Day 14/15. 18/19th May 2024. Cloncurry – Barkly Homestead. De ja vu.

Cloncurry is the first place we have duplicated from our last trip. We knew the first part of the trip was really about getting to the start of the trip. Long drives to places that were OK and had some interest, but not our sort of place. A place with some familiarity is comforting. Cloncurry itself is nothing to write home about, so I won’t, but the campsite is nice and the wind had picked up, so we spent the afternoon in an outdoor camp kitchen watching the bulldogs and catching up on things. An early start and a 6 hour drive through some other shit towns (Mt. Isa, Camooweal) gets us to the Northern Territory.

The Barkly Homestead is a roadhouse and is one of the most remote places to get a beer in Australia. The Campsites are OK, and the position of the roadhouse makes it a perfect stop off. Last time I wrote they had a happy hour that started at 5, great meals and a Bill and Kasey Chambers party the day before we got there. This time, Happy Hour started at 4, music with someone who has recorded a lot with Bill Chambers was playing at 4:45 and the meals were still good – so vast improvements there.

Facilities at Cloncurry – Preferring to ignore the usual make up of a shower by either tiling or using prefabricated plastic capsules, they have gone for what seems to be painting the besser bricks with 1000 coats of paint on the wall and the concrete floor. Nothing wrong with it I suppose, and it has seemed to service them well since the 1960’s. Clean and adequate, not likely to shower there again due to probably never going back. 6/10

Facilities at Barkly Homestead: The Homestead has been hit by a number of disasters since we were there last. A cyclone came through and ripped up trees, a kitchen fire burned down the main building, bush fires and more recently floods that have cut the road off completely for periods of time. It is a damn shame that none of these tragedies flattened the shower blocks so they had to start them again as well. 1/10