Category: VanLife

Yesterday I told you all about the Katherine Outback Experience (KOE) and what a great time we had. I also told you that we were going to a concert at the KOE that we’d booked a week or so ago.

I also recall that I told you about the crisis that occurred yesterday, although I spared you the details. It was the stuff of a horror movie.

We made ourselves beautiful and headed over to the concert a bit after 6.00pm. One of the benefits of staying at the venue is that you see all of the cars arriving, so we timed our departure from Percy to walk the 100m or so just perfectly. We got there in plenty of time to get a great seat.

I didn’t wear my spurs to the concert after all. Actually, I don’t own any spurs so I actually had none to wear anyway … but it turns out that Tom Curtain wasn’t wearing his either. So that was lucky, because I wouldn’t have wanted to be overdressed for the occasion.

The concert appears to be something that Tom Curtain puts on every month or so, and we just happened to jag it being there on the right night.

It was held at the KOE – virtually in Tom and Annabelle’s backyard. Annabelle is Tom’s wife, and they are both salt of the earth types. Very friendly and genuine.

I had met Annabelle at the morning KOE show and she remembered me (and my name) when we went over to the evening concert.

No airs or graces about that couple. We actually felt like we were special guests at their home, despite there probably being probably 150 people there.

Anyhow the concert was a lot of fun. Just a good old country hoe-down where they all joined together and sang songs, as well as doing a few of their own individually.

And they had lots of fun, with lots of audience participation.

We didn’t know any of their music, but we will certainly be adding some of it to our playlist.

We bought pizza and coffee, and it was just a great night. The concert finished about 10.00pm and it was just a short stagger back to the van to fall into bed.

Another warm night that turned cool early this morning. We woke to another startlingly beautiful day in the Terrirory.

I can see why people live here, although I imagine that the heat and humidity gets a bit nasty during the wet season.

Today we were headed for Litchfield National Park (NP). It was about 3 hours from Katherine that should have been 2.5 hours, but we did stop along the way, and we won’t do 130km/h on the highway.

Nothing really to talk about with the drive itself, that I haven’t commented on already. The roads were same same, and there appeared to be less road trains on the road. I also felt that the drivers are becoming less friendly and accommodating, but that is usually symptomatic of being closer to civilisation (Darwin). On much of the drive throughout western Queensland, with passing caravaners giving you a cheery wave. The further west we have gone, we find everyone coming towards you gives a wave.

It’s exhausting being this social 🙁 But not so much today.

Darwin is only about another hour or so north of Litchfield, so that probably explains both the driver attitudes and the lack of road trains.

We are still travelling on roads that – I assume – dissect large rural properties, because we constantly see warning signs about wandering cattle. Other than the brief experience with a cow the other day, we haven’t seen any cattle on/near the road.

We have also seen relatively little evidence of road kill. I know that there has been a lot of rain and flooding up here, so I have a working assumption that there is water inland, so the animals are not so inclined to wander out near the road for food or water, because there is plenty elsewhere.

We have certainly seen some small, furry animals that are … that are having a little nap beside the road, but not as many as I’d expected.

We had a brief stop at a place called Pine Creek – a pretty little township that (apparently) has a significant railway museum. I have a passing interest, but it wasn’t strong enough that we felt the need to stop for any longer that it took to dump some rubbish and … stretch our legs.

We like to stop in and have a bit of a poke around in these tiny towns, but this one was super tiny and everything seemed to be closed, so I assume that means it is a weekend. I’ve lost track of days.

Probably the most significant thing about Pine Creek is that there is a secret defence facility at Pine Creek in the NT, and I was hoping that it might be something like “Area 51” in the USA where they have all sorts of exciting aliens and stuff.

I was expecting to see lots of army peeps wandering around town, but didn’t, and realised that it’s probably because this place is so secret that they are all in camouflage and you simply can’t see them.

But I wasn’t even close. It’s not Pine Creek that I was thinking of – it is Pine Gap. And it’s nowhere near here. It’s closer to Alice Springs.

Percy clicked over all of the 8s on the speedo on the way to Litchfield NP today. 88888km.

That’s pretty exciting (I think), and hopefully good for Feng Shui. Or it could be monumentally bad for Feng Shui too, but then – considering the “unpleasant odour” issue from yesterday, bad Feng Shui is going to be seriously bad 🙁

Jolene – you remember Jolene, right? Our satellite navigation system – took us on a series of backroads that meant that we found ourselves ahead of a whole bunch of other cars that didn’t have the benefit of Jolene assistance.

Or their Jolene isn’t as smart as our Jolene.

For those of you that don’t know Jolene, she is called that after the Dolly Parton song of the same name. The song where she asks Jolene “.. please don’t take my man ..” Our Jolene takes us all kinds of places …

There are lots of road signs around this area that boldly proclaim that it is an alcohol-free zone. Now I suspect that is in relation to a comment that I made the other day about problems with alcohol and First Nations people in the Territory, however it was a little perplexing that we are reading these signs while we are travelling along Rum Jungle Road.

Even more puzzling was the drive-through bottle shop that we passed on Rum Jungle Road.

Most puzzling of all was the female police officer that waved us down in the township of Batchelor, and wanted to perform an RBT on me.

BTW I passed.

So I know that Jolene saved us some time by taking us through a series of backroads, because while I was doing my RBT, they all drove past me again and I was stuck at the back again. Sigh.

We are staying at the Banyan Tree Caravan Park for the next 3 nights. It is just on the border of Litchfield NP. I have circled it in red on the map below.

Tomorrow we will pack a picnic lunch and go for a drive through the park to see some points of interest, maybe do a bush-walk (although probably not, as I’m not sure that MBW’s foot is up to that kind of punishment), and hopefully have a swim at one of the waterholes without getting eaten by a crocodile.

Banyan Tree Caravan Park (BTCP) is a really pretty park with spaces under a beautiful canopy of trees. It keeps everything nice and cool, even though indications are that the current temperature feels like 36 degrees.

And it’s not likely to get any cooler anytime soon. Certainly not tonight.

We had considered going down to the happy hour that started at 5.00pm, but decided against it.

Steak tonight with mushroom sauce, chips and vegetables.

The people at the next site to us have mozzie coils (or incense) burning and it is giving me a headache. I suspect that it is a mozzie coil because the midgies here are starting to become quite frightful. Hopefully our little bug zapper will stop them annoying us.

