One of the good things about getting older is that I get to retire and go on road trips with MBW. My happy place.
One of the worst things about getting older is that your memory starts to get a bit … you know …
Bad. You start to get forgetful.
So if I’ve told you about the generator already, just skip over the next couple of paragraphs.
We decided to buy a generator to bring with us. It is only a 2kV generator, but it puts out a pure sine wave, which is pretty exciting. Well, I find it pretty exciting. And 2kV is plenty for important stuff like running the coffee machine.
So we paid about $450 for the generator and – so far – we have used it 3 times, mainly to make coffee with our coffee machine. Because we were stopped off the grid and had no access to power.
So I did a quick calculation last night. $450 for 3 uses is $150 each time we have used the generator. Each time we use it we make 2 cups of coffee, so that is $75/cup.
Hmmm. Don’t ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer.
I have no idea what temperature it was when we went to bed last night. The only way I have of telling temperature is by using my watch, which connects to my phone, which connects to the internet to give me information.
Information like the temperature.
Unfortunately Churchill’s Head is not on Telstra’s “nice” list, so no mobile coverage here, even though I could probably spit and hit a Telstra tower.
Like this one below.
My watch told me that it was 21 degrees that feels like 21 degrees. But that is what it was like some hours earlier when we had internet.
I have no real idea what the temperature was when we went to bed, except to say it was cold. So cold that I wore socks to bed and not be ashamed about it.
When we got up this morning we still had no internet, so my stupid watch still said it was 21 degrees. But it’s not my watch that is stupid – it is Telstra for having a tower but no mobile reception.
But I can confidently say that it was colder than 21. Much colder.
Cold enough to freeze the you-know-whats off a you-know-what.
To be completely truthful, I do have an idea what the temperature is. Before we came on this trip, we had been to IKEA (for reasons that I can’t recall), and MBW bought a little 4 way clock thingy.
Time. Timer. Temperature. Alarm.
Pretty smart those Swedes. Flat packs, Swedish meatballs, and clocks that also tell you the temperature. And wake you up.
I don’t know how accurate it is, but it says that inside Percy was 12 degrees. I put it outside on the step, and it told me it was 10 degrees outside.
Maybe.
I had a brain snap last night. The generator takes some time to cool off, so I had to leave it out for an hour or so after we had made coffee. When I went outside before going to bed to put it away, I decided that – in the interests of safety, and because we had finished cooking for the night – I would turn off the gas.
“Captain Cautious” is what MBW calls me. She will thank me one day.
So after reading for a while, and knowing that we were safely ensconced inside Percy, I discovered that the fridge was flashing an urgent warning message.
No gas!
Hmmm. I wonder why the fridge isn’t working and can’t get gas? We must have run out of gas on that bottle. Although that was pretty quick and the bottle should have lasted longer tha …
Hang on. I turned off the gas!
So back outside, gas on, back inside, clear the alarm message on the fridge. And all is well with the world again. The fridge is happily keeping things cold again.
I honestly can’t figure out how a hot flame from the gas keeps our milk and Tim Tams cold, but that is just another mystery of life. Like how do they get the caramel inside the chocolate?
Are you familiar with the law of unintended consequences? It’s when doing something (let’s call it “A”) in order to get something else (“B”) also causes something completely unexpected to occur (“C”).
I hope that this is making sense. I’m sure that Google can explain it better than I can.
So I got up this morning and it was cold. And you will probably know by now that there are 2 things that make me function in the morning, especially when it is cold.
Coffee. Hot shower.
Hot coffee requires the generator, and I wasn’t pulling it out again, particularly as most of the other campers around us didn’t appear to be up yet. And I wasn’t about to wake them.
So just a hot shower then.
But there was no hot water 🙁 Why?
Because when the gas HWS tries to light itself, it will try 3 or 4 times and then give up, and flash a warning message. Just like the fridge.
When I shut off the gas last night, the HWS went into an error condition, and it couldn’t correct itself without some help.
And I never gave it any help.
No hot water = no hot shower. And no hot coffee.
Not the best start to the day.
And the toilet light had come on, so that needed to be emptied too. Does it get any better?
We had a quick breakfast and because we were already hooked up, we were driving out onto the road at 8.00am.
Yep, 8.00am.
If getting an early start was an Olympic sport, we would be within a stone’s throw of the podium.
It was only a quick run – 80km or so – to Three Ways where we topped off Elsie’s fuel tank, and then turned left to head east towards Barkly Homestead and the Queensland border.
You may recall that we stayed at Barkly Homestead when we were heading west, but we were keen to put in as many kilometres as we could today. We stayed an extra 3 days at Darwin, and we are keen to get into some new territory that we haven’t seen yet.
