Mt Isa to Charleville

Introducing Mt Isa to Charleville

The shortest route to Longreach from Mt Isa means heading east along Barkly Hwy to the Landsborough Hwy, 14km east of Cloncurry. Here the Landsborough heads southeast, passing through McKinlay (91km), Kynuna (168km), Winton (339km) and eventually hitting Longreach (516km), Barcaldine (621km) and Charleville (1020km).

McKinlay is a tiny settlement that would have been doomed to eternal insignificance had it not been used as a location in the amazingly successful movie Crocodile Dundee.

The Walkabout Creek Hotel (07-746 8424; Landsborough Hwy; unpowered/powered sites $23/25, s/d $55/60; ) has film memorabilia and all the charm of a movie set. There are small and basic motel units a block west of the pub, or there’s a camping ground out the back.

In Kynuna, there’s a lot to like about the historic little Blue Heeler Hotel (07-4746 8650; Landsborough Hwy, Kynuna; sites $10, r $45-75; ), from its walls covered with scrawled messages and signatures to its unquestionably essential surf life-saving club. Accommodation ranges from pub rooms to spotless motel units, and camp sites. The nearest beach may be almost 1000km away, but each April the Blue Heeler hosts a surf life-saving carnival.

The signposted turn-off to the waterholes of Combo Conservation Park, which Banjo Paterson is said to have visited in 1895 before he wrote ‘Waltzing Matilda’, is off the highway about 12km east of Kynuna.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009