Newcastle to Townsville across to Mt Isa to Alice anyone completed this trip since the cyclone?

Turtle · Veteran Member

Newcastle to Townsville across to Mt Isa to Alice anyone completed this trip since the cyclone?

Mick17 · Veteran Member

Hi Turtle,
We are leaving the G/coast late March and doing the same root heading to the west for over 12 months. I've been informed that the roads are OK. All roads are open. Lets catch up if that's possibly
cheers
Mick & Valerie

jimricho · Guru

Welcome aboard the forum, "Turtle"

Can't help you other than to suggest you consider travelling via Emerald and Charters Towers to Townsville as one of your options. If you decide to bypass Townsville the better route to Mt Isa is via St George, Mitchell, Longreach. Neither of these ideas take into account possible road closures/road works due to floods. Hopefully other GNs will have some more up to date local knowledge.

Jim

Gerty Dancer · Guru

We've been on some of that route, and its all sealed highway as far as I know.

It seems a very long trip for a month?

sandsmere · Guru

Those roads all appear to be open .

The conditions on some of them would be very ordinary . No doubt you would get through OK if you drove to the conditions .

Pejay · Guru

Hi Turtle, Pete brought our van from Bribie to Tsv last week - quite a lot of road works (to be expected) but it appears as mentioned before, all roads are open at this stage, (bear in mind, the 'wet season' does not finish 'til March, and maybe there will be more road damage between now and then) however, we took 5 weeks to 'trot' around Qld - Bribie to Tsv, Tsv to Mt Isa, Mt Isa to Charleville, then C'ville to home - around 5,000kms. Gotta say 7,000kms in 4 weeks (?) seems an awful lot to cover with the time you've got - would be driving all day, everyday. But.....

Safe travels, and maybe we will see you on the road somewhere, sometime.

Pete & June

Turtle · Veteran Member

gooday folks, would like to hook up, we dont plan to leave until some time after the 9th April as the daughter is expecting her 3rd to arrive about then. We plan to do about 3 to
400ks a day for 3 weeks and allow 5 days in the Alice. The time up the east coast to the Qld border will be quick as we have done it many times b4. We have a Slingshot camper trailer which is easy to tow and daily setup is done in minutes all it has is a kitchen and double bed under a single end pop top we are setup to free camp sotriping and camping spots can be a bit adhoc which may help our daily distances.
Turtle

jimricho · Guru

Turtle wrote:

gooday folks, would like to hook up, we dont plan to leave until some time after the 9th April as the daughter is expecting her 3rd to arrive about then. We plan to do about 3 to
400ks a day for 3 weeks and allow 5 days in the Alice. The time up the east coast to the Qld border will be quick as we have done it many times b4. We have a Slingshot camper trailer which is easy to tow and daily setup is done in minutes all it has is a kitchen and double bed under a single end pop top we are setup to free camp sotriping and camping spots can be a bit adhoc which may help our daily distances.
Turtle

Unless you wish to spend some time visiting coastal towns along the way, the route you're considering is almost 800 km longer than the direct route from Weston to Mt Isa, that's two days extra travelling. Using these saved days in Longreach is well worthwhile.

Check these Google Maps routes by clicking on the underlined links:

Weston to Mt Isa via Coast

Weston to Mt Isa Inland

I have travelled the inland route several times and the roads are fine, have less traffic and in places better than the coastal roads. 110km speed limit is common.

Jim

-- Edited by jimricho on Friday 18th of February 2011 07:29:45 AM

chris & terry · Senior Member

Unlike your monica you look to be traveling like a hare. We will be doing the first half of your trip about the same time on our way to Darwin & WA. However I doubt we will run into you as we will be traveling as turtle.

Regards Terry R.

Firefly · Guru

We leave from the Hunter Valley mate, do our first night at Nindigully up through St George, Lonreach etc. Never hit the coast at all.

There are a few of these sites as well which may help with roads.

http://highload.131940.qld.gov.au/

http://www.ntlis.nt.gov.au/roadreport/