It's about a 285-kilometer journey from Bendigo in Central Victoria to Warrnambool on the south-west coast. We stopped at Beaufort the halfway point for lunch each way and also checked out a vintage secondhand store, which I can never resist and always want to buy everything in the store, thankfully the Shovel is there to bring me back to reality... I do tend to pendulum between uncluttered minimalist and maximalist hoarder... 

​This area was called “Peerick” by the Jajowarrung First People. Thomas Mitchell was the first European in the region before gold was discovered in 1852. Although unsubstantiated, the town was named after Rear Admiral Francis Beaufort who devised the Beaufort scale for measuring wind velocity. Gumby had a lovely chat to Jim in the local Newsagency regarding the importance of carrying physical cash, of which Gumby does not, as she paid for the Frankie magazine by tapping her phone against the EFT device…

I went into the Information Centre at Elmore looking to purchase local honey and left, without honey, but with knowledge I never knew I needed. The welcoming Information Centre volunteer invited the three of us to view the interactive museum display which taught us the suburb of Sunshine in Melbourne was named after the HV McKay "Sunshine" Combine Harvester where the factory was located.

Via Harvey oranges and beef

​Shovel and I were up obscenely early on Friday morning to drive approximately 1,100kms from Mount Isa to Airlie Beach for the wedding of Amy (Shovel’s sister) and Zak. We stopped in Richmond for a steak sandwich at Treats for your Table a locally owned café serving homemade goods from an old weatherboard house on the main street, and arrived into Airlie Beach later that evening at around 9pm, after enjoying a curry for dinner in Bowen. 

​Amy and Zak were married on a private out-of-town beach. In March 2017, Airlie Beach was hit by a category 3 cyclone, known as Debbie, which produced winds of 150km/h and left homes destroyed, with insurance losses totalling almost $2 billion. Two years on it’s difficult to imagine the town had experienced such devastation, as the region is recovering, thanks to the combined support of local residents who rallied together to restore the paradise holiday destination.      

​It's about 640kms from the Threeways Roadhouse to Mount Isa along the Barkly Highway and, we chose to smash it out in a day as Shovel had to start the ball rolling so to speak on his new job and I needed to find work. Honestly this stretch of road I believe was the hardest to drive in all of our travels around Australia and by this, I mean the oppressive remoteness… The terrain is flat, there are few if any trees and the view out of the car window is desolation, a dusty haze, yet despite the similarities to the Nullarbor Plain, the isolation hits different. On the Nullarbor (Eyre Highway) the trials and tribulations of life simply put, stop, and you relax into the journey feeling disconnected from time, it’s joyous, whimsical in fact. The Barkly Highway however, is foreboding and endless, devoid of landmarks, the sun’s rays intense through the car windscreen, there is no retreat. Despite the 130km speed limit we were towing Florence and were therefore restricted to 80kms, yes, feel our pain, the slow pace contributing to our feeling the straight flat stretch of tarmac would never end. But, it did end and we rolled into the Lake Moondarra Caravan Park later that day ready to begin our next chapter.      

​We were headed back to Mount Isa just over a year had passed since we’d left and to be honest I was feeling pumped, admittedly I’d missed the “quirk” of the remote desert outback boom town, and in my elation was throwing around wild predictions that I could live there for fifteen years… That was definitely not a typo I did actual believe we could survive in Mount Isa in outback Queensland, 900 odd kilometres from the coast for longer than a decade… and by we I actually mean me, Gumby. I had no concern the Shovel could do it, after all he was born and bred there, but the reality was and still is we are natural born drifters…   

Driving through or past Larrimah however you’d like to approach it is one of those ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ type of towns, located about 80kms south of Mataranka the town of twelve now eleven people has a pub (of course if does) and a house advertising homemade pies. On our way north to Darwin we pulled over in front of the pie selling house, lured by the audacious signs made from what appeared to be cardboard with hand painted letters that tempted us to try the ‘best pies in town’… The café/store/house known as Fran’s Devonshire Tea House, appeared however to be closed, so disappointed we got back into Cherry and continued our journey but not before noticing another sign advertising that the pub also sold the best pies in town. This sign erected on the other side of the road opposite the pie selling house was accompanied by a newer looking placard, a missing person sign. Intrigued we Googled ‘missing person Larrimah’ to discover the twelfth member of the tiny community had gone missing two years earlier in December 2017… dun dun duuun!

Paddy Moriarty, aged 70 and his dog Kellie, were last seen leaving the Larrimah Hotel on a quad bike at dusk on 16th December 2017. They have not been seen since and their disappearance remains unsolved. In 2018 journalists Kylie Stevenson and Caroline Graham created a six-episode podcast called, Lost in Larrimah, which became the basis for a book, Larrimah, released in 2021. We downloaded the pod and listened intently to the intriguing story of this tiny town and the secrets harboured beneath.
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On our way south, as we passed back through Larrimah we didn’t attempt to stop again at Fran’s Devonshire Tea House, we expected it would again be closed and, upon listening to the pod suspected it hadn’t been opened for a while. A feud with Paddy her closest neighbour who lived directly opposite, had Fran pinned as the number one suspect in his disappearance, which sparked rumours her pies contained the meat of the missing man!  

​Shovel had a job offer back in Mount Isa, so we departed Darwin soaked in summer rains and ventured south back along the Stuart highway following our previous route, taking a short lunch break at Pine Creek. 

