24-Jul-2009 --

Returning to the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, from our trip to the Kimberley region of WA, I had planned to try a couple of confluences that had not been done. I noticed 18S 134E was very close to the Barkly Stock Route and appeared fairly easy to do.

We left the Dunmarra roadhouse/motel where we had stayed the night and headed south on the Stuart Highway and turned off just past Elliott, which served as a staging post for troops heading north to Darwin during WW2.

The Barkly Stock Route was a gravel road but was in excellent condition. The trees became sparse as we headed southeast and turned into open grasslands typical of the Barkly Tablelands.

The stock route took us to within 2 km of the confluence. The walk was initially easy as we followed a cow track heading in the right direction but after about 1 km the cows had obviously lost interest in confluencing and we had to cut through the knee-high grass. There was a few patches of taller weeds with seed pods open, that reached head height. From the view on Google Earth it appeared that we were walking through a flood plain and the ground under foot was now dry and cracked.

At the confluence site there was the usual grass and a couple of small eucalypt saplings struggling to survive. We took the photos and headed back to the car.

This confluence visit is associated with 17°S 132°E visit #1 which we visited the day before and 18°S 136°E visit #1 which we visited later on this day.

In the Junction Reserve.