Northern Safari: Darwin to St George region

We had originally planned to come home slowly from Darwin, but decided to cover the ground quickly so we could make it back in time for Jim’s cousin’s (Brian) birthday party on his cattle/sheep property near St George on 28 July. This meant we needed to do some big km each day, leaving before dawn, so we booked some cabins for sleeping along the way to save packing up the camper trailer. We did about 2200 km on the first 2 days, staying in Tennant Creek first and making it to Winton by 8:30 pm on Wednesday.

The Mt Isa mine is virtually right in town

Despite doing 1150 km that day we still stopped in McKinlay for a drink at the pub made famous by Crocodile Dundee

We spent Thursday morning looking around Winton and played the musical fence (which works like a guitar), saw Arno’s Wall (built from rocks and heaps of old machines, typewriters, spare parts, etc) and explored the amazing Gregory Hotel (where Waltzing Matilda was supposedly first performed in 1895).

Elsie at Winton's junkyard band, next to the musical fence

Part of Arno's Wall, Winton

Jim would secretly still love to drive one of these

We then headed to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History where we learnt lots about dinosaurs and saw heaps of dinosaur fossils which were all found locally.

Bronte next to the small white femur of an ox, compared to the larger fossilised dinosaur femur

Ned with a life-sized dinosaur

Volunteers painstakingly chip away the dirt from the fossil

We then headed down to Longreach for a really quick look around before making it to Barcaldine for the night where we were treated to some bush poetry and jokes by the campfire in the caravan park.

We left before dawn again to travel via Mitchell and St George to arrive at Brian’s property west of St George after dark, ready for the big party on the next day.

Kerosine tin hut at Morven - people lived in these diring the depression

Some of the party crowd at Brian's machinery shed

Lots of camp ovens were used to cook the party food

Inside Brian's shearing shed

Jim trying to be useful in the cattle yards at Bernie's

The kids had never seen branding and marking before

We then spent a few nights on Ross and Cheryl’s cotton farm south of St George, followed by a night on Tom’s property near Weengallon. It was really good to stay on the various farms and catch up with the rellies, while the kids also loved the all the channels on their Foxtel.