Longreach Trip – Day 4 – Central Queensland

After travelling mostly northwards for the last few days, today would be heading west.   We started out In Monto at 6:30AM.   Due to the clear skies it was quite cold and frosty, 3.5C according to the car.    Our first destination was Moura, almost two hours west along the Dawson Highway.   While the day started cold, it was already warming up by 7AM.

Around the Monto area there was mostly farming, but it quickly changed to forested areas.   There was little traffic early in the morning and the road meandered through the bushlands.  Navigation wasn’t a problem as there were very few turns.

We continued through the bigger town of Bilolela, a huge change from the mostly empty landscapes we had encountered before.  Our breakfast spot in Moura was a 50s themed diner and the food was quite good.

After breakfast we started to head to the next major town of Emerald, which would be our lunch stop.   Emerald is almost 300km from Moura, so we planned a couple of stops at lookouts along the way to stretch our legs.

One of the locals warned us to be careful of the road surface near Rolleston, as apparently it was full of potholes.   So far we had found the roads in Queensland to be very good, so wondered if it was potholed by Queensland or NSW standards.

The first was Joe’s Plains Lookout.   The view wasn’t spectacular, but it was a welcome stop.   I had forgotten to check my oil that morning, and found it a bit below the halfway mark.   I did my first top up of the trip which I am very happy with.

The owner of the silver 380SEC opened up his bonnet to find oil everywhere, and the dipstick rather low.   After a minor heart attack, the cause was just a loose oil cap.  One of the locking ‘ears’ at not engaged and had allowed oil to get out and spray all over the engine bay.   A quick clean up and top up, and we were on our way.

As we passed Rolleston, we found there were no potholes, but the road surface was quite bumpy.   Certainly better than what we are used to in NSW, and the comfortable suspension of the 123/124/126 cars dealt with it pretty well.  You can see how flood prone this area of Queensland is.   For miles and miles the roads has flood warnings and signs to show the depth of flood waters.

Our second look out was Virgin Rock.  This was more impressive.   There were some campers there, including a man from Melbourne.  His strategy was to leave Melbourne in April, set up camp somewhere, and if the daytime temperature in that location was less than 20C, move further north.   He had made it as far as Springsure so far.

We stopped at Emerald to fuel up and for some lunch.  Consumption was a little higher due to faster speeds on long straight roads.   Our lunch spot was a local bakery which had pretty good food.

After lunch our we had one long route to Barcaldine, our final destination for the day.   The intermediate stop was Drummond Lookout.   Drummond Lookout is at the top of a small mountain range we crossed over.   The view wasn’t amazing, but it did allow one of our group to remain back and try and snap some photos of the cars as they crossed a bridge nearby.

The rest of the afternoon was long straight roads as we headed for Barcaldine.   Arriving early at four o’clock was great as we never had the sun in our eyes, and there were enough carcasses on the road that I would not have wanted to drive at twilight.   .The day had warmed up considerably and it was 27C by the time we arrived.

Our total mileage for the day was 765km.   There have been no major issues with any of the cars.    The silver 380SEC and petrol blue 280CE are still having minor idle issues, but nothing that is causing them any major problems.  The petrol blue 280CE also still has the brake caliper issue but has been manageable.