#barkly

After issues with van and car, we were a little nervous about taking yet another tough unsealed road, the Savanna Way (National Hwy 1) with its numerous river crossings which were reported to be deepish and flowing. Instead we opted to travel south on the Tablelands Hwy and on to Mt Isa along the Barkly Hwy. Are we getting more cautious in our old age?

You might be getting the impression that I am a bit of a sign addict. In truth I really love maps but signs? out on the road in the outback you ignore signs at your peril. It was less than a week since there had been flooding along this Hwy.

The road was a bit of or a lot of a shocker - very narrow and towards the southern end it undulates in all directions probably from the many trucks that travel the road. The Hwy changes its nature dramatically north to south. At the northern end we were driving beside the escarpment of the tablelands passing great stands of what I think were Snappy Gum with their ghostly pale trunks.

The roadside in places out on the plains were fringed with the delightful Bauhinia cunninghamii. It’s a semi-deciduous tree with leaves which look like little open books and flowers with perky red stamen waving out of rusty-velvety calyces. I kept my eye out for and stopped to hop out and go foraging for the flowers but no luck (this flower pic is from our last visit to the north). The trees are hosts to nests of native bees, but this time no flowers, no bees fortunately for me this time. The Aborigines sucked the nectar from the flowers and made a concoction out of roots and inner bark to use as skin antiseptic or use internally for fever or general illness.

Find a puddle of water and you find cattle who amble across the road and turn to stare lazily at you; some are humongous. Gorgeous beasts.

And then the horizon stretch around us flat and unbroken. I so love the plains! Vast unbroken stretches of grasslands where pratincoles flutter and dart alongside the road - or should! We saw none at all this time but we did see stately Jabirus leaping up and down then slowly lifting off like huge flapping aircraft.

We camped roadside that night ~10km north of the Barkly Hwy and Roadhouse which was packed out. Next morning we turned east onto the Hwy and hit the NT/Qld Border. But just before we reached the Border there was a road block heading into NT. All cars were being stopped! Good to be swimming against the tide.