We left Barcaldine for Winton and stopped one night in town and another night camped beside a waterhole (Surprise Ck) in the Bladensburg NP. Winton, with its history, historic buildings and recent dinosaur exhibits is irresistible. Furthermore, there are now two choices of 3-phase. The best of what was on show was our afternoon in the shade and serenity at Surprise Creek.  Admittedly, we ended up missing out on the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum but the entertainment and pleasure of sitting at close quarters to an assortment of bird life including Common Bronzewings, Varied Lorikeets and Spotted Bowerbirds while being totally relaxed in the shade, beside a billabong just couldn’t get better.

Our task now was to get to Mt Isa for an important rendezvous on Friday morning (13th August) with the acting Magistrate John Smith, because Stephanie had to be sworn in as an acting magistrate to do relieving work in the future.  That was a memorable meeting.  John had grown up in Barcaldine and he had a bagful of funny stories about his childhood escapades with his mates free roaming and care free in his beloved Barcaldine.  We took along some celebratory morning tea in our thermos, with home made jam drops coincidentally sourced in Barcaldine.

We were also targeting our escape from Queensland for Saturday14th, having served our 14 days ex the South East Queensland COVID hotspot. We were charged up thanks to the RACQ operative, Dave, in Camooweal (another cherished 3-phase socket). An early start and a flurry of online NT entry form filling meant we arrived at the patrol post and were greeted and waved through, not knowing that a COVID victim had recently landed in Darwin and another COVID drama was about to unfold with hotspot declarations for Katherine and Darwin, Katherine being on our path for Western Australia.

On our way to Barkly Homestead Roadhouse we proved yet again you can stretch our battery kilometres to the limit, providing you go slow enough. Lifting the car, stuffing it full and removing its aerodynamic hub caps may have lowered our range but not by much. We still managed to average 123 Wh/km at around 63 km/ hr. We camped at Barkly Roadhouse that night and hatched a scheme to go north directly to Cape Crawford the next day on the Tablelands Highway (380 km of single lane bitumen) and then across to Daly Waters. It was perhaps a risky choice but it paid off.

At 24% charge, Rosella rolled into The Heartbreak Hotel, Cape Crawford the next day after nearly 7 hours of travel and one stop about midway for lunch. Ours was surely the very first electric vehicle ever to show up in this part of the world and she was quickly embraced with enthusiasm by the Hotel manager Bev. Before we left two days later the Heartbreak Hotel was fitted out with a three phase outlet due to the fortuitous visit of the local electrician, Casey, the interest shown by the Hotel manager, and our knowledge of what sort of electrical fitting was required. We stayed long enough to briefly test the new 3-phase socket and were empowered to perhaps precipitate a similar addition to the charging facilities at the Daly Waters Caravan Park, because Casey now knows what is involved and also works for Tim Carter at Daly Waters CP.

Before leaving Cape Crawford we went on a 140 km return visit to Caranbirini Conservation Park between the McArthur River Mine and Borroloola. That was another gem. It has a bird hide literally on top of a lily pad covered billabong full of Green Pigmy-geese, a small but enchanting lost city of sandstone pillars, comparable with more celebrated such structure I have seen elsewhere in the region and some great views over tropical bush land and flood plains. We are having an unpredictable but good time but have some new COVID complications to deal with, like how to get to WA in spite of the NT lockdowns. We were already so far north (just inside Roper Gulf LGA) that a retreat to SA would now also involve a 14 day wait to cross their border. We headed for Daly Waters not knowing what to 

do next.

This instalment comes to your courtesy of the air conditioned comfort of the Puma Service Station, Daly Waters!