Day 46 – Monday 1 August 2016 – Threeways - Camooweal

Today we said goodbye to the Stuart Highway and technically to our stay in the Outback so although there are new adventures to come, we were very sad to turn left and head for the Queensland border.  We have both really loved our time through the centre and so it was a sad moment to be turning off the highway.

Border turned very quickly into Bored-er as this road earned the high distinction of being the most boring stretch of road Shane and I have ever travelled.  The long straight stretches with absolutely NOTHING to see soon had us...... well Shane........ finding ways of amusing himself to pass the time.  

About mid way you stumble across the Barkly Homestead.  This iconic spot certainly makes the most of being the ONLY thing on the road for the 450km trip between the Stuart Highway and the Queensland border.  Charging almost $1.80 per litre for fuel and $9.50 for a toasted ham, cheese & tomato sandwich (of which all the cheese had melted out onto the grill), I doubt we  would be stopping there again unless we were absolutely desperate.

While at Barkly Homestead, sitting in the van eating our overpriced sandwiches, there was a knock at the door and I was greeted with a gentleman who asked if we might try our caravan keys in his van door as it seemed his wife had lost their keys.  Not surprisingly our keys wouldn't fit along with all the other people he had asked in the car park.  We next saw them heading back the way they had come to Camooweal (about 260km) in the hope of finding the keys the wife THOUGHT she MAY have dropped in the freecamp site they stayed in the night before.  Apparently they had two spare sets of caravan keys IN THE CARAVAN......  Now I'm not even going to start asking the questions to that one......

About the only interesting sights on the road between the really boring, straight stretches of road were two separate people walking with belongings in tow.  One was an older guy pulling a cart full of gear and the second about 40kms further along the road was a woman walking to raise money for cancer.  Shane managed to snap this photo of her as we passed her by.

And the straight roads continued.  We couldn't help but have a bit of a giggle about the fact that we got NO kicks on this route 66...

Finally we hit the Queensland border - Oh come on Queensland!!!!  This was the best you could do for a sign?  

A few kms later and we made it into Camooweal - Or "Camel Wheels" as we think it should have been named.  The caravan park was pretty tidy and once again it filled up very quickly as the afternoon rolled on.  Camooweal also managed to put on a nice sunset.

Shane was just starting dinner when the gas went out so he went out to change over to the bottle he had had filled before we left.  Nothing.  Either it wasn't a full bottle or the gas had leaked out but either way we had no gas, nowhere in town to replace or refill it, no way to cook dinner and now no hot water either.  A quick trip into the pub in front of the caravan park produced a takeaway dinner that filled the spot.  

The dogs will be loving their dinner over the next couple of days when a couple of thawed chicken schnitzels finally make their way to a frying pan.