Sunday August 23

Once again we are without phone cover so this will be published when we get into range, tomorrow morning as we pass 3ways, provided of course that I remember. 

Yesterday's detour to make sure that Tom was safely on his way had us in the caravan park at Camooweal which is just over the Queensland border. There is a great free camp there along the river but we wanted to be close by staying in the caravan park next to his motel and we then enjoyed a nice dinner cooked by Elaine using the barramundi that he caught in Derby. This morning he was gone when Elaine went to check at about 6am so we took advantage of being in a caravan park and did washing, had showers, filled water tanks, washed the van etc. 

Then we took off to get back to 3ways and continue our journey south. We were and still are travelling on the Barkly Highway today covering about 320kms and camping in a free park just west of the Barkly Homestead (When  we got to Barkly Homestead we stopped and confirmed that Tom was ok). Just a bit of bare ground at the side of the highway but an official campsite, we have driven down a road at the back of it and are about 200 mtrs from the road. There is a fair bit of traffic on this highway, trucks some road trains some normal size, lots of RVs mostly caravans and not many camper trailers plus a few cyclists and motorcyclists. The scenery is wide open spaces again but quite nice. Today we passed the Avon Downs police station which is all by itself, about 40 kms from the border and with no nearby town, strange but I guess there is a reason for it. It is quite a large building with what appears to be accompanying accomodation. Cattle grids are fairly common in northern Australia, they are rows of old railway lines set into the road to stop the cattle from straying off the properties which straddle to road. Yesterday and today we passed one which is simple white lines painted on the road.......and I am assured that it works!