Clem Walton Park on Corella River

“It could be nicer,” I exclaimed when we arrived, “but it’s hard to see how!”

Minutes later we saw this Water Monitor lounging, very much at ease, on a log in the river, and our day got even better.

We had never even heard of Clem Walton Park, 80 km east of Mount Isa, until it was recommended to us by another camper in the Isa. “It’s one of the top free camping spots in all of Australia,” he said, and, “Every time the track forks, go left,” or words to that effect, anyway.

Getting there

His advice about which track to take makes more sense after looking at a detailed map. The right forks (at least three of them) lead to camping areas along the shore of the dam, illustrated on (e.g.) this tourism site, and usually referred to as the Corella Dam camping area. The left-most track, however, leads to Clem Walton Park on Corella River below the dam. All the tracks are rough gravel but the one we wanted is longer and rougher than the others and can’t be recommended for conventional vehicles or for caravans.

It leads to picnic and free-camping areas along the river. Picnic shelters and toilet block are probably as old as the dam and the park, i.e. mid 1950s, but they are adequate.

Past and present

Uranium was discovered nearby in 1954 by Clem Walton and Norm McConachy. The mine and town, Mary Kathleen, were established within a couple of years and Corella Dam was constructed to supply them, just as Moondarra was constructed (at about the same time) for Mount Isa and its mine. Mary Kathleen mine shut down permanently in 1982. The mine and town sites can be visited but the the town is just foundations, because its buildings were sold and relocated, while the mine is just a big hole with water in it.

But the park is a delight. Wattles, paperbarks and (especially) bloodwoods were in full flower when we were there, and the birds (lorikeets, friarbirds, honeyeaters and more) were having a wonderful time.

We had expected to stop for only an hour or so but after a couple of hours we decided to stay for lunch and over lunch we discussed camping overnight. In the end, two of us continued towards Townsville as planned but the other stayed – and stayed, and stayed – before taking a long detour to revisit Bladensburg National Park on the way home.

• Introduction and index to Limmen (Mataranka, Nitmiluk, etc) blog posts August – October 2023. This is the last of the location-specific posts from our trip – and about time, too, since we’ve been home for two months!