Day 24 - Barkly Tablelands

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Three Roads Roadhouse occupies the intersection of the Stuart and Barkly highways. It’s crawling in  caravaners and three-car long road trains. The occupants of one, a herd of cattle destined for the slaughterhouse, shuffle and snort uncomfortably. It’s already 28C degrees at 10am.

To the east is the Barkly Tablelands. What are tablelands? I ask. Johan shrugs. Internet reception is minimal so finding the answer on Wiki is not an option. Our geology books have nothing to say. Probably boring landscape then. There are no brightly-clad white-skinned people doing amazing things on this part of the map. Yet there is a paved road running parallel 140 kms to the east of the Stuart Highway. A chance to ditch the tourist trail again and explore some new off-the-beaten-track territory.

50 kms into the Barkly Highway I’m having second thoughts. The landscape has not changed from the Stuart Highway, which hadn’t changed for days. Low scrub, flat land. Occasionally an elegant white gum tree graces the landscape and patches of blooming wattle provide a pleasing yellow hue against the red-brown-black backdrop. But mostly it’s the same old, same old.

The Barkly Highway is the main transit highway for Queenslanders and other east-coasters coming north for the winter. They’re most likely headed for the spectacular Kimberleys, as we are. Endless squads of caravans head west. The Barkly Roadhouse, an oasis of palm, jacaranda and flowering bougainvillea is packed with grey nomads and their mobile houses. We use the toilets, top up the tank, and share a $5.20 Connoisseur ice cream, praline and macadamia.

The Tablelands Highway heads north from here. The paved road is single lane with plenty of dips and ditches, and two well-honed grooves from heavy road trains that melt into the bitumen in the heat of summer days. The road is empty though, and that sits fine with us.

 

Fifty kms in the scrub disappears and the land becomes naked and expansive. It looks like a table, I quip. Grasslands, now used by stations to run their cattle. Still, the starkness of it is compelling.

We round a corner and see the two white Totoya utes that passed us a ways back. They’re parked in such a way that looks like they’re blocking the road. This is the part of the story, I chide, where the Tablelands pirates rob the unsuspecting grey nomads. The utes are actually parked on the verge facing us; one flashes its lights and a man gets out of the car and waves us down. He’s young but tough, a colourful car racing jersey, worn jeans, and a sneer. Hey, he says gruffly when Johan lowers his window. You wouldn’t know where Brunette Downs, is would ya? Think we might have passed it. Two black men look on from the other ute.

A wave of relief passes over me. I lift the map resting in my lap to show him that we just passed Alroy Downs, a station a ways back, and Brunette Downs is still 30 k’s or so up the road. Ah, thought so, he says. Just wasn’t sure. He and Johan exchange some Aussie mateship pleasantries, the man gets back in his car, and everyone waves at everyone else as we all continue our drive up the Tablelands Highway.

Just before Brunette Downs, another ute sits on our tail. Johan slows down and edges to the shoulder to let the car pass. It slows down, passes us and stops in front of us. Two men get out, an older man and what could be his grandson, sporting a broad brimmed cowboy hat, both looking at the side of our car. Uh-oh, Johan says, something’s wrong. Hey mate, he says to the young one. Hey, the youth says, then smiles suddenly. Everything OK? Yeah, fine. A problem? The older man walks up. Just thought you might be lost, he says. Lot of people heading to the races this weekend. Just down the road to the right up there. Annual Brunette Downs horse races. People come out here and don’t realise there’s nothing in a hundred miles each direction. Easy to get lost.

The men from the previous Toyota utes turn up, slow down, necks craning to find the road, turn onto it in a cloud of dust.

Aha, Johan smiles, visibly relieved. No, we’re not headed to the races, but good to know. More Aussie mateship exchanges. The two men tip their hats and turn their ute down the Brunette Downs road.

Rough as guts, I say, but everyone looks out for each other way out here.