NT cattle stations and their campgrounds

We’ve done it! We’ve driven more than 800km on the Donohue and Plenty Highways, from Boulia to Alice Springs.

The Burke River at Boulia, just a series of waterholes at
this time of year.

And actually, it was not as bad as we had expected. We’d heard some good reports of these two roads, one from Boulia to the NT border, and the other further west to the junction with the main north-south Stuart Highway.

Those reports turned out to be correct, with more bitumen than we had expected on the Donohue, and the Plenty did not have many bad spots. Some sections were well-gravelled and smooth, and some were full of red bulldust and corrugations, so a sturdy vehicle was certainly needed.

A glorious outback sunset at Boulia.

We took our time, staying at campgrounds at two stations. One was Tobermorey, just over the NT border. It was grassy and well-watered and apart from the station generator running until 10pm, a haven of peace. The next was at Jervois Station, further into the NT. Its campground was just a dusty area away a little from the homestead, but it had a scattering of trees, was right beside the very dry riverbed, and had barbecues but campers needed their own firewood. Close to the homestead is the heritage-listed rocket shelter erected by the Woomera Rocket Range in the late 1960s.

Along the Donohue Highway, near a station entrance.

As it was letting off rockets flying towards Central Australia, Woomera built 19 of these shelters and installed radio telephones to let the station families know when a rocket was to be launched, so they could seek shelter in case in came down on their homestead. There was unconfirmed reports that rather than seeking shelter, families used to stand on the earth roofs of the shelters to watch the rockets. When we bought diesel at Jervois it was $2.30 a litre.



John with the biggest termite mound along
the Plenty Highway.

We had intended going on to another campground called Gem Tree, closer to the junction with the Stuart Highway, but at Jervois got talking to the couple who publish the campers and caravanners ‘bible’, Camps 6 or 7. They had been in WA and the NT researching Camps 8 and told us they’d the day before visited a remote and beautiful campground 75km north of the Plenty Highway.

So we turned off where they had told us and drove to a property called Mt Swan, which runs a  store, mostly for the surrounding Aboriginal communities, as well as an art gallery showing their work. This includes artists from the neighbouring Utopia community so there was some wonderful stuff there . . . and fairly pricey, as they’re pretty famous.

The German and Italian backpackers running the store, and the Polish girl who showed us round the makeshift gallery in former stockmen’s quarters all said the Tower Rock campground was worth visiting, so on we jolted for another 27km over fairly bad dirt roads.

The graves of Mac and Rose Chalmers under Tower Rock.

It was glorious! It was the favourite picnic ground for the Chalmers family, who had settled a station property there in the 1920s, and whose family still own the area. A second-generation Chalmers, who became a top cattleman and advocate for the area's Aborigines, and his wife are buried there in the 474ha reserve given to the NT Govt by the current Chalmers owner in 2011.

We clambered to the top of the rock pile dominating the landscape, taking photos of the limitless landscape, with our motorhome just a dot in the foreground. Nobody else  

came there and it was just us, the stars, and a cold, windy night.

Look closely and you can just see the 6.5tonne Isuzu motorhome.

‘Facilities’ are just two hessian-curtained loos. They could be called Mobil-loos as they are long-drop pits, with Mobil fuel drums wedged in to hold toilet seats. When we called back at the store to buy some bread, Sonya Chalmers, wife of the owner and operator of the gallery, assured us she was hoping to improve them as soon as possible.

One of the loos at Tower Rock.

Basic, but it works.

It was a unique experience and I’m so pleased we ran into the Camps people. They also gave us some helpful hints for places to stay in the Kimberley region as well as north of Tennant Creek.

With just a coffee stop at Gem Tree (a caravan park close to a major fossicking area), we arrived in Alice Springs in the early afternoon, as the dirt road had ended just more than 70km from the junction with the Stuart Highway.

That of course is a major road, with white lines in the centre, something we haven’t seen for weeks. There’s a rather strange structure just north of the town, marking the Tropic of Capricorn. We’d passed it, going north, between Bedourie and Boulia, and here we were, going south through it again.

We’re in a caravan park at the southern end of town, with the gap in the McDonnell Ranges looming above, and will dine at the park’s tavern tonight, do some washing and check the vehicle tomorrow, stock up at the supermarket, then take off on the Tanami Track on Sunday.

Next stop . . . Hall’s Creek in the Kimberley, then the Bungle Bungles.