Plenty and Donohue Highways

After leaving Rainbow Valley, we headed north towards Alice Springs, making a quick stop to refuel and fill two jerry cans. Then, we continued another sixty-eight kilometres north along the Stuart Highway before turning east onto the Plenty Highway. Just over sixty kilometres later, we passed Gemtree, which has a caravan park and a gem fossicking area.

This is our fourth trip across the Plenty and Donohue routes, and although there are large sections of dirt, it remains a quicker way to travel into Queensland than taking the bitumen north across the Barkly Tableland.

It's probably four years since we last crossed this way, and we were surprised to see that the single-lane bitumen has now been extended as far as the Aboriginal community at Harts Range, about one hundred and seventy kilometres from the Stuart Highway.

We spent a very peaceful night camped on the outskirts of the Aboriginal community of Atitjere (Harts Range), where overnight stays are permitted. The facilities include a sheltered picnic table and rubbish bins.

Our second day's journey took us further east towards the NT/QLD border, with the bitumen extending another twenty kilometres before it faded out, forcing us to stop and lower our tyre pressures for what lay ahead. It was a further 216 kilometres until we reached Jervois Station, as the road conditions included corrugations and rocky outcrops of varying difficulty for much of this stretch.

We refuelled at Jervois Station for $3.00 per litre before travelling another sixty kilometres to camp for the night on the banks of Arthur Creek, where two other groups had stopped. However, they continued on after a lunch break, so we had the place to ourselves. It was hot at thirty-seven degrees, and the flies were extremely persistent. 

I was up at 6:30, checking tyre pressures on our Chev and van before the sun rose, and we were back on the road just after 7:30 am. We passed near Tobermorey Station, just shy of the Queensland border, and gained half an hour due to the different time zones. We didn't stop there for fuel as our two jerry cans were still full, and I emptied them into the Chev when we stopped later that day. 

That evening, we camped on the banks of the Georgina River, one hundred and twenty kilometres east of Tobermorey Station. We were the only ones there for the night, although several campers were heading in both directions, but not stopping to stay. We had planned to cook our dinner over our fire pit, but with the wind and the super dry grass surrounding our campsite, we opted to cook on our gas stove.

Another early morning, pumping up tyres for the remaining one hundred and eighteen-kilometre sealed journey into Bouila, avoiding the dirt and dust of the past two days. We checked into Bouila Caravan Park, which charged a nightly fee of $20 for power and water. It was a wonderful feeling to have green grass underfoot after five days of dirt and dust. With unlimited water, Ros managed to finish seven loads of laundry in our van's four-kilogram washing machine.