Ilfracombe to Cloncurry

It wasn't a pleasant start in Ilfracombe on Saturday morning. Once the inside of the van was sorted I had to go out in the rain and prepare everything and hook up the van. Just after 9am I headed off through Longreach and north to Winton 212km away.

Still wet but I stopped to have some lunch. I went to the local bakery where I saw some pies and asked for one with meat in it.
"All of our pies have meat in them" came the reply, so I had a plain one for $4.00. Back to the van and made a cup of tea to go with my meat pie. I'm guessing that there was meat attached to the gristle at some stage, but it wasn't in my pie. Disappointing, very disappointing. Fuel in Winton was $1.26 a litre.

I decided that Cloncurry was only another 361km to the north and that I should be there by 5.30pm, so once again I headed off. All of this trip I am only doing a maximum of 90km per hour and soon the southerners were passing me, obviously in a hurry to make the most of their limited time where I don't have a timetable so it doesn't matter how far I go in one day. 

About 4pm I found a large truck stop 60km south of Cloncurry S 21 01.267 (01' 16.0") E 140 56.355 (56' 21.3") and decided to stop there for the night. Being a large truck stop and having seen several road trains around I decided to park on the dirt up close to the farm fence about 30m away from the bitumen area. It was mostly hard and the few soft patches were easy to spot and avoid and it turned out to be a good choice. A refrigerated road train came in during the night and I was glad I wasn't parked next to it.

Sunday the 17th I arrive in Cloncurry where diesel fuel is $1.29 a litre and I have settled in at Wal's Camp on the south side of town. It is still overcast and drizzling at times.