Cawnpore Lookout – Georgina and Diamantina Catchment Area
Sat 18th
Graham is still working on the engine conversion. He has put Michael to work as Michael and Jules arrived sometime around midnight last night to be ready for an early start today.
Sun 19th
Graham is still working on the engine conversion. I woke around 6am and went looking for him. I found him asleep in the driver’s seat of the cruiser, foot on the brake pedal, phone in hand. I woke him but he went back to sleep so I gave up. He has only had 2 hours sleep in the last few days. Heading back to the house I noticed the ice on everything. It was currently 0° on our freezer gauge I had hanging on the veranda.
It was after lunch before the truck was ready (enough) to hit the road. So finally we were on our way with a goal to get to Mitchell today. We arrived in the dark, found a free camp using Wiki Camps and set up for the night. It wasn’t long before we were all in bed. We had our diesel heater running on high all night as it was freezing – just like the last time we camped at Mitchell on our way to the Simpson Desert in 2008.
Mon 20th
Today’s goal was to get to Longreach where we were to meet up with Graham’s brother Marquis and his wife Kristy (www.scaryhairtour.com) who are on their way back to Newcastle after visiting the Kimberley region; we weren’t able to coordinate everyone’s holidays so we could travel together. Arriving in Tambo around lunch time we discovered we had almost no brakes and on further investigation found the fan belt to be pretty much destroyed. We then had to try to source some more fan belts as the spare went on the truck but Graham didn’t know what had caused the issue at that point. We ordered some from Repco Mt Isa and then found a couple in Blackall as well.
We arrived at the Longreach Tourist Park where we were met by Marquis & Kristy. After quickly setting up the campers we headed to the restaurant for dinner and a catch up. We haven’t seen Marquis and Kristy since October 2013 so Jacob has definitely gotten a lot bigger since then.
Tues 21st
Left Longreach; camped at the Hamilton Hotel Ruins on the Boulia Road.
Wed 22nd
A look at the Stone House Museum in Boulia, then onto Mt Isa where we had a bit of running around to do getting some parts. (Fan belts, pulley, throttle shaft seal, washers, oil, stereo). By the time we had finished it was late in the afternoon so we found a free camp (David Hall Rest Stop) and headed to it for the night.
