Still Travelling Part 4 - Muttaburra to Townsville

Friday 25th May --- Our travels today started at 1015 am with a cross-country gravel road from Muttaburra to join onto the Aramac - Torrens Creek road - saving over 60 km driving. It was an easy road passing through a number of sheep properties.

Bowen Downs Info

One of these properties was Bowen Downs, established in 1862 and still an operating station today. In it's day it was the world's largest sheep station covering more than one million ha (almost 1.5 million football fields).

Park Entrance

Once we joined the main road it was bitumen all the way to the Moorrinya NP entrance. Leaving the bitumen we travelled via good  gravel road to the only camping area in the park. We had not planned to stay the night here, just to stop for lunch. However, once at the camp site,  we decided to stay. There are only 7 camp sites here alongside the old shearing shed that was once part of the property known as "Shirley".
The shearing "complex" has been well maintained along with the shearer's quarters.

Shearer's Quarters

However, it was disappointing, and frustrating, that there was no information provided by NP's about the complex or the park itself.
Saturday 26th May --- Rising early at 6 am gave us time to enjoy a cooked breakfast before departing today. Only a short distance between locations, however we planned to take a slight detour to White Mountains NP as we have passed this park on three other occasions and never explored the area. Unfortunately today would be another "drive pass". Leaving Moorrinya we had to return the 16.5 km to the main road before heading northwards to Torrens Creek onto the Flinders Highway. Expecting bitumen all the way we were surprised to find the road turned to gravel 38 kms from the intersecting highways.

Aramac Torrens Creek Rd

This was the worst road we had travelled on since leaving home over 2,400 km ago. Extremely rough and seriously corrugated for about 30 km. It was rougher than the cross-country route from Old Cork to Middleton - and that now seems like a highway after the Aramac Torrens Creek Rd. Poor "Ada" was pretty badly shaken about and "Peter Prado" didn't like it much either. Poor "Theodore" lost his hat and the Rambling Retirees disintegrated into the Rumbling Retirees!! We all breathed a sigh of relief when we finally hit the bitumen again.
Once on the Flinders Highway we were cruising along, aiming for road to White Mountains NP, when the OWO espied an unusual light on the dash, one he had not seen before. Mrs OWO was asked to rapidly fine the meaning in Peter Prado's operating manual. Oh dear, trouble ahead it seemed!
Instructions - if this light appears take the vehicle directly to a Toyota dealer! Hmm. A little difficult when the nearest was over 250 kms away! Oh wait - light goes off, speed picks up, great! Nope, 5 km later same thing. Definitely a problem - no visit to White Mountains on this trip. We'll just stop overnight at Pentland, drive to Townsville tomorrow and put Peter Prado into the care of Toyota on Monday.
Arriving at Pentland, rather relieved, our first stop was the pub, where we could camp for free, get an evening meal, and down a few 'coldies' to ease the pain of the last 2 hrs. Enjoyed a pleasant evening at the pub talking to a few of the 'locals'.
Pentland has lot of history to share and there was a great historical display on the pub walls. This little town is on the main rail route from Townsville to Mt Isa, with the Inlander passenger train still stopping at the railway station.
Sunday 27th May --- This day did not start well. Unfortunately after 4 one night stops Mrs OWO was exhausted and suffered a very 'inconvenient' MS meltdown. "Inconvenient" because it meant the OWO had to wear a number of hats - carer, packer and driver - and all just prior to reaching our last stopover before Mareeba. We refuelled at Charters Towers and stopped for a tea break before continuing on to Townsville, arriving around lunch time.
Although the trip so far has been very interesting with some beautiful sights and fascinating history along the way, it was a bit of a relief to be greeted by our wonderful friends in Townsville. After travelling 2,639 kms in 13 days it was now time for both these intrepid travellers to have a few days to relax in one place with the comforts of home.