Onto Longreach & Morven

On Thursday the 8th July I left Mary Kathleen. I was either going to stay that night at Winton or if I wasn’t feeling tired I would drive on to Longreach. If I made it all the way to Longreach that would have been a 580km drive. I would not normally do such a big drive but this is different at the moment. I have done all the sightseeing in this region and any areas that I have not done I want to save up for when Linda is with me. So I might take some alternate routes, such as going through Boulia, Jundah and Windorah on another occasion. So I drove on through Cloncurry, McKinlay, Kynuna and had lunch at Winton. I was feeling fine so I pushed on toward Longreach. All the way from Winton I could see storms all around me in the east. I thought for sure I was going to drive into a storm but I dodged them all. It occurred to me though that Longreach probably copped a big dump of rain and where I was going to free camp was the Apex Park at Longreach which is normally just a big dust bowl with a toilet and a river. With the rain it may have turned into a boggy mess. So I started thinking if there was a rest stop on the western side of Longreach I would stay there. Fortunately there was a good one 20km west of Longreach which I came upon. So I pulled in there.
It had copped quite a bit of rain as well so I chose a spot that was not boggy and was fairly close to the bitumen so that if I had to use my tracks to get out then I would not have far to go to the bitumen. That would only be necessary if it rained a lot overnight. So this was my spot for the night. I did not show all the vans in the bush but there were plenty. If it rained overnight they would likely have trouble getting out I think. I set about relaxing and this sunset helped with that. It was awesome.
It was a peaceful night sleep. After breakfast I hit the road. This was now Friday the 9th July. I drove to Morven. This was a great cheap camp, just $5, that I stayed at with Jan & Ross on the way up early in the trip so I knew it was a good one to stay at. I did not bother with any photos as I got plenty last time. When we were here that time the cattle drive came through if you recall.

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