Every good road trip needs a good theme song.
Normally my go-to road trip theme song is “On the road again”, by Willie Nelson. But I have used that one a few too many times already.
This is a long road trip, so maybe a long theme song. Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, or Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”. Or maybe Don McLean’s “American Pie”?
Without any consultation with MBW, I’ve decided that the theme song for this trip is Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t worry, be happy”. Or perhaps the lesser known “Don’t HURRY, be happy”. We have all the time in the world, and only a few key (booked) places that dictate our direction and speed.
Last night we went to the rodeo. It was a fun night, but it got cold out under the stars. And then it got colder.
For some reason, I thought that the rodeo was starting around 2.00pm, and we would be home for dinner. As it turns out, we didn’t get back to town until around 9.00pm, and by then I needed coffee badly.
I would have done anything for a coffee at the rodeo, but that was one beverage that was simply not on offer.
So we got back to Percy around 9.00pm, and had a late coffee, then I did the blog.
One of the goals of this trip is to do things as cheaply as possible. That doesn’t mean that we are trying to be cheap or to cut corners, just that we are trying to live as cheaply as we can.
One of the ways that we can do that is by staying at showgrounds or public camping areas at little to no cost. Like the last two nights in Augathella (only $10/night).
But staying in public camping areas at little to no cost also means that we are generally off the grid – we have no connection to water or power and we just use water from our tanks and power from our batteries.
Like the last two nights in Augathella.
But being off the grid is a double-edged sword. No power or water hook-up means little to no cost, but it also means that we have no possible way of running a small electric space heater to warm up the van when it is cold.
And it was cold last night in Augathella. Very cold.
MBW put an extra blanket on the bed, had a hot shower (gas heated), and hopped into bed. I then disrobed ready for my hot shower and noticed that the fridge was flashing an error.
No gas available. The first gas bottle had run out of gas, and they have to be manually switched across from the empty one to the full one.
And that has to be done outside the van. Where it is cold. And I was already undressed.
Sigh 🙁
So I got dressed, went outside, switched the gas over, got the fridge and hot water going again, and started the process of my hot shower all over again.
If every road trip needs its own theme song, some days need their own theme song too. And today’s theme song would have been “Blue skies, smiling at me”, by Willie Nelson. Or perhaps Jimmy Cliff’s “I can see clearly now (the rain is gone)”.
It was a picture-perfect blue sky outback Queensland day. Clean air, birds singing, and a slight chill in the air.
Perfect.
Today we are heading towards Barcaldine (or Barcal-dine, if you are talking to Larry). Larry is yesterday’s news. I’m not explaining Larry again.
Dunblane to be precise. Dunblane Queensland, not Dunblane Scotland, just to be clear.
About a 3 hour trip north, through Tambo and Blackall.
We paid our $20 donation before departing Augathella, and we were rolling out the gates of the campsite around 9.00am.
The streets of Augathella were absolutely deserted. Not a person to be seen anywhere, and I had to wonder if the Apocalypse had occurred and I’d missed it because I wasn’t paying attention.
And then I remembered the rodeo. And the drinking. And I figured out where everybody was hiding this morning 🙂
The drive was nice. The road from Augathella to Barcaldine is another one we have driven before – not that I remember it specifically – but it is not a bad road. A bit bumpy in places where Elsie gets thrown to the left, and then to the right while Percy is being thrown the other way. So a few moments of brief but intense excitement where I wasn’t sure whether we would become airborne, or the ESC would kick in and we would come to a screeching stop.
But we made it through.
The road to Barcaldine is basically broken up into 3 x 1 hour sections. 1 hour to Tambo, another hour to Blackall, then a final hour to Barcaldine.
We stopped once briefly at a rest stop to empty out the grey water tank, and then kept going until we hit Tambo. Gave Elsie a big drink and then went in search of coffee.
Tambo is a pretty little township that is barely more than a main street with a pub, and not much is open on a Sunday morning. We did manage to find a little coffee shop and stopped to give ourselves a big drink and something to eat.
It had become quite overcast again and quite cold, so we put on jumpers and warm clothes.
It all feels a bit silly to have to slow down to 40km/h to drive through a little township, and then speed up to 110km/h again a few minutes later.
On our way out of Tambo, a couple of things became immediately obvious.
Firstly, the skies were clearing again and we had blue sky and fluffy white clouds.
And secondly, the roads were getting much better … except for when they were bad, and then they were very bad. I’m sure that you know what I mean, though.
I’ve said before that I am happy to puddle along at 95-100km/h, yet the roads were (generally) so smooth and good that every-so-often I would find myself doing 110-120km/h without realising it.
We pulled into Blackall around 12.30pm, noting that our check-in time for tonight’s (booked) stay is 2.00pm. We needed some groceries (salad stuff), so we stopped at the local IGA to get a couple of things.
The Blackall IGA is like stepping back in time. Each checkout had two people manning it – one to ring up your purchases, and one to pack them into a bag. And then if you needed help with your groceries, someone would carry them out to your car and load them for you.
I haven’t seen service like that since I was about 12 years old!
We only bought tomatos and a bag of salad, so we were able to cope with them ourselves, despite being retirees.
Blackall is another pretty little country town best known for … what? You will need to read to the end to find out!
The trip from Blackall to Barcaldine was uneventful, except for a turkey from Victoria towing a van who had a bad habit of slowing down to 80km/h every time there was oncoming traffic, and then speeding up to 110km/h when there wasn’t. That makes it very hard to overtake, especially when they hog the centre lane making it impossible to see what’s coming, and give you no clues if it is safe to overtake.
But I overtook him anyway and left him in my dust.
Turkey.
Tonight we are staying about 10km outside of Barcaldine at the Gretel Cattle Yards.
David (the owner) has 40,000 acres, and I reckon we have about 5,000 of them to ourselves … complete with a tub that is filled with hot artesian basin water. That’s where I will be sitting come sunset.
I’ll put up some pictures tomorrow, but for now this is a few pictures of the road in, and camp for the next couple of nights.
It’s an early blog today. I need to get that tub full of hot water.
Now for the answer to tonight’s quiz: What is Blackall known for?
Answer: The Black Stump. It was used as a geographical marker way back when, and colloquially anything west of that is “beyond the black stump”.
That’s where we are now.
Ciao
#Retirement2024
#VanLife
Always wanted to know where that black stump was
So now I know what the black stump is and where you go for a bath under the stars!