Thierings on Tour

The roosters and other farm animals were up early this morning and made themselves heard. It proved to be a great distraction for the girls while Chris and I packed up. It was also great to see a little playground at the caravan park, the girls loved being right next to it so they could entertain themselves!

We were back on the road a little later than planned and as we headed to Hells Gate Roadhouse (our original stop the night before) we again were very glad that we changed our plans and just stayed at Tirrina Roadhouse. The road was rough and unpredictable and not what you want to be driving at nighttime.

There weren’t many stops along the way, as communities such as Doomadgee are closed communities. When we finally reached Hells Gate Roadhouse it was like an oasis surrounded by dirt and red dust. It had lush gardens, a lovely bar/cafe area and a nice playground for the kids. We all felt a pang of disappointment that we didn’t get to stay here last night… but safety first. 

We met Jenny who had so kindly chatted us through our best options yesterday and she was so kind and offered us some power to plus into for an hour to recharge the van. So we grabbed some snacks from the cafe and the girls enjoyed a runaround while I now had a convenient stop for my meeting! To top the universe looking after us, a tour guide from an organised tour brought us a big bag of snacks and biscuits from their leftover morning tea. Winning!

Then we had an unknown period of time left to drive to our campsite for the night in the NT. Google Maps was saying it would take 9h55 but other travelers had said that it had taken them anything from 4-6 hours to get there.

Before we knew it we were at the QLD/NT border and were lucky enough that a nice bloke from a local cattle station happened to be driving past to take a photo of the whole family. He said the cattle station he worked on was 3 million acres – I can’t even fathom the size of that!

Once we had crossed over the roads got bad, and I mean really BAD. It was corrugated, it was dusty and both the van and car were getting their biggest shake up yet. It was hard to drive and hard for all the little passengers and all iPad rules went out the window just to survive the day.

We eventually made it to the beautiful Seven Emu station just to see the end of the sunset over the cliffs and river. What a spot and I really wished we had longer to stay here….

It was a quick dinner and some more stargazing for the big girls. I thought I had read somewhere that there would be a meteor shower tonight, but we certainly didn’t see any more than normal. The stars were however gorgeous and the fire was a nice touch from the cold evening weather.

Kms travelled – 457