Day 30 (June 28, 2015): Mataranka to Cape Crawford

On the road again this morning we had to make a stopover at a roadside cafe at the little town of Larrimah. 

You can see from the signage that you are pretty much compelled to stop and check out this place that has been run for 30 years by a lady called "Fran" - and my god what a character she is. 

Her foods on offer are expensive - but she makes everything herself on site and is renowned for her food. She shops for all fresh ingredients at Katherine (some 250km round trip) and gets up at 4am each morning to start cooking so that she has fresh things on offer each day - it was pasties the day we were there and also fresh cooked scones.

She makes buns or bread daily as well - we got couple buns to take with us for lunch - they were fresh out of the oven - at $3.00 each pretty expensive - but were beautiful.

She makes no bones about her prices - and aims to provide travellers with quality home cooked foods that you cannot get anywhere else along the road. 

Had to laugh when someone asked for an extra knife and fork (as they were sharing the huge pastie) - they were promptly told "No you cannot"!! The reason being that they don't have a lot of cutlery and have trouble keeping up with the washing. There is only Fran and her side kick running the place.

We asked for a Latte and Flat White and we also got properly informed that - "NO - all flat whites".

It was an entertaining stopover that ended up a lot longer than we planned - what with trying to stuff in the huge plate of food we were presented with at only 10am in the morning not too long after breakfast. The comings and goings of patrons and the good humour of everyone dealing with this eccentric lady made for a fun visit- you just had to smile/laugh at the things she came out with.

I love the fly streamers at the door to the inside of the cafe - all eating and payment is outside this doorway. 

It says "Staff Only - No Entry - If you want to live"

Larrimah is pretty much non- existent little village now - but has one other interesting site - the quirky pub!!

It does also have some interesting history from WW11 - but we did not have time to look around after such a long stopover for morning tea.

South of Larrimah we decided to head a slightly different way home to Brissie.

Instead of going back to Three Ways on the Stuart Highway (then onto the Barkly Highway to QLD) we took a left at "The Hi Way Inn" onto the Carpentaria Highway.

We stopped at the Hi Way Inn for a quick toilet break and ran into our new friends (Dennis & Robin) who were heading down the same way out to King Ash Bay. After a bit of discussion about this place with them we decided we would head out there as well for a couple of days.

The Carpentaria Highway is one of the common outback highways with one lane of tar down the middle. So you have to be wary of oncoming traffic  - as you need to each get half off the road onto the gravel and slow right down - hoping you can pick a spot to get off where the edges of the tar are not too bad otherwise you risk cutting up your tyres.

With the road trains you need to pick a spot, get right off and stop - giving them the whole of the tarred section. 

It's pretty tiring driving as you are watching for oncoming traffic, what traffic might come up behind you, roadkill and wedge tailed Eagles, Roos and wandering cattle.

We made it to Cape Crawford by about 3pm so this is our camp stop for the night. All that is there really is a campground and pub - perfect!!

We got setup for the night -  showered up and headed over for happy hour. It was really pleasant and relaxing sitting out on the front verandah of the Cape Crawford pub - "The HeartBreak Hotel" having a few drinks and here we stayed for the evening - settling in for dinner as well. Food was great and lots of it - we had the homemade rissoles and gravy with veg!!