We love the NT, but the road from Katherine to The Three Ways isn’t the most exciting road in the whole world, and then the road from Three Ways to the Queensland border isn’t terribly exciting either.
So that’s about 1,100km of boring nothingness, with no internet coverage. Nothing to see, no ability to Google or make phone calls, and often dead straight roads.
No little townships, no McDonald’s, no nothing.
And if you forgot to download a Spotify playlist … well, let’s not go there.
The road from Three Ways to the Queensland border has suffered a bit of flood damage from the wet season. The first 75km or so from Three Ways was seriously bumpy and pot-holed and it wasn’t uncommon for us to have to slow down to 10km/h just to navigate off the side of the road to avoid dropping into craters.
The last 75km or so just before the Queensland border is also very badly damaged and you would unexpectedly hit potholes or corrugations, or the road was just so rough that you were fighting the steering all the way.
It seems funny to me that the NT Roads Department can send out a road crew to install warning signs about the potholes, but they didn’t think to fill the potholes while there were there.
Huh?
There is also still lots of water lying around from the flooding.
The roads are also very deceiving. You could swear black and blue that you are on a constant uphill climb, yet the GPS says that you are dropping altitude.
And sometimes the road is so long and straight, that it just seems to disappear into the distance.
It plays tricks with your mind.
We did have a little bit of excitement on the first half of the Barkly Hwy, before we got to the Barkly Homestead. A pilot vehicle coming towards us warned that there was a “8 metre wide following” and that we should “get off the road”.
They are not kidding when they say get off the road. The 8m wide load doesn’t leave much space for anything else, so you pull over, get off the road, and wait.
We made it to the Barkly Homestead just after 11.00am for an early lunch, and then got back on the road. Tonight we were headed for Camooweal to stay a night at the free camp we stayed at on the way over.
You remember the place? Where people poop on the ground.
Not that that is any particular attraction. But it was the right distance for the day to allow us to get in at a reasonable time and settle in for the night.
Around 3.10pm we found the Promised Land! The place where we win football games.
And where the maximum speed drops from 130km/h to only 110km/h.
We got into Camooweal around 3.20pm, gave Elsie another drink – just enough to get is to Mt Isa where fuel is much cheaper – and then made the executive decision that the more distance we can do today, the less we have to do tomorrow. The closer to Karumba we will be.
We found a dump point just outside Camooweal and emptied the toilet canister, then decided that another 120km to a WWII airfield free campsite only 60km before Mt Isa wouldn’t kill us, and we would be further towards our goal.
So off we went again.
About 10km outside Camooweal we were confronted by lots of flashing lights. A vehicle with flashing yellow lights, and a police car under lights and siren.
And once again a warning … “8 metre wide load following. Get off the road”. Nice. Twice in one day.
Fortunately they were still a couple of kilometres further up the road, so plenty of time to get safely off the road.
Unfortunately the side of the road looked like a great place to go four-wheel driving, but not a great place to try and park 2.5t of Percy in order to avoid getting wiped out by a wide load. We were concerned about tipping over.
And also concerned about getting hit by a very large piece of machinery.
But the wide load passed and everyone was safe.
We got into the free camping ground around 5.30pm, and feeling pretty knackered I have to say.
We have done close to 650km today. Good for getting closer to the Gulf and Karumba. Not so good for neck, shoulders and back.
We found a nice quiet spot down the back of the campground, and we are a good distance away from the road. There are a couple of people camped near us … although it’s probably more accurate to say that we are camped near them. They seemed quite content and settled until we pulled up and parked in the middle.
Another stunning sunset.
Tonight was leftovers night. Quick and easy, with hardly any washing up.
It’s only early, but I am absolutely wrecked. I’d like to say that it is easy for MBW being the passenger, but she is kept pretty busy passing drinks, unwrapping Minties, and planning our trip from the co-pilot’s seat.
And managing the Spotify playlist.
One of the things that we seriously underestimated was the lack of network coverage in these more remote areas. No network coverage means no ability to use Google Maps to do planning work as we drive.
It’s not like we haven’t got books of maps. We just didn’t bring them with us because we didn’t believe we would need them.
How wrong we were 🙁
We are really looking forward to the next few days as we get up into Karumba for a few nights, see Normanton and Croydon, Cobbold George and the Undarra Lava Tubes, before heading into Cairns.
But you will hear all about that as it happens. Stay tuned.
No other words of wisdom, sorry. Just need some sleep.
Ciao
#Retirement2024
#VanLife
Cobbold Gorge is amazing! One of my most favourite places in Qld. When Ken was working for SU, we were involved in a mission to the women of the bush there. Such an amazing experience to meet and spend time with the women and children who endure so much.