The midgies, not the neighbours.

I think I might be coming down with something. I’ve had a headache and a sore throat all day, although MBW tells me I was snoring badly last night.

Hopefully I was snoring in tune with some of the Tom Curtain hits from last night.

That’s about it for today.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

Another rest day today. That doesn’t mean that we sat around doing nothing all day, it just means that we took it easy. And didn’t drive any long distances.

Last night we stayed at the Katherine Farmstay again, and it was very pleasant. Even though we didn’t book ahead, we got a nice shady spot under the trees, and surrounded by people who all have Starlink devices for internet.

I’m feeling a little left behind technologically, but then the $175/month for unlimited, high-speed internet seems a bit rich when I’m just as happy being uncontactable and off the grid.

Plus the $300-$500 to buy the device initially.

We packed up Percy this morning, hooked up Elsie, and briefly became 2 Aussie Nomands by moving camp from the Katherine Farmstay to the Katherine Outback Experience (KOE). A whole 10km or so.

That’s what I call a relaxing day’s driving!

Last night we booked tickets for the KOE show at 9.30am today, but we have also have tickets tonight for a concert here featuring Tom Curtain, Luke O’Shea, Laura Frank, and Chris Matthews.

Tom Curtain is the guy who owns and operates the KOE. Second from the left.

So we packed up Percy and arrived over at the KOE just after 9.00 for the 9.30 show.

We’ve noticed a bit of an unpleasant smell in Percy’s bathroom area over the last few days. It’s not entirely unusual, but it has been hot here.

Remember the other day I mentioned that MBW needed some retail therapy, well we found a K-Hub in Katherine and browsed around, and she found a nice pair of slacks on special?

What she really wanted was some shorts, but they don’t stock shorts at the moment – they only keep winter stock. Which absolutely makes sense, right? I mean, sitting here doing the blog at 4.00pm on Friday afternoon, my watch tells me that it is currently 33 degrees but feels like 34, because it is about 95% humidity after all.

So you can understand the logic of not selling shorts in KMart, but focussing instead on warm, thick, bulky jackets because we are moving into winter.

Apparently.

So back to the unpleasant smell. It has been hot here and the toilet light has come on, so we need to empty it. There is only one dump point in town (right across the road from the K-Hub as it happens …) but we didn’t have time to swing by before heading to the KOE, so we did it after the show.

I know that you are probably beside yourselves wanting to know about the unpleasant smell, but you are going to have to hang on a bit longer.

I think that they call that “delayed gratification”.

The KOE show was fabulous. Poor old Tom had a bit of an issue this morning before the show. Nothing as bad as the “unpleasant smell” problem that we were having, but a problem anyway.

It seems that the Ghan (that’s a fancy train that goes between Darwin and Adelaide) was running late, and the KOE is like a cruise ship’s “shore excursion”, with the option (I assume) to disembark the Ghan, get on a bus and be transported to the KOE, and then back again.

Except that the Ghan was running about 30 minutes late.

So Tom started the show anyway, and the Ghan people just missed out on the first bit of the show. And what a great show it was too – horses, dogs, goats, donkeys, a Brahman bull, and a mule.

Here is a fun fact: a mule is an equine hybrid created by crossbreeding a make donkey with a female horse. You can tell that it is a mule because it has a horse’s tail, which is quite different to a donkey’s tail.

This blog might be a lot of things, but I like to think that it has some educational value.

So anyway, Tom demonstrated horse training, dog training, goat herding, horse riding, whip cracking, and he even sang a few songs.

Did I mention that – in addition to running an award-winning tourist attraction – he is also an accomplished singer and musician, having won 2 “Golden Guitars”? That’s pretty impressive.

The show was actually really good, well worth the money and a great opportunity to get the outback experience here in Katherine. Well worth it, and I would highly recommend that you consider it if you happen to find yourself in Katherine.

Tom is also a really down to earth guy and – I assume – he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like us mere mortals. After the show he happily stood around and answered all of our banal questions that simply demonstrate how ignorant us city-slickers really are.

They also have a whole litter of puppies that they brought out after the show … awww, so cute.

MBW even mentioned that she wants a puppy for her 60th birthday, so maybe I’ll have to rethink that double-barrelled shotgun.

By the time that the show was finished and we all had a cuddle of the puppies, they had mown the area where the caravans can stay the night, and so we put Percy into place, unhooked Elsie, and had an early lunch.

And then we set about addressing the toilet issue.

Do you want the good news, or the bad news?

I’ll give you the bad news first. The toilet issue wasn’t an issue. It was an unmitigated disaster. It was a crisis. It was horrible.

Truly disgusting.

I’m reminded of the story of the guy who fell into a septic tank and couldn’t get out, so he swam on undeterred. (If you don’t get that joke, let me know and I’ll explain it).

Which has absolutely no relevance for the crisis that we were having, except to give you an idea of the scale of the disaster.

I actually wondered if calling 000 might be the correct thing to do in this emergency, but MBW didn’t think so. She thought that the Police were probably thinking of other types of emergency, and she was sure that they wouldn’t want to deal with this one.

The good news? The good news is that I am going to spare you all of the disgusting details of the disaster because … well, because as much as I believe that a problem shared is a problem halved, it really isn’t halved in this particular case.

So I’m not going to tell you any more, but I’ll leave it to your fertile imaginations to consider the possibilities.

So anyway, the crisis was addressed, the canister was loaded into the back of Elsie – VERY CAREFULLY – and we made a trip into town and make a deposit at the Katherine dump point.

And you know what they say – “when you are up to your elbows in cr*p, take the opportunity to also do your grocery shopping …”

And so we did. Into Woolworths to buy a few essentials, then back home to Percy for a bit of a rest. MBW to her book, and me to have my afternoon nap.

It was only a short nap because it was just too hot inside Percy to sleep. We are off the grid, remember? So no power for running the air-conditioner. I just got up and decided to do the blog instead.

I mean I’m hot, and grumpy, and I have all manner of things under my fingernails, but I have to say that I feel better for getting all of that off my chest 🙂

They are starting a warm-up for tonight’s concert which starts in the next hour or so, so I might go and make myself beautiful and get dolled up in my boots and spurs so that I can blend in tonight.

