Day 52: Hell's Gate Roadhouse to Burketown, 180km

A washout! Our ballon ride over the salt pans was cancelled because the salt pans are all mud, as we found out when we tried to drive over them. Sue and Kim got stranded and couldn't get to the big bash so we won't meet them in Longreach next week (they are there now, instead of Birdsville).

A bee eater outside the closed (because why not?) tourist information centre in Burketown

So many birds up here

and so much water

Yet another beautiful river crossing

Continuing along the Savannah Way, we ended up in the barramundi capital of Australia, Burketown. On the Albert River, one of many rivers and channels that run into the Gulf, it is a small town surrounded by the flattest land you will ever see. Full of salt pans in the dry season, with water channels making patterns in the salt.

Unfortunately we couldn't get to see the salt pans from the air

The car got a great "off-road re-spray" on the wet dirt road on the way here, but it got ruined when we went out on the flats. Ended up going sideways at one point and gave up when we got to the Road Closed sign and went on foot to see the Albert River but got bogged walking when my boots got stuck in the mud.

A pretty nice looking "off-road re-spray"

The road on the salt pans got a little boggy - couldn't even walk it!

We visited the artesian bore, sunk in 1896 to a depth of over 700m, when they thought the Gulf country was going to boom (it didn't). They found out the water was so mineral heavy (600mg/l) and hot (68C), it was useless for drinking, domestic use or irrigation. They even tried to use it for a shower for travellers, but they got scalded. Now it is just a hot bubbler pumping out over 700,000 litres of useless water every day, with a century of minerals crusted over the outlet.

The artesian bore still spilling hot mineral water after more than a century. The shape is the build up of minerals

They tried a few times to build a "Boiling Down Works" here in the late 1800s, to boil down meat to sell to Batavia but those ventures all failed, as SO MANY do up here. Many of the so called "stations" we have stayed up only keep pastoral leases as a requirement to hold the land, but just let the cattle roam and only ever have a muster when beef prices are particularly high. They tried sheep up here but they got so many diseases it ended up failing. Back in Mt Hart, they tried to raise cattle and managed to fatten up a few thousand, but then realised there was no way of getting them out because of the terrain, so they are still there.

The Albert River. Note how high the pilings are for the pontoon