Ended up cooking tea inside tonight, since we couldn't get out the door without stepping on the French girls dinner table.