They are selling pizzas tonight, so we are going to indulge. Don’t let MBW ever tell you that I never take her out anywhere! Today I took her to the dump point, AND a concert.

That’s about all for today. I’m pleased to report that they have two types of music here in Katherine – Country AND Western. With any luck we will hear some of each tonight..

But first, I might just go and wash my hands one more time …

Hooroo (that’s Aussie for Ciao)

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

I’ve hurt my back. I have absolutely no idea what I’ve done, but I have a half-formulated theory that it is MBW’s fault.

I mean, she is always on my back about something.

But seriously, I don’t know what I’ve done to it. We store a lot of stuff under the bed, so we are always lifting the bed up to get something out. Like the coffee machine.

While the bed isn’t heavy – it is hinged – if you lift it badly you could risk hurting yourself.

Or maybe it’s just symptomatic of having too many days sitting in Elsie driving long distances, and I’ve stiffened up.

Or maybe I’m getting old.

Or maybe I just have a design defect, which I suspect is well and truly out of warranty by now.

In any case, I’m in a bit of discomfort. Discomfort that is bordering on pain. I might need some Asprin 🙁

We rolled into Katherine yesterday. I think I’ve already told you about the hot springs and dinner. And the groceries.

And the retail therapy for MBW, such as it was. I probably didn’t tell you about the number of locals (if you know what I mean) walking around with a slab of VB under their arm. I thought that alcohol was tightly regulated in the NT?

Another beautiful sunset over the park last night.

One of the good things about staying in a caravan park (or somewhere that loosely resembles a caravan park) is that they have facilities. Remember a few nights ago we stayed in Julia Creek and we needed to be fully self-contained – no facilities.

But the Katherine Farmstay has power and water hookup, and it also has facilities.

It is great that we have shower and toilet in Percy, but there are some things that are not allowed in our toilet – except for the gravest of emergencies, of course – and with a small hot water system, you are limited to quick showers.

And a quick shower means turn it on, get wet, turn it off, lather up, turn it back on, rinse, turn it off, wash your hair … I’m sure you understand the process.

But it is a necessary process.

Yes, a first world problem I agree, but a problem nevertheless.

But the Katherine Farmstay has facilities. So last night was the opportunity to head over the men’s shower block and luxuriate in a long, hot, steaming shower.

A full service experience, if you will.

Except it wasn’t.

Firstly, the change area and clothes hanging space is the same space as the bit where you stand and have your shower. No separation, no door, no shower screen.

Nothing.

Which means – potentially – that standing in the shower gives your clothes an unexpected wash at the same time.

Potentially.

In practice though, the water only trickled out of the shower head. The water “presure” was so poor, that I have spelled the word with only one “s”. That’s all that it deserves because it didn’t come out with a satisfying “ssssssss” sound like you would expect.

It was more of a “s”.

But it was a shower, and my clothes weren’t getting wet, except …

It only had two possible temperatures: scalding hot, and not hot at all.

So the luxuriating shower experience turned out to be a total fizzer. A bust. Tonight I’m going to luxuriate in Percy.

Last night we booked tickets for a cruise through the Katherine Gorge. I won’t say how much it was, but let’s just say that the boys will be getting less inheritance one day than they were possibly expecting. About $400 less.

Oops!

Last night we did something horrible. Worse than spending money on a gorge tour.

We had to set the alarm. Yikes!

I was hoping never to set an alarm again in my life, but alas, we needed to be at the boat jetty around 15 minutes before the 9.00am departure, which meant that we needed to be up and starting ablutions around 7.00am.

We got to the appointed departure location around 8.45am – right on time, and dutifully lined up with about 50-60 other people. The nice lady from the tour company was walking up the line, asking for everybody’s names so she could cross them off the list.

The bloke in front of us was asked his name, and he looked at the list of names and announced that he was ”Geoff Taylor”.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

There is only ONE Geoff Taylor on this cruise today buddy, so don’t try to steal my seat!

Well … it appears that there are, in fact, two Geoff Taylors on the 9.00am cruise today. What are the chances?

We did the 3 gorge/4 hour tour which was a little more expensive that the 2 gorge/2 hour tour, but included snacks, drinks, and a swim.

It was a fabulous day. The gorge is the traditional land of the Jawoyn people and our tour guide (and stand-up comedian) Russell said that he is a proud Jawoyn man.

He said that the Jawoyn people like to share the good things that they have with people of other cultures, beliefs and races.

We saw 3 gorges, and needed to swap boats each time we changed gorges because they cannot navigate the rocks between each gorge. So they take several boats up to each individual gorge in the wet season (when the water is much higher), and then in dry season (like it is now), we need to walk between gorges and change boats each time.

Now, just to warn you, I took about 2,000 photos of the gorge … and not a single one of them does any justice for the beauty, serenity, and splendour of the gorge.

I can see why it is a special and sacred place for the Jawoyn people.

We had as swim in the waterhole and it was very … refreshing (aka cold). After our swim, most people were keen to get out of their wet things and get back into dry clothes.

I had the (mis)fortune of seeing TOGT (The Other Geoff Taylor) in his budgie smugglers, and it wasn’t quite the enlightening experience that I’d hoped it could be. I’m sure that if he’d seen me in mine, he would have been impressed.

Or jealous.

It’s hard to tell how smart people really are. There was a couple on our cruise who had matching shirts and binoculars, and carried a book of birds, and they spent their time birdspotting.

Another guy with an American accent was telling the bird people that he’d written a book on orchids.

But the most interesting comment that I heard was as we boarded the boat to travel back down gorge #3 on our way home after our swim. A bloke and his wife were getting on ahead of us and he said to his wife, “we sat on the left side of the boat each time coming up the gorges. Let’s sit on the right side of the boats heading back for a different perspective …”.

Now I might be as dumb as a box of rocks, but I’m pretty sure that whatever he saw on the left going up, will be the same as he sees on the right side of the boat going back. Am I right? Or is he a genius who is clearly far smarter than me?

We also saw some fresh-water crocodiles and some goannas that were flat out like a lizard drinking.

Here’s a fun fact. Fresh-water crocodiles have small, narrow snouts and small teeth, while salties have a wider snout and stronger teeth. Freshies will not attack unless provoked, but salties will attack for food.

That means that if you fall out of the boat and a crocodile is swimming towards you, it is a salty.

