Surviving the Donohue/Plenty Highway from Boulia to 'Alice'

We made it into Alice Springs on Saturday afternoon in the middle of a dust storm. The bitumen road a few kms east of Gemtree was a welcome sight after 660 kms of gravel and bull dust! After two nights in Toowoomba with our friend Margaret (from Fiji days), and a look over Tim's new construction site there, we travelled to Boulia via Augathella and Winton. These outback Queensland towns have a character all their own. Augathella is a very small place but boasts some interesting murals and metal sculptures and a tree where some notorious brothers used to tether their horses to make a quick get-away should they get into trouble.

We only stopped in Longreach long enough to see if we could get a wheel rim for our 2nd spare but to no avail! It was looking more and more as though we would have to make do with one spare tyre.

Winton, of course is famous as the birth place of Waltzing Matilda and has a very interesting Waltzing Matilda Centre there which is well worth a visit. We went along to the old Open Air Theatre and sat in deck chairs to watch some very old and flickery cartoons and some Abott and Costello - that took us back a few years!!

On to Boulia where the town was abuzz, as the annual Camel Races were on and the town was filling up with lots of visitors - they were expecting 4,000!! Warwick took the time to have a dip in the fairly new 25m pool which is part of a very versatile and well equipped Sporting Complex. Boulia too has a vibrancy that surprises you - somehow you don't expect it in these isolated outback towns. We decided to leave early so we could take our time and go easy on the tyres. It is 460kms from Boulia to Jervois Station, our next overnight stop. In general the Donohue Highway (Boulia to the NT Border) and Plenty Highway were in better condition than when we had traversed them 3 years ago, but we still got one puncture and had to drive the last 160 kms to Jervois without a spare. We drove VERY carefully on that section and were very relieved to make it in good time, arriving at 4pm. From Augathella to Boulia there was lots of road-kill (mainly roos) but along the Donohue and Plenty Highways the only road-kill is tyres!!

We enjoyed our night at Jervois, made even more enjoyable, by the company of a delightful Irish couple who are doing the whole of the 'Outback Way' on their way back to Perth. The full moon helped too. Our friendly Station owner had swapped our tyres over by the next morning. So, we only had about 200 kms of gravel to go the next day and we did that without any further hassles. I'll keep my impressions of Yirara to my next post. Suffice to say, I already have 2 jobs - one here at Yirara and one at Old Timers, the Nursing Home that I have worked at before. Until then...... I am having trouble up-loading photos at the moment so they will have to wait. Sorry!