18 April 2024
Nicole and I have just arrived at Daly Waters on the Stuart Highway. It’s in the middle of the NT about 3/4 of the way North.
Having left Queensland on Wednesday morning and after a very pleasant stay at the Barkly Homestead last night (refer Map section for details), we’ve driven around 1,000km in two days. Dad had told me that there would be days where there is nothing to do but drive. He was right. And drive we did.
Despite speed limits of 130km/h, I decided to sit on around 100km/h for two reasons. Reason 1 — so the fuel (lack of) economy wouldn’t go through the roof (averaging around 13.5 litres/100km for those interested). Reason 2 — after recent cyclones etc the roads are in very poor shape.
We had heard a week and a half ago in Longreach that the section we drove today was at first completely closed due to water over the road and bad flood damage, then open only from 6am to 9am heading west. So we figured if we took our time getting here the roads would be much improved. From what we saw today the plan worked, although they are still pretty chopped up in places.
In terms of things to stop and see along the way? Pretty much nothing. Towns to visit? Not really — just some roadhouses e.g. the Three Ways Roadhouse. Even rest stops are few and far between. However there was some magnificent scenery, snippets of which I’ll try to share in a future post.
In terms of places to stay, once again limited choices. We had committed to trying to free camp tonight along the way and were researching Wikicamps heavily. Some of the 3.5 and 4 star (out of 5) options were “gravel pits”. Neither of us had ever visited a 4 star gravel pit, but now we have. It was around 50m off the Stuart Highway and, as the label said, was an area of gravel. I must admit that the 4 star gravel pits did look better than the 3.5 star gravel pits, however the ones we reached at the right time were completely deserted and I chickened out (Nicole remained strong though). So, we ended up free camping at Daly Waters as mentioned above. For $24 for the night we don’t have any gravel, but a Happy Hour was offered (and happily accepted).
I will commit to more free camping as we move along (I promise). In the meantime we’ll enjoy resting up at the Daly Waters Pub.
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