Handy to know. And you don’t need to be a fast swimmer to outswim a crocodile, you just need to be faster than at least one other person.

By the time we got back to Elsie, it was close to 2.30pm and Elsie’s temperature gauge said it was 34 degrees outside … and it certainly felt like it.

We had a lovely, unexpected call from one of our 4 very favourite little people this afternoon – Elias will be 3 years old in August and we wanted to FaceTime with Grammy and Grandpa … so we had a lovely chat and caught up on all the news.

It turns out that his parents (our son and daughter-in-law) are thinking about cutting out his daytime sleep, which is funny really … because I have started to re-introduce my afternoon nap.

I mentioned the other day that MBW being sick before we left meant that we left some stuff behind, like a mat that we put down outside the van to keep dust down.

We stopped at a little camping shop on the way home from the gorge to see if they had anything suitable. While they did have some options, they were hideously overpriced, and we weren’t that desperate.

There is another camping shop in Katherine called “Rod and Rifle”, so maybe I’ll stop in there tomorrow. I might even be able to pick up a nice double-barrelled shotgun for MBW for her birthday in July.

Back to Percy and it was Cheese O’Clock (we’d missed lunch by this time), and a few loads of washing, so we went over to the animal feeding at 3.30.

MBW bravely held a snake and we looked at all the other animals on the farm. I even fed a cow a piece of bread by holding the bread between my teeth, and the cow took it from me.

All I can say is that there was far too much tongue and drool for my liking, and I will be having a long, luxuriating shower tonight to get myself clean again.

I’m feeling a bit violated!

Tomorrow we are still in Katherine, but heading over to a different free campsite for the night. We will be seeing the Katherine Outback Experience in the morning, then a concert of local artists in the evening.

But – as usual – you will hear all about that tomorrow.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

A man walked into a bar. The bartender says to him, “Did you want the usual, Donkey?”

The man replies, “Yes thanks”.

A lady sitting at the bar leans over and says to the guy, “He just called you Donkey. Why did he do that?”

The man replies, “Hee-haw, hee-haw, he always calls me that …”

I’ll explain that later.

Last night we stayed at the Banka Banka Station which is precisely in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

After I’d posted the day’s blog, we went up to the campfire for drinks and a chat with other campers. Probably all of the same people that I’d overtaken at some time during the day, and most likely people that I’ve complained about at some time.

I didn’t see BMW guy anywhere, so that’s not a bad thing.

We had a nice chat with some fellow retirees. They all seemed nice and not too financially broke, so I guess that there is hope for us yet.

You always pick up some good tips around the campfire, like where to stay, where not to stay, what to see, what not to bother with … you know how it goes.

One of them went to get a beer from the bar and came back to report that “the rules about buying alcohol are different here in the NT.” You have to give them your name and ID, and they keep a tally of how many you’ve had over what period of time.

Something to do with limiting the amount of alcohol that is consumed by the locals, I believe.

It pays to just stick with soda water, me thinks.

It was cold this morning. Actually it was cold last night.

Actually, to be completely truthful, it was cold when we were up at the campfire, which is why we didn’t stay long. I noticed that the people drinking alcohol didn’t seem too cold.

Hmmm, maybe I should reconsider that. Alcohol seems to warm you from the inside out.

We rolled out of Banka Banka about 8.45am and it was nice and warm getting into Elsie. Once again today we are having a driving day, aiming for Daly Waters for the night.

Also once again, the roads are long and reasonably good, with the occasional flood damage. There was one spot where we had to stop for a red light, and they had some serious roadwork going on.

There were quite a few times where we would see a SLOW DOWN sign, or similar. I had been wondering why they hadn’t dispatched a crew to fill in some of the many potholes in the road … so it was good to see a serious effort at fixing up some of the worse problems.

You see and hear some interesting things out on the road. UHF Channel 40 is the channel that everybody uses by default, but there are some numpties who insist on using something else – like UHF Channel 18 (which I admit is a recognised caravanning channel), or channel 50 which is … well, which is plain dumb.

In my opinion. Because nobody uses it, and if you want to talk to them, you have to change channels. Which is not easy at 100km/h on a bad road.

All of the truckies and majority of other road users assume that you are on UHF40. I get it that you might have UHF18 written on the back of your van, but if a pilot vehicle is coming towards you and they want to warn you of a wide load following them, they assume you are on 40.

And if you are not, then you don’t get the message.

I’ll get off that soapbox now.

The cross winds today were ferocious. I felt at times like I was going a couple of rounds with Percy, and it felt like Percy was winning. The cross winds – along with the bumpy roads – made keeping everything on the road a challenge. Plus dodging potholes.

Plus taking note of signs that say “Unfenced road. Beware of cattle.”

There was one point in the trip today where I had managed to overtake the first of two caravans that were travelling in convoy. So I was the middle of them.

While I know that MBW hates it when I get too close to the caravan in front, the fact is that you need to keep the gap fairly small to minimise the amount of runway that you need to overtake them.

In any case, it’s not like they are going to stamp on their brakes.

And then the driver in front of us stamped on their brakes, and yelled out (over the CB radio), “COW”.

I actually thought that was really unnecessary and inappropriate, and I was about to stick my head out the window and shout back “PIG”, and then I realised that there was a cow on the road. And it wasn’t happy.

I think that cow needs to be nicknamed “Lucky”, because we all avoided it. And if someone did hit it, then “Mincemeat” might be a better nickname.

Most of the other retirees towing caravans seem to be happy to plod along at 90km/h, while I am sitting on 100km/h.

That means a couple of things. Firstly, it means that I will inevitably catch up with them. Secondly, it means that I will have to overtake them. And unfortunately most of them don’t seem to understand road etiquette which says that you tell the vehicle behind you when it is safe to pass.

So that is a challenge.

But the bigger challenge is that most of them never seem to need to make a comfort stop, so when we stop briefly to … stretch our legs … they go whizzing past, and then I have to overtake them all over again.

C’est la vie.

At least that means that they get to see “2AussieNomads.com” on the back of Percy as we go sailing past them, and they get to read all about themselves on the blog.

So we rolled into Daly Waters today about 12.30pm.

It is a quirky and eccentric little place that has obviously become this way through someone’s artistic genius, or because of a lunatic.

Personally, I’m leaning towards lunatic.

Tim’s junkyard has an entry fee of $6 each to look at his junk, yet I can look at my own junk anytime I want for free.

