Jenny and Brian's Travels: Alice to Diamantina

The Big4 at Alice provides a pancake breakfast every Sunday for park guests, but we couldn’t indulge this time. Instead it was an 8.30 start, north on the Stuart Highway for 68 k’s, then east on the Plenty Highway. We enjoyed the 100 odd kilometers of bitumen to just past the Gemtree. This is a campground frequented by fossickers searching for garnets on the owners’ property. The rough dirt and corrugations came all too quickly. After 200 k’s we were more than happy to stop for the night at Jervois Station, on the banks of the Marshall River, just 5 k’s past the Plenty River. We saw quite a few of the beautiful, green wild budgies today, a rare event on the other desert roads we had travelled.

Harts Range - Plenty Highway

Jervois Station


Very odd-shaped termite mound

Monday morning was a rather late 10am start, the driver spending some time chatting to another camper. It was just 4 hours driving today to Tobermorey Station, just 3 k’s west of the Qld border. The road was in quite good condition, except for the sections of very fine bulldust which hung in the air after passing other vehicles. The campground had a good covering of grass, which was a pleasant surprise. With unlimited artesian water, the sprinklers are on for most of the day.

Tuesday, 22^nd July, almost 5 months since we left Brisbane and 16,500 k’s, we crossed the NT/Qld border. Watches were adjusted, and it was lovely to be wearing a t-shirt again, and no fleece vest or jacket. The road now became the Donohue Highway to Boulia, crossing the Georgina River along the way. Luckily the tyres survived the very hard, rocky surface. The Boulia caravan park was not too busy – the annual camel races had been held on the weekend. The weather had warmed up so much that a load of washing done at 4pm was dry by 5.15.

Getting closer to home

Mitchell grass plains, west of Boulia

And the only truck we saw in days

A wedge tail guarding breakfast - lucky he flew to the right

Main street Boulia

Wednesday morning we travelled 30k’s of bitumen on the Kennedy Developmental Road, then turned off to 150 k’s of more dirt, dust and corrugations on Springvale Road into the Diamantina National Park. It was very evident to see why this is called the channel country – blue lines all over the map indicating a water course. It is so hard to imagine that during summer there can be so much of the land surface covered by floodwaters. Apparently the endangered bilbies in Qld are now restricted to a few populations on and near Diamantina. We camped at Hunters Gorge, on the banks of the Diamantina, and shared the space with hundreds of noisy corellas, and thousands of flies. Thank goodness we had flyhats. Of course, the pelicans were also here – amazing how they find water in the most remote places.

Queensland's treeless plains

Hunters Gorge, Diamantina National Park

View from the kitchen window

Graceful pelicans


Another section of river from Jane's Leap

Thursday we drove north-east out of the park, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn for at least the fifth time this trip. The landscape was truly amazing with mountain ranges, mesas, gibber plains, and some poor cattle desperate for a good feed.