Monday 24th May 2010


Left Mt. Carbine early to attend to some business and shopping in Mareeba.

Camped at Emu Creek 5 kms along the Petford - Irvinebank Road. This road is gravel and unsuitable for caravans further along. Jeanette was not too keen about the location. There is another couple here who are from Kauri (near Lake Tinaroo) and they had been camped since Thursday. They often camp at this and other locations along Emu Creek and in the region. It was lucky that we camped here on the way to Chillagoe because I had originally intended to travel this road on the way across to the Savannah Way and may have struck trouble as there are a number of narrow hills where someone would have had to back up if we encountered a vehicle going the other way. There was far too much tree cover so had to run the generator. As we had topped up with a lot of fresh foodstuff at Mareeba for the fridge and freezer we decided it would be better to be in a caravan park and on mains power when we do this because we do not always know what the campsites are like in advance and we need plenty of sun to charge batteries to maximum in these circumstances. First opportunity to throw the red claw pots in using boiled potato as bait. Checked the pots in the morning and had no luck. One valuable lesson I did learn from this experience was that I will not be putting my mud crab pot in any crocodile infested waterways. After crossing a log with pot in hand I slipped and fell into the creek, sliding very quickly down the sandy and steep embankment. What if this had happened in one of the rivers inhabited by estuarine crocodiles further west and north? Valuable lesson learnt!!

Tuesday 25th to Wednesday 26th May 2010

The road from Mareeba to Almaden, 30 kms east of Chillagoe is very good bitumen road which is hilly in places. Leaving Mareeba the countryside is very fertile with a lot of tropical fruit plantations, mainly mango with some avocado and other trees hard to identify. There are also a number of coffee plantations. These have taken over from the tobacco farms that dominated farming in the Mareeba district until the bottom fell out of that market. The terrain changes noticeably after Dimbulah, becoming hillier and vegetation more sparse. The road between Almaden and Chillagoe is 50/50 bitumen and gravel but the gravel is wide and well graded mainly for the ore road trains that travel between Mungana mine west of Chillagoe to the smelter at Mt. Garnet. These have a prime-mover and four ore hoppers and run 24/7. We booked into the Chillagoe Observatory and Eco Lodge (flash name for a very basic caravan/camping park) for 2 nights because the other caravan park is in the main street where the ore trains pass. Checked out The Hub for information about the town and district. Very good display which saves going to the museum (seen one seen them all says Jeanette). Drove to old copper smelter which is a self-drive tour with information plaques to explain the various operational areas. Started approximately 1900 and closed down in 1943. There were attempts to quarry marble around the town from 1982 but this never really got off the ground. The limestone caves at Chillagoe are said to be the oldest in Australia but after seeing Jenolan Caves there would be nothing to compare to their beauty and grandeur. Why people would have wanted to settle in this harsh environment in the early 1900’s is beyond us.

Chillagoe Smelter

Chillagoe Marble at The Hub

Thursday 27th May 2010

Set off this morning for the trip to Georgetown. The first 80 kms was good gravel road but had to contend with the ore road trains to and from Mungana. Along this section of road there are call points about every four kilometres where they call in to report their position for oncoming drivers. This is particularly helpful when approaching crests and bends where the road can narrow at times. A fellow camper had clued us up to call in our position at these points and the road train drivers were very appreciative of us doing this as they knew our position as well and could look out for us. The next 76 kms towards Mt. Surprise was also gravel, sometimes good and sometimes no better than a 4wd track. Ironically the same person above had suggested following the road train road through towards Mt. Garnet because it was a better quality road and we may have difficulty getting through on the Mt. Surprise road. That was our plan until I spoke to the police officer at Chillagoe who said the Mt. Surprise road had just been graded and would not be a problem and would be the better way to go. Well apart from the standard of the road there were some steep climbs in places, one river, one causeway and two creek crossings to negotiate; all with water flowing across. All went fine; we hit the bitumen for the last 14 kms into Mt. Surprise and took it steady because I had reduced tyre pressures for the gravel and were pulling up for morning tea when everything went wrong.

Pulling in close to the curb the road had an extreme camber and there was a tree right against the curb which was leaning out over the road. Well I got too close didn’t I and ripped the top mounting brackets off the awning arms, bent the arms back about 300mm and put a couple of small holes in the top sheet of side cladding.

After assessing the damage and the consequences of continuing with a damaged awning that could not be used and the fact that there was damage to the cladding we decided to call it quits and return home for damage to be repaired and awning replaced. We were still hopeful that we may have been able to continue our trip albeit several weeks later than scheduled but it will be eight weeks before the repair work can be carried out so we have created plan B. I was apprehensive about the roads still to be travelled with the tyres on the Landcruiser so now we will do Tasmania and Victoria in spring and take off again same time next year so stay tuned.