There is a whole menagerie of animals around Daly Waters. I mean, just wandering around.

Chickens. Horses. And Donkeys.

Donkeys. That is the rather tenuous link to the donkey joke at the start of today’s blog.

There was a chicken that we saw crossing the road, and I so wanted to ask MBW “Why did that chicken cross the road …?”, but I thought better of it. She has no sense of humour.

The camping area is right beside the pub, and Daly Waters is a quirky (albeit pretty) little place.

The actual pub itself is … interesting. I wasn’t sure whether I should be blown away by the collection of historic artefacts that grace every surface of every wall, or horrified at the amount of junk that is pinned to the walls, and the amount of dust and dirt that is clinging to the junk pinned to the walls.

Honestly, I needed to go home and sanitise after walking through the pub.

Tonight some guy (Tim, maybe?) who runs the place does a talk on Daly Waters and the history surrounding the place.

I assume that it is the bloke who gets around on a mobility scooter with a large pair of horns attached to the handlebars. The same bloke who appears to be the correct weight for someone who should be about twice as tall as he is actually is.

I hear that the talk is very interesting, so I’m looking forward to that. We considered eating at the pub tonight, but the prices plus the grubbiness of the place (mostly the grubbiness) caused us to reconsider and put something out of the freezer for dinner.

Anyway, that’s about it for tonight.

MBW snuck a photo of me doing the blog, so that illusion that I have been trying to create that I am slaving over a hot computer is now blown away.

And on the subject of the less attractive parts of daily life on the road, MBW also snapped a picture of me emptying the can the other day.

Charming, right? Well, now you know what I have to do every few days. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

The more observant amongst you may have noticed that today’s blog is dated 21 May 2024, but was actually posted via the FaceBook a day later. Well done for noticing.

Daly Waters is lots of things, but in the 21st century is not one of them. While my phone says I have 4G coverage, I really don’t. I don’t have enough of anything to upload photos or the blog.

Sorry.

Tomorrow we head for Katherine, so I’m hoping for more Telstra coverage, and more civilisation. We will be there for 3 nights, so it will be nice not driving long distances for a few days.

There might even be a shopping centre where we can stock up on fresh food, and MBW can get some retail therapy.

We are also seeing an outback concert while we are in Katherine, so that should be fun.

You’ll hear about all of that as it happens.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

Another slow news day, I’m sorry to say.

One of the things that I’m finding about the Northern Territory (NT) is that you travel long distances and see little.

And when I say “little”, I mean nothing.

Seriously, there are places on the map that we have driven through (Ranken, for example) that has a road sign, a postcode, and (allegedly) a population of 44 … but I don’t know where they live, because I saw no houses. Or pubs. Or anything.

Last night we stayed at the Barkly Homestead. It was very pleasant and they did happy hour and a live band.

We wandered over and took a couple of photos of the sunset, but that was about it.

Dinner, showers, read and bed.

We pulled out around 9.00am, which is 30 minutes after Brisbane time.

The roads were pretty good, except for where they were really bad. They have had a great deal of flooding here in the last couple of months and there was some doubt whether we could get through the Barkly Hwy.

It was certainly open, but there were some potholes … that could also have been craters caused by meteors that have hit the earth.

Funny, the roads got so bad in places that the 130km/h speed limit was reduced to 40km/h … and even that felt too fast.

In fact, the roads have been so bad that even Google Earth thinks that they are closed, and diverts you around a different way.

It was our plan to travel to Tennant Creek and stay at a HipCamp for a couple of nights, however a few things happened:

1. The wind kicked in and the temperatures dropped
2. We drove into Tennant Creek to get fuel, and felt no real desire to stay there any longer than we needed to.

We had read reports that you needed to be careful in Tennant Creek. We got fuel and went for a drive through the town to find that nothing was open (it is a Monday, right?), and there were groups of young kids walking/milling around that just made the place feel … unsafe.

After a drive up the main street and a U-turn at the end, there was absolutely nothing that made us want to stay or return to TC.

So we booked a power and water site at Banka Banka West Station, and kept driving.

An hour north of Tennant Creek is home for tonight.

I’ve just been watching an older (than us) couple getting assistance to back their van into the space beside us, and they have now spent the last hour making centimetre-by-centimetre adjustments to the position of their van, interspersed by using a spirit level on all external surfaces of their van to ensure that it is completely, 100% level in every dimension.

Don’t get me started.

There is no Telstra reception here, and the Banka Banka free wifi internet is glacially slow, and about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

I’m getting frustrated, so I’m signing off.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

I think it’s going to be a short post tonight, because it’s been a slow news day.

Thanks to the magic that is the Queensland/NT border, today will be a 24.5 hour day. We get to enjoy an extra 30 minutes of our retirement, because we crossed into the NT and turned our watches back 30 minutes.

Although I note that we will have to give it back again when we head back into Queensland in a few weeks.

Unfortunately that is probably the biggest news today, so please set your expectations accordingly. I will probably have to resort to some elevated level of sarcasm about things that annoyed me, just to provide enough content for today’s post.

Like the turkey in the BMW.

Before we went to bed last night, MBW did a quick review of our travel plans, and we agreed that we would still be heading for the Barkly Homestead tonight. It’s half-way along the Barkly Highway between the Queensland/NT border, and Tennant Creek.

Ok, maybe 2/3 of the way.

Just for clarity, Camooweal (on the right-hand side, underlined) was last night. BH (Barkly Homestead) is tonight, and tomorrow (Monday) we head to TC (Tennant Creek).

Well, in that general direction anyway.

The other bit of news that MBW told me last night was that the temperature is forecast to drop. This morning (Camooweal) was forecast to be 13 degrees but feel like 9 degrees, and tomorrow morning here at Barkly Homestead is forecast to be 11 degrees but feel like 3 degrees.

Might need to look out those warm clothes.

It did indeed get cold overnight. It was really warm when we went to bed, so we opened the windows. But during the night it got cold and I had to close the windows AND pull up the quilt.

Jeans weather today.

We stayed at the Camooweal lagoon/river-side camping last night. It’s a free camp spot with no facilities.

We woke this morning to another brilliant day. Sun shining, birds singing. Paradise.

On the way out of the free camp this morning, some guy in a BMW SUV and towing a single-axle van was ahead of us on the dirt road, and travelling about 5km/h all the way.

