After Quilpie we headed for the off the beaten track little town of Adavale. 

With less than 100ks to the town we stopped a couple of time – firstly at the new Quilpie star gazing platform in the middle of now where, and at the memorial just out of Adavale to 12 people who lost their lives when their twin engine went down just on 40 years ago. On board returning home from Windorah were 8 oil workers, 3 catering staff and their pilot and all were lost.

We camped for a few nights next to the town hall with its power, toilets and hot showers for a donation to the RFDS. 

In its heyday Adavale was 2500 people with 6 pubs – these days it is one closed pub and less than 100 people. The town started in the 1880’s on the promise of being a successful opal area and really swelled when the town was to be the next station out west on the train line. Unfortunately for the town the rail line went straight to Quilpie from Charleville – which then sent the town into a decline from around the 1930’s on. As always every town has its story – Adavale has a few and couple of local stories that I found interesting were both to do with the police in town (still there by the way). The first is that in 1937 the current Police Station was transported from a place called Langly where the police station had closed – check out the photo and you too will think that was a fair effort to move the place.

The second involved a youngish policeman who,  in 1923 was based in Adavale, courted a young lass who claimed she was 16. The Policeman was, as part of his duties, relocated to Eromanga to be the police out there. The girl fessed up to be being only 15… The headlines were huge, the policeman suspended and brought back to Adavale to faced trial – when the trial took place the prosecution’s case fell through because the night before the trial the girl and copper were married so she could not give evidence! Not sure how long they stayed together but they did have a daughter a few years later.

We also took a run out (70k’s each way) to Hell Hole Gorge National Park. The park has only been opened for a few years to the public and while it does have one camping area does not allow caravans in there. Thankfully so, because the way in is not hard its just that the camping area is on hard rock and very exposed, it would be like camping on Ayers Rock – good luck getting a peg into the ground. The park does have some nice short walks to the water holes/gorges.

We headed off to Blackall along the couple of hundred k’s of dirt road thinking that we would stop there for a few days. Unfortunately for us the town was crowed (there is a festival coming up in a few days) and with the cramped caravan park and the very cramped free camping we decided the best thing to do was to have an ice cream and get out of town.

Down the one lane strip tar road that still dominates the byways of Queensland we found ourselves camped next to the Barcoo river at the old and lovely little town of Isisford (I-sis-ford) where the camping area had nearby toilets and hot showers (no power) for the princely sum of $5 per caravan per night. We admired the big yellowbelly, the early architecture, learnt that the towns name was not the original one, and was crafted up because the town was close to the water ford and Isis Downs, so it became Isisford. We checked out the excellent information/museum where there were more fossils and also learnt that the Barcoo River also had changed its name (originally named by Mitchell – the Victoria River) by Kennedy who worked out that it flowed inland (not to the sea) and the local’s name for the waterway was the Barcoo.

With the cold night (11 degrees) we wanted to still chase the warmth so off to Longreach to refuel, resupply (including some pies for the car oven!) and keep going – where to next? 

Check the map