Well after four months in Queensland we have finally crossed the border into NT – yayy. We left Mt Isa at 8.00am this morning with the intention to drive as far as we could. From Mt Isa it is 188kms to the NT/Qld border and 634kms to Three Ways which is the joining spot for the Barkly Highway (from the east) and Stuart Highway (north/south NT). It is called Three Ways as there are three ways to go, south to Alice Springs, north to Darwin or east to Queensland. We had intended to stop before Three Ways however once crossing into the NT we gained a half hour (daylight saving!) and decided to continue on. Whilst we knew it would be busy this time of year we are still amazed at the amount of caravans on the road (also seeing more and more WA licence plates) – all the free camps were busy even in mid afternoon and one caravanner told us to get a spot at the more popular free camps you have to be there by noon! Anyway we continued on and ended up doing 800kms (our biggest day yet!) today stopping at a place called Renner Springs. We arrived at 7.00pm Qld time – meaning we were on the road for 10.5 hours! It was a looongggg day! We paid the highest price we have paid yet for petrol today at $184.9/litre to fill up was over $130! We are getting too scared to look at the petrol price out here and of course the roadhouses don’t advertise their prices. In Renner Springs it is $1.97/litre!!! The good thing is that there is petrol here. The speed limit in NT is 130Kmh, fast hey! (although up until recently there was no upper limit…. a few dickheads in Ferrari’s put an end to that freedom!) It was extremely windy today and there are signs warning of the danger of the crosswinds and apparently there was some rain last night and we have seen puddles on the side of the road. The terrain once crossing the NT border was very flat but with those gorgeous outback colours, oranges, pastel and blue sky. As we got closer to our overnight stop it has become greener with rocky outcrops that were red and brown. Watching the sunset with these colours is just glorious. Just love the outback. Our overnight stop is very basic, we missed out on a powered site but we are lucky enough to have a nice spring come lagoon as our backdrop with some very noisy geese (so that plus the odd road train will mean a “Stilnox” for John tonight!) There is an abundance of lovely fresh water available being right at the spring. There are loos and showers but certainly wouldn’t call them luxurious!
No comments:
Post a Comment