I don’t know if he was struggling to find 4WD, or if he was worried about puncturing one of those very low-profile sports tyres (I would have been worried!), but he was in no hurry to go anywhere, and not about to move off the track to let us past.

Why you’d use a BMW SUV as your tow vehicle out in the back of nowhere is beyond me. If you broke down or needed a part, it would probably be the first BMW that the local repairers have ever seen, and you’d have to wait weeks for parts.

And I’ll bet that they don’t carry those slick low-pro tyres out here either.

We drove the 1km or so back into town just to confirm that there was no lively Sunday morning excitement, and our expectations were certainly met.

No churches open, no pubs, no shops, no … nothing.

The local Puma was open, so we rounded up a few spare tigers to put into Elsie’s tank, and we were off.

We only made a couple of quick stops after we’d got fuel.

The first was to take a photo at the NT border.

The second stop was to drop our grey water at the side of the road, and to get something to eat to sustain us.

Hardly worth mentioning really, and I’m kinda sorry that I did.

After crossing into NT, a few things became immediately obvious. Firstly, the roads became noticeably worse. Bumpy and uneven, and unpleasant to drive on.

And there are lots of signs saying that the paddocks are unfenced, so that implies that you could encounter a cow at any time on the road.

Secondly they were full of pot-holes, so we were playing a game of “dodge the pot-hole at 100km/h, or risk blowing a tyre.”

You’d have to be seriously concerned if you were driving a BMW SUV with those fancy-pancy low profile tyres.

And the last thing that we noticed was that the speed limit was suddenly raised to 130km/h.

130km/h? On these roads?

It’s obviously part of the NT government’s natural (de-)selection process to see who can really do 130km/h and survive.

Survival of the smartest, perhaps?

It’s certainly one way to add a little extra chlorine to the gene pool.

At least we won’t see any idiots in BMWs plugging along this road …

… and there he was. When we stopped to drop grey water, he passed us, roaring along at about 80km/h in the 130km/h zone in his high-performance SUV.

That meant that we needed to pass him again, and of course it was way too much to hope that he would be one of these helpful drivers that gives you some indication that it is safe to overtake. Nope, just keep puddling along, blocking your forward view, and do nothing to help.

Turkey.

Anyway, we arrived at the Barkly Homestead around 1.00pm local time, paid our $40 for a powered site, and found ourselves a spot.

It’s a thriving little business here in the middle of nowhere. But I guess that the laws of supply and demand dictate that when you have the only place to stay between the Queensland/NT border and Tennant Creek, then it’s a seller’s market.

And they have happy hour starting at 4.30pm with live music, and meal service starting at 6.00pm. Did I mention the live band? MBW and I might put on our boots and spurs, and kick our heels up.

Carefully, of course. After doing a risk assessment.

A boot-scooting boogie, perhaps?

Lots of space, with plenty of sites with power and water hookup.

That means that we can be civilised for a day and night. We can have decent showers, make coffee, and MBW can catch-up on MasterChef.

We had lunch and I had a Sunday afternoon nap while MBW read her book. I do love Sunday afternoon naps, almost as much as MBW loves reading.

It’s been quite windy here this afternoon and all of that red dirt in the Barkly Homestead parking area becomes something of a dust storm in the wind, which is a bit unpleasant. And it’s cool still.

At least we have a relatively clean – albeit old – shower block here at BH, so I can give myself a good scrub tonight.

Tomorrow we head off towards Tennant Creek. I’m not going to tell you our destination for tomorrow night, because … well, because I’m not sure that even we know where we are aiming for tomorrow.

Retirement. Nothing to do, and all day to do it. Nowhere to be, and all day to get there.

Why didn’t I realise this a long time ago?

PS: I warned you that I had nothing to say today, but you read it anyway, right?

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

It will probably be a short blog tonight. We had a long drive and I’m feeling a bit weary. And I did battle with the people at the Mt Isa BCF this afternoon, just so I could get a gas bottle refilled.

But that is a whole other story.

Last night we stayed at the JC RV park, right up close to the water. Or billabong, maybe? It was very pretty, and very quiet. Very serene, very relaxing.

And a spectacular sunset. Seriously, we are getting spoiled with the sunsets out here.

I managed to get the radio out last night before it got too dark, and the first thing I heard on 20m (14.205MHz) was someone in North Carolina talking with someone in Australia.

Then I managed to make a contact with a guy who was operating portable (from a National Park) at Noosa Heads.

Dinner, early to bed, and up early this morning.

We rolled out of the JC RV park before 8.00am, unfed and un-caffeinated. I’d had a shower at least, so I was mostly awake.

Just not my usual, cheery, caffeinated self.

We hadn’t even unhooked Percy from Elsie overnight, so it was a quick operation to plug in the plugs and head off. Topped up Elise’s tank again heading out of JC and we were on our way.

Cloncurry was only about 130km (1.5 hours) away, and we figured that we could make it that far without killing each other. A lack of caffeine can cause us to be unpredictable, or irrational. Possibly even hostile.

Straight, flat, featureless, roads, as far as the eye can see. Not even a tree to be seen, most of the time.

We rolled into Cloncurry about 9.30 and set off looking for a coffee shop or cafe for coffee and a snack for breakfast.

I have been to Cloncurry in a previous life, being the well-travelled gentleman that I am … although I acknowledge that it was probably 14 or 15 years ago, but then nothing changes in these small towns, right?

Well, either Cloncurry has changed or my memory is … um … sorry, I forget.

Anyway I had a vague recollection of a straight road and an RSL (or Bowls Club, or Pub, or …) and those memories seemed to come together.

We used Cloncurry’s dump point and emptied the toilet cassette, even without the light having come on yet. (I know, right? How progressive are we?)

It always concerns me when something is advertised as “friendly”. Cloncurry, the friendly heart. It just sets expectations, and it often means that unnecessary extra words are being used.

Like “fresh fish”. I mean, seriously, why would you buy fish if it wasn’t fresh? It’s just “fish”.

But I digress.

Coffee and banana cake. It was very nice, and postpones divorce a bit longer.

Yes MBW. Adulting IS hard!

It turns out that Cloncurry wasn’t the hub of excitement that I recall from last time I was there, so we kept rolling towards Mt Isa.

