Western Qld - Clermont to Lara Wetlands

 Day 15 - Saturday 20th September, 2025

Up reasonably early this morning, due to looking forward to today's destination and it's a bit of a longer drive.  Razzle our mate has chosen our route today from Clermont to Alpha on a road in his words "will be in good condition" and taking this road means we bypass Emerald where they have to be on 30th September for a car service 🤷‍♀️

This road from Clermont to Alpha was a dirt road, not very well maintained and rather horrible until you got to the end bit that was in the Barcaldine Shire.  We were glad to reach Alpha and waited in a rest area in town for Razzle and Doreen to arrive whereI managed to wrangle some hot box treats for smoko from the garage. Now, upon their arrival, Razzle was saying "how good was that road, that's exactly what I was exactly what I was hoping it would be like" Craig and I looked at each other and said "you've got rocks in your head Razzle, that was a shit road" 🤦‍♀️😆

We carried on to Barcaldine on bitumen thank goodness, and our plan was to have lunch at a pub in Barcaldine. Our car and van have never looked this dirty from a trip before, someone's got some washing to do when we get home!  While we were travelling along, I researched the pubs that were supposed to be open in Barcaldine (can you see where this is going....🤔) and decided on Hotel Shakespeare and we should be able to park down the side street.  Upon finding said parking spot, and while Craig was organising Barney, I dashed over to the pub to ask where we could eat with the dog only to be told quite bluntly that neither pubs were serving lunch and both were closing at 2pm.  Luckily we found the Heritage Centre Cafe was open and dog friendly and we actually had a nice lunch there.  It's like Barcaldine is dieing a slow death, now it has been donkeys years since we have been to Barcaldine, but we honestly expected it to have some sort of a tourist traffic going on, people eating lunch at the pubs, walking around looking at the Tree of Knowledge, but it was just dead, very sad.  The busiest place we saw was the IGA which I grabbed a couple bits at before we headed off to our destination.

It's only about 20 minutes south of Barcaldine to the turn off for Lara Wetlands, you can't miss it and then 13 klms of dirt  driveway to the campground.  

You drive past the Homestead on the way in,  I love seeing real life Homestead on the stations.

We arrive at the Lara Wetlands Campground around 2.45pm and there was a bit of a line up of vans checking in.  We waited on the outside of the gate until there was enough room for us, being that it is a working cattle station gates must be kept shut at all times.

We checked in for 2 nights, grabbed a water connection for the tap to fill our tanks before we leave.  The lovely lady at reception suggested an area for us which was away from the families with kids, so we'd have a little more peace and quiet 🤫  This place is just WOW!!  Great campsites right on the water, unpowered, with something like 127 bird species in the wetlands, cold water dam to swim in, heated artesian pool, camp kitchen, putt putt course, kids playground, kayaks, a cabin available to hire, toilets and showers run by donkey heater scattered around the campground and off leash dog park.  So much stuff to enjoy!

We found a site for both of us to fit in and parked to try and block some of the wind, but have a view of the Wetland.  The sites are not marked or numbered, but it's nice to be considerate and not take up more area then you need.

Straight into setting up camp, then afternoon drinks watching the bird life and sunset with a campfire - perfect way to end the day.