When we think about the outback of Australia, we imagine vast areas of red sand and sparsely populated areas. Of course there is that, but so much more! What we didn’t expect were the quintessential ‘one shop’ towns; the friendliness of the people; the colorful landscapes; the wildlife and variety of birdlife that live in this area.
We leave Dalby after our CMCA Campervan rally and head west… and just kept driving! Mr Carter is in his element… getting JV ready for hitting the road!
We follow the Warrego Way, Warrego meaning “river of sand”. Its a route taking us into the Australian Outback from Brisbane to Birdsville covering just under 1600 kilometres. I love some of the names of the towns that we pass – Chinchilla, Roma, Charleville, Quilpie, Windorah, Betoota and Birdsville.. just to name a few. Each has its own story and also a ‘hook’ to try and get you to stay just a little bit longer in their town.
We take advantage of the free bush camps, generally by a billibong with plenty of birdlife and if lucky a bit of wildlife as well.
Many of the pubs or hotels offer free camping if you patronage the establishment. We stay at the Mucka Bup (sic) – the original pub at Muckadilla burnt down and two years ago one of the locals restored the pub. As a joke the guy who made the signage deliberately spelt ‘pub’ the wrong way. But the owner has decided to leave it spelt as is given all the great publicity he’s received. We camp for a night and try and enjoy our meal, ignoring the ‘resident’ snake that lives in the bushes out front of the pub😱.
In Roma, we discover the Bottle tree, especially on Heroes Avenue where 140 Bottle trees line the avenue, one for every soldier from the area killed in WWI.
Just out of town, we visit the Roma Saleyards, the largest cattle selling centre in Australia, with over 220,000 cattle sold last year through these yards.
We detour to Morven to see an historic Kerosene Tin hut, testimony to the innovation of settlers who during the depression built homes out of kerosene tins.
Charleville, we admire the stars and planets in the Observatory and learn the history of the Flying Doctors Service and we don’t bother looking for any veggie food🤣.
On our way to Quilpie, we stop at Cooladdi, its claim to fame is being the ‘smallest town on the longest road’! It seems that an oil tanker has overturned up the road so we have to double back and take the old Quilpie road around the accident site and pick up the main road just a few kilometries from Cooladdi. We arrive in Quilpie and watch the sunset over the lake where we are camping. Just magical!
And finally, the iconic towns of Betoota and Birdsville. Betoota is the town with the lowest population in Australia – population 0. We stop and find out that the owner lives in the pub from April until end of November so that doesn’t count as ‘living’ in the town.
And finally there’s Birdsville. Since JV was delivered a bit later than expected, we missed the Birdsville horse races that take place early September but since Birdsville has been on our bucket list for some time, we decide to visit for a few days. Its past the tourist season so the town in empty. We take a few days to get all our ‘chores’ done, even cooking up a few curry meals to freeze them for later. With a good feed under our belt, we are ready to go.
But the highlight is the drive up to Big Red, the biggest sand dune just out of town at the start of the Simpson desert. We drive up the 40 metres, no sweat, just dropped the tires down to 15/20psi and up we go. The views at the top are magnificent and we enjoy a few hours at the top including the sunset marvelling at the change of color across the dunes and the serenity of the evening.
And lets not forget our furry friends!
Next up – the Birdsville Track and beyond!
So Cool! LOVE the updates. You guys are AMAZING. Any plans to stop by ” cooper pety”
and snag a few opals?