After getting the read-out of the data logger, the expert informs us that the fridge is cycling beautifully. Yet we both know that it's not turning off at nighttime. After stocking up on food in Mount Isa, we went in search of the Variety Club bash cars. On our inquiry at the Visitors Information Centre, they weren't even aware the bash was coming through town, we went in search for the cars at the showground and had been directed to the Special School but to no avail. We did get to see three cars as we were leaving town.

Driving south of Mt Isa towards Dajarra we came across a lone cyclist. What possesses a person to want to ride this great wide country of ours….they certainly do it hard. We stopped for the night 35km south of Mt Isa onto a large wayside stop beside a dam. A cookup on the fire had us eating Barra wings for entrée followed by San Choy Buo.

The road from Mt Isa to Dajarra is the single lane Diamantina Development Road and is much better than the Barkley Highway that we travelled on in our travels last year. Driving through vast open plains we arrived at Dajarra where the free camp is in town. The town of Dajarra was once the largest cattle trucking depot in the world. Large herds of cattle were driven to Dajarra from the Northern Territory and placed on trains bound for markets in the east. The advent of huge road trains rendered the railway facility obsolete.

At Dajarra we were the third vehicle in the campsite and we got a powered site. For the privilege of this powered site we went down to the pub and donated $10 to the Royal Flying Doctors, which we were happy, as we could charge up the house batteries. We inquired about dinner, as the comments on Wikicamps had us wanting the fantastic fish n chips. Dinner was not being served that night, as the publican's husband was out of time. b*****…..back up plan was chicken cacciatore and rice. While in town we checked out the local museum, which had a lot of interesting artifacts. Dajarra is basically an Aboriginal community.

The lone cyclist pulled into camp and we found out he was cycling his way to Melbourne, doing about 130 -150km;s per day. He is from Czechoslovakia and didn't understand the words on the toilet block. It took him a little while to work out that the block he had entered on numerous occasions was not for men…

We were one of the last one out of the full free camp in the morning but we weren't in any hurry. We only travelled 135km and pulled into Boulia, fuelled up, did two loads of washing before heading back out of town 7km's, were we camped beside the Bengeacca Creek.

There is heaps of free camping alongside of the creek. The afternoon was spent drying the washing, which took about one hour with the beautiful breeze and warm 30 degrees day. The net went into the creek and we got 5 yabbies with some escaping overnight but we caught a few more the next morning. Our cook up for the night over the coals was a pot roast beef. We spent a beautiful night under the stars and received our wake up call to thousands of corella's….

After cooking up the yabbies, we headed back into Boulia were we filled up the water tanks and then gave the bus a wash, in the wash bay. We went to see the Min Min Encounter, which depicts the stories of sightings of the mysterious Min Min lights that have been told since first being documentment over a hundred years ago. A great show and if ever up this way, add it to your must do list.

Driving on the Kennedy Development Road, now heading towards Winton, the road is still a single lane highway. The road improved once we left the Boulia Shire and entered the Winton Shire. We drove through very open plains, had lunch at a lookout then onto the Middleton Pub.

The township of Middleton is Pillar 4 in the nine pillars of Cobb & Co changing stations between Winton & Boulia. Population at Middleton is 3, Val, Lester and their daughter. The Middleton Hotel is one of the most isolated pubs in Queensland. A movie set was built near the pub back in 2015 for the contemporary western film "Goldstone".

We arrived and free camping is available across the road from the pub at the Hilton Hotel. The publicans are Val and her husband Lester are very interesting characters. Lester greeted us and he reminded us of a Pete Denahy song 'Sort of Dunno Nothin'

Lester might have been this guys great grandfather, anyhow it was certainly an interesting night. While waiting for dinner three bramara's came up to the fence out the front of the pub, the bull allowed Alan to pat it.

We stopped at Winton for water etc before stopping in the afternoon at the Crawford Creek Rest Area. It was only ten minutes that we were on the road, when Alan could see smoke up in front of us. It was a hydraulic fire on the rear of a back B-double trailer. We were first on the scene, Alan hoped out of DABUS with the fire extinguisher, while I turned on the hazard lights and instructed traffic to slow down. Two other caravaner's stopped to render assistance and after about half an hour, the fire was out and the trailers were re-connected. We left the driver and arrived at Longreach, did a quick look around the local market, picked up a couple of books, then a stroll down the main street. We then went out to the Stockman's Hall of Fame and booked our tickets for the following day to see the Outback Show. Back into town in the morning to see the Outback Show at Australia's Stockman's Hall of Fame, it was a fantastic show and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Then headed south out of Longreach and this afternoon we will be entering 'Channel Country'