I rang the Mt Isa BCF before we rolled out of Cloncurry to confirm that they have gas to do gas refills … and I was advised that they could not do any gas refills until 1.00pm because they are short-staffed.

Interesting.

So that just means that we don’t bust our boilers to get into Mt Isa, and we have a relaxing trip.

So wet set off on the Barkly Highway, heading west.

The scenery from Cloncurry to Mt Isa kept changing, with lots of rock formations, trees, and winding, hilly roads.

Mount Isa. Proudly sponsored by Ariat boots.

We rolled into Mt Isa around 11.45am. A bit over an hour until we can get gas, so we found a Coles supermarket and jagged a parking space right outside in the shade. Ok, we took up the space of 3 cars, but we found a parking space!!

In the shade!

If you’ve been following since the beginning, you may remember that MBW was quite ill right before we left, and I was also not feeling 100% although I was less sick than MBW.

Well it turns out that we are now counting the cost of us both being sick, and neglecting to pack some things that we’d planned to bring with us. Like a mat for the ground outside the van. Or an iron.

It also seems like a good excuse for MBW to do a bit of a wardrobe refresh, because each time we stop she remembers another important part of her outfit that she is missing, and we go searching for it.

Or maybe I’m just being cynical because I can wear the same T-shirt, shorts, socks and shoes for a week and think nothing of it?

I change my undies most days. I’m not completely barbaric.

We still had time to kill before BCF can supply us gas, so we decided to do the Underground Hospital tour. Now, TBH, anything touristy with the word “underground” in it is not something I get excited about, but we decided to do it anyway.

Made the mistake of taking Elsie and Percy down a no through road and needed to do a 75 point turn to get them pointing back the other way again so we could get back out.

Actually I lied about that. The 75 point turn was option 1, but resourceful Geoff put Elsie into 4WD and we did a bit of “off-roading” with Percy in tow, through the hospital carpark and back to the street entrance.

Crisis averted.

The underground hospital was not a government initiative – it was dug out by the people of Mt Isa during the war in 1942, and they did it in their own time.

All very interesting, but not the sort of place where I would want to go and have a baby, or have surgery.

Doing a final circuit of the hospital museum, I (literally) bumped into an elderly woman from a bus tour that had just arrived, and she said it “wasn’t every day that she bumped into a tall, dark, and handsome man”. OK, so she got one out of three correct, and I don’t really consider myself that tall.

By now it was 1.30pm. Time to find BCF, get gas, and be on our way.

Me: “Hello, can I get a 9kg gas refill, please?”

Destiny (seriously, that was her name): “Sorry, we can’t do gas refills until 2.00pm because the manager hasn’t had lunch yet.”

If the connection between Destiny’s boss having lunch and their ability to dispense gas eludes you, join the club. I assume that it has something to do with having a required number of staff with a working braincell in the store at the same time.

Specifically, staff that can multi-task. You know, like being able to chew gum and think at the same time.

So we waited until 2.00pm and tried again.

It turns out that the young dude who started the complicated process of filling gas bottles – put on your PPE shirt, put on your gloves, put on your safety glasses, get the tool bag, um … – was likely only rowing with one oar anyway, because his first achievement was to give the wrong gas bottle to the wrong customer, so the right customer kicked up a fuss.

A huge fuss that Destiny was overheard describing as a “situation”. As in “we have a situation”.

Anyhow, you get the idea. By 3.00pm (yep, 3.00pm!) we were back on the Barkly and heading towards tonight’s camp.

Which we hadn’t decided yet, as it turned out.

There was a place just outside of Camooweal – not dissimilar to last night’s RV park – that looked OK and was only another couple of hours onwards. That means a couple of hours closer to wherever we want to be the next night.

The only concern with this Camooweal lagoon-side camping is that some previous reviewers have reported that some people poop on the ground.

I mean seriously, would I make that up?

Turns out it is true. And I nearly stepped in someone’s poop.

I mean seriously, anyone that poops on the ground in a public camping area makes the Mt Isa BCF peeps seem like Albert Einstein in comparison.

Anyhoo, we found a spot, got everything level, avoided the poop, had an early dinner and admired the sunset.

We had decided that we would try to stop and join a local church service wherever we find ourselves on a Sunday morning.

Tomorrow is Sunday.

Despite some feverish Googling, it appears that the options in Camooweal (population 236, or 310 if you believe the sign coming into town) are fairly limited.

And when I say “fairly limited”, you would not be incorrect to use the literal translation of “non-existent”.

So maybe we will just give it a miss. Again.

We have now run out of cold press coffee, with no time to make more before tomorrow. So if there is no blog tomorrow, it is possible that MBW has killed me and hidden my body around Camooweal.

Call for help. Feel free to describe me as tall, dark and handsome.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

Winton, Thursday.

What a cracker of a day. Not a cloud in the sky, low 20s, a cool breeze blowing. Shorts and T-shirt weather.

It’s been warm going to bed at night, but we generally pull up the blanket around 5.30am as it starts to cool off. But I’m not complaining.

Fabulous, darlings!

Yesterday afternoon we went for a bit of a drive, just to see the sights.

When I say “we went for a bit of a drive”, we didn’t go far, because there are not many places to see without going a long way. But it was a spectacularly beautiful afternoon. Although the water stinks out here, the air is clean and fresh.

Look at that sky!

We are staying at the Winton Wanderers Caravan Park, out on the western (left) side of the image above. Where the blue dot is.

And when I say “to see the sights”, I use that term loosely.

We found the road to Hughenden (north), and the road to Jundah (south), and the road to Longreach (east), and the road to Cloncurry (west – that is tomorrow’s road out of town, into the unknown).

That’s it, just 4 roads out of town. Plus Arno’s wall, a coffee shop, and a musical fence.

And 3 (maybe 4) pubs.

We also found the Winton railway station, except that it didn’t display any Queensland Rail signage … so maybe the QR Travel services stop at Longreach. You’d think that I’d know stuff like that, having worked at QR 🙁

Last night was Opera Queensland’s “Do we need another hero” production. This was a free event that was held at the Crackup Sister’s Dust Arena. It is a local attraction where small comedy shows are put on, and the reason it is called the Dust Arena will become obvious soon.

The production was very well done (as usual), and was a musical examination of all of the heros that we have in our lives, including Superman, Hercules, etc, along with everyday heros including Mum and Dad. They even worked a local hero into the story – a lady who has spent 22 years in Winton helping underprivileged people here in the outback.