​Our first night’s stop was Mataranka, and this time we stayed at the Mataranka Homestead located at the “famous Thermal Pools.” A homestead constructed in 1916 on a sheep station, was turned into the tourist attraction experienced today by Victor Smith after he returned to the area in 1946 having visited the springs during WWII. The springs are situated near a replica of the old Elsey Homestead, which was constructed for the film, We of the Never Never, based on a book published in 1908 of the same name by Jeannie Gunn. Gunn arrived in Mataranka with her husband, Aeneas in 1902 to manage the Elsey Station but she left shortly after in 1903 following Aeneas’ death. The territory remained with Jeannie and the novel based on her experiences at Elsey became a best seller, which was subsequently turned into two movies (1950s and 1980s). The phrase ‘Never Never’ refers to the notion of being somewhere hopelessly distant and was synonymous with isolation and doing it tough. Henry Lawson coined the term in his 1901 poem, The Never-Never Land, which captured the sentiment of loneliness evoked by Gunn. This is an extract:

Where lone Mount Desolation lies
Mounts Dreadful and Despair-
‘Tis lost beneath the rainless skies
In hopeless deserts there;
It spreads nor-west by No-Man’s Land
 Where clouds are seldom seen
To where the cattle stations lie
Three hundred miles between.     ​

​Mataranka Springs is part of the Cambrian Limestone Aquifer (CLA) one of the largest aquifers in Australia (about 1.5 times the size of Italy) fed from two CLA groundwater flow paths, the Daly and the Georgina. In studies conducted at the Mataranka Springs Complex by the Australian Government CSIRO in late 2019 scientists discovered radiogenic helium, which indicated a third very old groundwater source (perhaps hundreds of thousands of years old) could also be feeding the springs. This is vital information that will require further investigation and assist with the assessment of a gas resources development currently being undertaken in the Beetaloo Basin. There are concerns within the community that hydraulic fracturing in the Basin may contaminate the water supply or over-exploit the groundwater.

​It was the national public holiday, Australia Day when we left Darwin and arrived at the Thermal Springs. Despite the controversy of celebrating the birth of a nation on a day synonymous with the declaration by British colonisers of ‘terra nullius’ that lead to the disregard of First Nations and the destruction of their culture, the vibe was amicable and welcoming. Florence was one of only two caravans at the park, so we assumed that most of the visitors enjoying the refreshingly clear springs were locals, joking, splashing around, and laughing as they listened to classic Aussie rock on a nearby portable radio. An Indigenous elder attempted to converse with us but as we couldn’t speak the local language and therefore weren’t able to grasp the conversation but appreciated the experience and were grateful for his attempts to include us ‘blow ins’ in the festivities. Later that night after a feed at the open-air Malukas Bar we were treated to an incredible lightening display, which we witnessed through the window of Florence as she swayed in the wind and was plated by the intense summer rain.          

After spending the night in Mataranka, and swimming in the magical and intimate bitter springs pool we travelled about 420kms north along the Stuart Highway, to the capital of the Northern Territory, Darwin. According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) January 2019 in the Northern Territory was “very hot and very dry” with rainfall generally well below average. To us, however, as we meandered along the highway at 80kph, we did not recognise the landscape was experiencing lower than average rainfall. Leaving Mataranka, the landscape seemed to significantly change, the red dirt now blanketed by thick, long grass and lush foliage indicated to us an abundance of rain. We passed inundated sections of land by the side of the highway and were treated to the sight of birds enjoying the opportunity to bath and hydrate. I saw black cockatoos for the first time and was mesmerised. It really was incredibly hot travelling up through the centre of Australia and we were excited to feel the humid air against our skin and not the ravage intensity of the sun. Our enthusiasm did not last unfortunately as we reversed into our grassed and slushy caravan site at the Discovery Parks Carvan Park near the airport. It would go on to rain for our entire stay, making the overall experience feel bleak and less than enjoyable.  I’ll be shockingly brutal here by saying I loathed Darwin during this visit and felt elated to U-turn and head south back down the Stuart highway.   

The Commonwealth Railways were established in 1917 to administer the North Australia Railway between Birdum (south of Larrimah) to Darwin, which was funded by the Government of South Australia and constructed by Singhalese, Indian and Chinese labourers. The original line which opened in 1887 terminated at Pine Creek where this image was taken and extended to Birdum in 1929. Iron ore mining at Frances Creek (about 230 kilometres south of Darwin) saw the line come into prominence during the 1960s and 1970s, however after the mine closed the line’s relevance diminished and line closed two years after in 1976.

Side note: The Frances Creek Iron Ore mine was reopened in 2007 with mining continuing until 2014. In 2021 with the mine in care and maintenance and approvals pending, Linecrest Pty Ltd exported a shipment of iron ore from stockpiles using automated ore sorting technology.
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In 2001, a segment by the 7:30 report on the ABC reported on the beginning of construction works to complete the rail line between Alice Springs and Darwin. The Honourable John Howard the Prime Minister of the day was in attendance to “turn the sod” however unexpected July rains damped the affair. The line was completed in 2004 and serves the passenger train, The Ghan, named after Afghan camel drivers who assisted British colonisers during the 19th century to traverse the country’s interior and courier materials for the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line.