Back Roads North Part 2

Up at sparrows fart and straight into Muttaburra. With the daytime temperatures now regularly in the thirties, the new rule is Go Hard Go Early. Back through the ‘treacherous’ cattle grid. The Brahmin cattle had hung around hoping for a repeat performance, but I wasn’t giving them an encore.

Muttaburra is another dinosaur town, made famous by the accidental discovery, of the now named and famous Muttaburrasaurus. For the full story go to; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muttaburrasaurus . I went looking for the Muttaburrasaurus Interpretation Centre just to see what time it opened and to my surprise, it’s always open. The full story is set out in static information displays as well as a life size reconstruction. The centre is cleverly designed to keep out the summer heat, subsumed by rocks and earth, with only the morning sun allowed to peek through the ceiling.

Muttaburra is as close to the absolute centre of Queensland as a town can be(give or take a few klm). Of course, any tourist attraction helps a small town, and outside the hospital museum is a nice monument and park to pose for the obligatory memento. PS. there is a huge RV free camp just across from here

So, about now is where the reckless optimism kicks in. Ken had assured me days before that the 210klm long Muttuburra-Hughenden had only a 50 klm dirt section. However Aunty Fiona informed me that, in fact, it was 150klm’s of dirt road, condition unknown. It had been graded ‘recently’. Hmmmm…the only other option was a very lengthy detour. Well, it wasn’t like I hadn’t done this before. I fueled up and headed out. Sure enough the dirt kicked in only a five minutes out of town.

The first 10k was not a great look. Plenty of corrugation and for a moment I reconsidered my choice. I guess I didn’t reconsider hard enough. The road improved gradually and I went looking for that ‘Master of My Domain’ feeling. Now, I’m not sure whether it was the two-tone landscape or the realization that 150klms of dirt is a friggin’ long way, but that feeling that came so easily before, was struggling to get a look in.

The road conditions were varied, but the dust billowed no matter. My attempts to seal the front door were flapping about wildly and the knot in my stomach was the cleaning job that undoubtedly was in front of me, if or when I made it back to civilization. There were many dips in the road, and a couple of times they jumped up at me and the car and van leapt about. Some of the road traversed black soil country. Black soil and rain is a lethal combination for getting bogged. Why the local Council felt stretches of it needed watering down that day, remains a mystery even now. Pyramids of clodding earth soon talk hold on the front edges of the van and soon she was wearing some kind of pointy bra.

I know you might this hard to believe, but when travelling north, whether to the gulf or to Darwin from Adelaide, you are actually climbing incrementally for much of the way. So slightly, and gradually, it takes you a while to realize that ‘down’ doesn’t happen that often. On and on I went, and then, just like that, I decided that I didn’t need to prove myself on the dusty trails anymore. The sum total of the last 48 hours was just more of the same. Been there, done that, box ticked. The good news was that the Jeep behaved perfectly.

Finally, after a couple of black top teases, the tar kicked in for good and I dropped down into Hughenden to yet another Showground free camp. Apart from the three hour clean-a-thon, I had the foreboding to look under the van and sure enough, another broken leaf on the LH rear spring. I won’t go into the quest to have it fixed in 48 hours, no mean feat, given I’m in outback Queensland in a one servo town. Suffice to say, I had a good look around Hughenden, while this little drama was sorted.

That Comet windmill is only one of 14 built and dominates the Hughenden skyline. Thanks to Ben and his son at B7 Contracting, they were able to replace the leaf spring and also find and fix a couple of other suspension issues while the ‘Princess of the Seas’ was up on the stands. It would only be a short run to Julia Creek to hook up with Ken and no real time lost. Outback towns seem to be cut from the same cloth, but sometimes a little ‘quirky’ pops up just to remind you it’s not all quiet desperation out there.