This was obviously a pretty big deal last night, because the Board of Directors of OQ, and also the Minister for lots of things including Arts all appeared to be present. They were all pretty obviously arty-farty types, sitting in the front two rows with their fancy clothes, weird glasses, bottles of wine, and hyphenated surnames.

I don’t know where they are all staying out here. I can’t imagine them bringing a caravan, and there are certainly no 5-star hotels out this way. In fact, I can’t imagine that there is much accommodation out here at all; certainly not enough for all of the performers, plus the OQ Board, plus the Minister and her entourage.

I hope that they are not staying at the North Gregory Hotel, because by my reckoning it must be due to burn down again any time soon.

Anyhow, they all laughed hysterically at things that I (clearly) didn’t understand, like when Jason Barry-Smith (another hyphenated surname from the night before) started singing some aria in Italian.

As I said, it was all a bit lost on me.

But it was a great show. They told the story of heros, and sang lots of stuff that related to heros such as “We don’t need another hero”, “Billy, don’t be a hero”, “Man in the mirror”, and stuff in Italian that was obviously real opera about heros.

Anyhow, it was a great night. And they had lamingtons for sale at intermission! When was the last time you got lamingtons served at intermission?

You can see the OQ Instagram page for last night’s event here. Make sure you turn the sound on.

We slept well last night. Well, I slept well and MBW says that she did too. I must have slept well because at some unearthly hour, MBW elbows me in the side and announced that it was 7.45am. Time to get up.

The usual ablutions and breakfast, gave Percy a quick tidy, and invested $4.00 in a washing machine to do the weekly washing of the big stuff – sheets, towels, jeans, etc.

We do have a washing machine in Percy, but it is only good for smalls. Half a dozen pairs of undies and it is about at capacity.

Washing hung out, and we were back off to the Dust Arena for the Crackup Sisters show this morning. It was a fun morning of typical Aussie slapstick humour and whip cracking on an outdoor stage. And audience participation, whether you wanted to participate or not.

I’m not sure that Michael from Wynnum (a couple of pictures below, in a dress), was particularly enthusiastic about being part of the show – particularly when he’d paid $20 to see it, but he got in on the fun and we all had a good laugh at him.

The Minister for lots of things including the Arts was there again, so Parliament mustn’t be sitting at the moment, or she must be hiding from her boss.

Or she needs another portfolio to keep herself and her entourage busy.

As well as the show, our entry fee included a tour of the museum … which, according to my untrained eye just seemed like a whole bunch of junk that should have been taken to the tip years ago. Kinda like Arno’s wall … cement your junk into a concrete wall and suddenly becomes a tourist attraction.

Huh?

Hmmm … maybe I could turn my office at home into a tourist attraction, because it has a whole bunch of junk lying around that should have been taken to the tip years ago …

It’s hard to appreciate just how isolated you are out here. On most of the roads leading out of Winton there is a sign that warns you how far you have to go to find your next fuel stop in that direction. Having a tiger in your tank is really all that matters.

You also have to watch out for the road trains. The picture above shows one taking up most of the road to Jundah, with 4 trailers. I assume that makes it a B-Quadruple?

And there was 2 of them, one after the other. And the road to Jundah is hardly a 4 lane highway.

We stopped off at the local grocery shop to get some essentials. Last time we were out here at Winton, I recall that there was only one shop, but now there are two shops. I also recall that the prices were extortionate … but with 2 local shops there seems to be more competition and prices are more reasonable.

In fact, I don’t know that we paid a great deal more out here than we do at home for stuff like milk, Jatz, and bottled water.

The water out here – direct from the Artesian basin – is pretty stinky, with a strong sulphur smell. You get out of the shower smelling worse than when you got in!

But the lady at the shop tells us that if you get a bottle of the water and put it in the fridge, it is the nicest water that you will ever taste.

I’m not sure whether that is a joke that the locals play on the tourists, or a fact, but we will give it a try and report back tomorrow.

The lady at the shop – also from Brisbane apparently, although she says she was born out here, lived in Brisbane, and has returned – went to some pains to tell us how safe it is out here. We noticed yesterday that the local coffee shop (the “Lost Poet” from yesterday, remember?) leaves all of their tables and chairs outside when they close up for the day.

She told us that the only “trouble” she can recall is when a car caught fire, and how everyone comes together to assist when someone has a problem.

Which reminds me of a line from OQ’s hero presentation last night: “Pickles are great, until you are in one”.

Nice to know that if we find ourselves in a pickle, one of the 1600 people who live here will help out.

On the subject of safety though, I do need to note that there is a big sign inside the toilet doors saying “WARNING: BEWARE OF SNAKES!”, that then go on to tell you not to get to close to a snake if you see one.

Why they need to give you this warning when you are in the loo I have no idea, but it certainly incentivises you to hurry up and not hang around for too long.

One of the things that we were happy to do on this trip was not be in a hurry. That means that there will be times when we just have a bit of a rest day.

Today was one of those days. As I’ve said previously, we have been to Winton previously and there are not a huge number of touristy things to do here … and we have already been for a drive around town a couple of times, so we just had a quiet afternoon.

MBW made toasties for lunch, and then we just poked around for a while.

I tried to think of some clever and witty things to say in the blog, and MBW went inside to read her book. I finished the Tattooist of Auschwitz today, and then I was ready for a nap.

But it suddenly got really hot and stuffy in the van – 30+ degrees outside in the shade, so we closed all of Percy’s windows and cranked up the air-conditioning for a few hours.

And I had a nap.

That’s about all of the excitement for today. Tonight we are off to see the final opera show called Dark Sky Serenade. It is being held at the Age of Dinosaurs site, about 30km outside of Winton on the road back to Longreach.

It should be a great night. I assume that everyone who’s anyone will be there again tonight with their soft cheeses, and bottles of white. And their reserved front-row seats.

But you’ll hear all about that tomorrow.

Tonight is our last night in Winton, and tomorrow we (literally) head off into the unknown. Well, unknown for us. From tomorrow morning we will be travelling roads that we have never travelled before.

Winton to Kynuna, then Kynuna to Julia Creek – home for tomorrow night. North and West to discover new places. It is under 300km and less than 3 hours, so it should be a relaxed day.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife