2 Aussie Nomads

It was a bit of a lazy day today, I have to confess. Sunday, the rest day, so that was fitting.

We had a tour of the Undara Lava Tubes this afternoon, so we had the morning to kill. It was also quite cool this morning – MBW put her slippers on – so it was a “sit in the sun and drink coffee” kinda day.

I had some administration to do. Just boring stuff – pay some bills, book some more leave (I don’t actually retire until the end of July and I’m on leave until then). Just boring stuff.

MBW went and lay on the bed and read her book.

It was just one of those mornings.

We are staying at Pinnarendi Station. The Undara Lava Tubes are in a national park (or maybe a nature reserve) about 46km back the way that we have already come. There was a reason for that – really just trying to get that bit closer to our next destination for when we leave here tomorrow, even though it means an extra 92km for Elsie and a bit over an hour in the car for us.

But we will be laughing tomorrow because we are that much closer to Cairns already. Well, that’s the hypothesis, anyway.

We could have gone for a drive, but the nearest township (Mt Surprise – population 138) is about another 25km beyond Undara, and we have been there already.

In the other direction is My Garnett (population 532) about 55km away, but experience tells us that it is likely to be a ghost town on a Sunday afternoon.

So we stayed at Pinnarendi Station and just chilled.

We had to be at Undara around 12.30pm for a 1.00pm kick-off, so we left Percy around 11.30am to give ourselves time to have a leisurely trip to Undara and have a look around the resort there before the Lava Tubes.

Just before 1.00pm we were rounded up into a couple of minibuses and taken on a 2km (or so) trip into the bush towards the Lava Tubes.

Our guide either didn’t introduce himself, or I missed it, but he was a South African gentleman.

Not that there is anything wrong with being South African, but we have been to 2 different nature reserves in the last few days (Cobbold Gorge and Undara Lava Tubes) and encountered several South African guides both times.

You have to wonder if South Africa exports tour guides as a commodity.

The Undara Lava Tubes were great. Created by molten lava flowing at different temperatures and at different times to create something like “a skin on boiled milk”.

There goes any desire I have for a hot chocolate tonight 🙁

Our guide said that the First Nations peeps wanted nothing to do with the tubes, because they see them as being a scary spiritual place. Even though those lava tubes were 120 million years old (… and don’t quote me on that …), there were piles of rocks at the entrance to one of the lava tubes that we were told had come down “only last year”.

The Rangers check the rocks every season to see if there are any loose ones.

Now I have to say that closer inspection seemed to indicate some large cracks in the rock, and there were some large rocks in the ceiling that only seemed to be just hanging on.

So if you did a risk assessment on going in there, I suspect that you may not go in at all. We must have signed a waver when we paid for the tour.

We looked in two lava tubes and they were both more like a cave than a tube … when you consider that a tube is normally open at both ends. And these tubes that we saw were both closed off at one end. But the belief is that the tube only appears to be closed – rather it goes downwards and is full of mud.

Our guide was telling us that they can get a build-up of carbon dioxide in the lava tubes and that is one of the reasons that the Aboriginals don’t like them. The build-up of CO₂ can (apparently) bring on a feeling of confusion and impending doom.

I confess that I was also having a feeling of impending doom with the sense that I was at the end of a long cave with rocks that could fall at any moment – potentially trapping or crushing me – and I was reminded of those boys that were trapped in that cave in Thailand in 2018.

I can’t even bring myself to watch the documentary on Netflix about that!

Our guide also told us that the first tube had about 1.5 metres of water through it up until about 6 weeks ago, as a result of the late wet season.

The second lava tube that we went through still had water on it – but only about 30cm deep – and so we were all invited to remove our shoes and go for a paddle along the walkway and into the water.

Cool and refreshing are the two words that spring to mind. It was fun and certainly a highlight of the walk.

We were back to Elsie just after 3.00pm, and back at Percy (Pinnarendi Station) by 3.45pm for a coffee and rest.

It has been funny weather today – cool this morning, hot at Undara but cool inside the lava tubes (as you would expect), and now (5.00pm) it is cooling off to the point that MBW has put on a hoodie.

Tomorrow we are heading off again – north east towards Cairns – although we are staying at a place called Fishery Falls that is about 40km south of Cairns. We couldn’t find anything that we really liked (or could afford) in Cairns.

We had considered staying at Palm Cove – north of Cairns – and having a few days of “beachside” holiday, but there was no availability in Palm Cove for the days we wanted. Plus Palm Cove is about another 65km north of Fishery Falls, so we would need to tow Percy all the way up there, and then all the way back again for our trip home.

It’s a bit of a tricky run into Cairns from here. We would have liked to go up through the Tablelands, but the roads down into Cairns are steep and twisty (some say treacherous), and so instead we are going to head towards Innisfail and then head north.

It only a short run tomorrow – just over 220km – so should be an easy driving day. MBW has advised me that we are leaving early, but let’s see what time we wake up.

3 nights at Fishery Falls, then 2 nights at Paronella Park, and then once Elsie’s nose is pointing towards home and those horses start galloping, there will be no stopping us.

MBW has pulled something out of the freezer for dinner tonight, so it will be a surprise to see what that turns out to be.

There are way too many midges around here and I am getting eaten alive, so I’m going to go and hide inside with the bug zapper.

Maybe I’ll go over to the ablutions block first and have a nice hot shower, and use another squirt of that 13 cent handwash.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

Did you know that in the 1980s, an American burger joint (A&W) tried selling 1/3 pound burgers at the same price as McDonald’s 1/4 pound burgers, but that they didn’t sell?

Why didn’t they sell?

Because people don’t understand fractions and assumed that a 1/3 pound burger was smaller than a 1/4 pound burger, and figured that it didn’t offer the same value.

Only a short trip today. About 203km from Forsayth through to Pinnarendi Station. About 2.5 hours travel time, not counting stops.

Pinnarendi Station is not a locality as such, but the name of a working cattle station. The actual location is called Forty Mile … which is probably just as unhelpful.

They probably should stop calling it Forty Mile and instead call it 64 Kilometre, but I can’t see that will be helpful either.

Let’s face it. If it was called 64 Kilometre, people would think it’s further away, right? And they wouldn’t go.

So how about I just say that we are about 200km SW of Cairns?

If you can recall me commenting on the gravel road into Forsayth from Georgetown, then I’m sure it won’t surprise you that it is still gravel. I mean, it’s only been 2 days.

Of the 40km road into Georgetown, probably 8km or so is pretty rough and corrugated. So it was a slow old trip out.

When we were at Cobbold Gorge yesterday, there was an older guy talking to another couple and he said that after dragging his van into Cobbold George over 37km of gravel, lights were broken, the microwave had fallen out, and there was dirt everywhere.

I’d suggest that he was driving too fast.

In any case I wasn’t talking the risk, so we did about 8km of gravel from Forsayth to Georgetown at about 40km/h.

You may recall that when we came through Georgetown on the way in, we were looking forward to stopping on the way out and have a poke around.

Bad idea.

Georgetown on a Saturday morning is closed. The coffee van was closed. Everything was closed. I must have imagined that there was lots to see, but clearly my memory isn’t what it used to be. There was hardly anything there of any value, and it was closed anyway.

But despite all of that, it is a pretty little town.

Sleepy, but pretty.

We did a quick lap of the township, then climbed aboard Elsie for the next leg of the journey to Mt Surprise.

Roads were mostly OK, but there were quite a few sections of single lane only that was pretty ordinary.

We rolled into Mt Surprise around 11.00am and were pleasantly … surprised. Another pretty little town that seems to have a history around both WWII and the railways. Lots and lots of vans and motorhomes stopped in Mt Surprise, so we stopped too and had a look around.

Mt Surprise is a very RV friendly town. They have a dump point right there in the main street next to the train station, so if you find yourself in North Queensland with a full toilet cassette in your caravan, Mt Surprise is the place to go.

Just don’t camp at the railway station.

I needed a caffeine hit, so I had a quick coffee before heading off.

Elsie still had a tiger in her tank from yesterday, so Elsie was happy.

I had coffee in my tank, so I was happy.

And MBW is always happy. Well, mostly …

From Mt Surprise it was only a short hop to Pinnarendi Station. About 50km. Good wide, fast road and we sat on 100km/h most of the way. Most of the trip was travelling east, but we hit a T intersection and turned north for the last 10km or so.

We had booked and paid for our space at Pinnarendi Station several days ago, so all we had to do was arrive and be told what site we are on. That should be a quick and straight-forward process.

There were 3 other vans ahead of us waiting to check-in when we arrived, and the process was long and rather tedious. It seems that the lady who does check-ins has a predetermined speech that she needs to give to all arrivals, and she explains all of the features and activities that can be done, whether you actually have any interest in doing any of them.

There is a sign in the men’s toilets that says you are only allowed one (1) squirt of liquid soap handwash because:

a) one squirt should be enough for anybody, and besides

b) each squirt costs 13 cents.

So I did as I was told and gave myself a 13 cent handwash.

MBW washed out some smalls, we had lunch, and now we are just hanging around camp and wondering what the poor people are doing.

It’s pretty warm here – about 30 degrees but there is a nice breeze blowing outside under the awning. Of course it could be a very pleasant 22 degrees – or even a chilly 16 degrees – if we went inside, closed all of the windows and turned on the air-conditioning … but that’s not the point, right?

The spaces here are lovely and (mostly) shady, and I’m thinking I should put my 20m wire up in a tree and see if I can make any contacts on 40m (7MHz).

I’m also debating whether to have a nap, or whether I could get away with a 10m antenna as an alternative to a 20m wire, but frankly my brain is hurting too much trying to figure that out just now, so I suspect that the nap may win the day.

BTW that story about the 1/3 pound burgers is true. You can read about it here.

This is living! Nothing to do and all day to do it.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

It has happened again. That’s the second time this week.

We awoke this morning to the sound of people around us packing up their vans, and leaving.

Beside us, on the other side of the road where we are parked, and behind us. They were all packing up and leaving. All except for the bloke immediately to our left – on the “passenger side” of Percy.

It happened in Karumba, and now it has happened here in Forsayth.

It must be us. Probably me. MBW is charming and lovely. In fact if you looked up the word “charming” in the dictionary, her picture would be there.

I don’t know what it is that we … er, I … keep doing to offend everyone, but I need to figure it out pretty fast. At least I haven’t offended the bloke directly beside us yet.

Although I am officially the worst Facebook friend in the universe, I do look at it on occasion when I need to be distracted from something unpleasant. Like a Proctologist appointment.

Not that I’ve had a Proctologist appointment recently, but I did check FB the other day. And there was a discussion on the LC200 forum about how much oil your Landcruiser uses, especially when towing.

So I thought to myself, “I’d better check the oil in Elsie.”

Actually that’s not true. What I actually thought was, “I wonder how to get the bonnet up so that I can check the oil.”

So this morning, before we headed off to Cobbold Gorge, I got the bonnet up and checked the oil. And it was fine. Halfway between the high mark and the low mark. So I’ll give it a top-up when we get back to civilisation.

I did notice in there under the bonnet evidence of birds feathers, dragonflys, dead butterflys, etc. Which probably goes some way to explaining what happens when a bird hits the radiator.

But checking the oil reminded me of Pierre-Jules Boulanger.

Who is Pierre-Jules Boulanger? That is a very good question, and I’ll tell you about him later.

So with the oil checked, breakfast consumed, and Elsie packed for a day at Cobbold Gorge, we headed out of the caravan park and swung by the local dam because it is one of the top 10 things to do in Forsayth.

To be completely truthful, there is probably only 3 things to do in Forsayth, and we have already done 2 of them, so the dam was the last one to tick off the list.

And what a lovely dam and picnic area it is. Far better than anything I have even seen in Brisbane.

Which is interesting, because we learned today that there are only 900 residents in this shire, and only 200 of them pay rates. So well done Forsayth!

At the dam we realised that there was something we’d left behind, so we swung back to the CP very quickly. It wasn’t far … you could probably stand in the middle of Forsayth and throw a rock in any direction, and it would land outside the town centre.

There are a lot of interesting rock formations around Forsayth. MBW reckons that they are real, but I’m not so sure.

We came back into the caravan park and pulled up next to Percy, and I saw that our neighbour – remember our neighbour? The only one we haven’t seemed to offend so far – standing at the front of his van and looking at me with this bovine expression on his face.

Maybe “inscrutable” is a better word that “bovine”, but you know what I mean. The same look you get from a cow when you drive past.

So I did the neighbourly thing and engaged him in conversation.

Me: “Hi. How are you today?”

Neighbour: “Bit slower’d be nice.”

Now I have to say at this point that the combination of his bovine inscrutable expression and his veeerrryyy slooowww speeeeeeech made me believe that he actually said “I’m a bit slow. Be nice.” Which confused me.

Honestly! That’s what I thought he said.

Me: “Huh?”

Neighbour: “Bit slower’d be nice. Keeps the dust down.”

Me: “Righto then.”

Update: It appears that I HAVE offended everybody in the caravan park.

So we got the stuff we needed and headed back out to Cobbold Gorge. It is about a 40km road, and as discussed yesterday, at least 37km of that is gravel.

To get out to Cobbold Gorge, you have to take the road to everywhere.

The first 3km of bitumen is a very nice surface, but at about the 2km mark you get a sign at the side of the road that says ”REDUCE SPEED. NO LINES. NO OVERTAKING”.

Like having no lines on the bitumen is going to be the worst problem that you encounter on this road today.

The road very quickly turned to gravel, and when I say gravel, I mean teeth-chatteringly rough gravel.

With some serious washouts. And corrugations. And cattle grids. And cattle. And water crossings.

But also some beautiful creeks.

It was lucky that we didn’t bring the Lamborghini on this trip, because it would never have made it to Cobbold Gorge on that road. But it would have been fun in a rally car 🙂

It wasn’t a quick trip, but then I didn’t want to rattle Elsie to bits on the way.

But we did see quite a number of cars and caravans coming out … and I couldn’t imagine how complex that trip would have been with a van on the back.

We got out to Cobbold Gorge around 11.00am and our tour wasn’t due to start until 1.30pm, so we checked in and then went and hung about by the pool. We had taken our swimmers so that we could indulge prior to the gorge tour.

We got ourselves comfy on beach recliners and watched some other people come in and get in the pool, only to watch them get out again looking very, very cold.

Rather than go to the trouble of getting into our swimmers just to freeze in the pool, we just stayed fully dressed and lazed on the recliners and enjoyed the sun and fresh air. MBW read her book and I had a nice nap.

We had a bite of lunch and got ourselves ready for the tour at 1.15pm as instructed.

We were in a group of 13 (there was probably 45 people all together, but split into 3 group) and Grant was our tour guide.

We all got into a small bus and headed down to the gorge.

What was really weird was the way that Grant gave his commentary. He did it in this really “sing-songy” voice, using really short sentences.

And there were some words that he simply couldn’t say. Like “genetically modified”.

The gorge was absolutely spectacular … and in typical fashion, I took about 200 photos of the gorge and none of them do it justice.

The gorge tour consisted of a 2 parts: a boat thrip through the gorge, and a walk through the nature reserve including a walk over the glass bridge.

The gorge tour was started with a safety talk which is to be expected given that we are out in the bush.

But it is always a worry when the first thing that you are told in the safety talk is where to find the defibrillator.

And the second thing that you are told is that “if anything happens to your guide, take the walkie-talkie off his/her belt and call for help.”

OK, that’s not particularly comforting but … all good to know.

Unfortunately we were the last ones to get onto the boat … but fortunately that meant that we ended up at the front, with perfect views of the gorge.

Here is a fun fact: Cobbold Gorge wasn’t discovered until 1992. That is only about 30 years ago.

Why? Because the people who owned the land raised cattle. They knew that the waterhole was there because that’s where they watered their cattle, but everything else was scrub and sandstone, so they simply never bothered going and looking.

It was only when their son and his friend brought a small tinny (aluminium boat) to the creek and followed it upstream, that they discovered the beauty of the gorge.

Then they turned 15,000 acres into a nature reserve.

After the boat trip we went for a 1.2km walk through the bush.

It was a fabulous day. Seriously hot up on the sandstone with not a cloud in the sky. But a fabulous day.

Nobody needed the defibrillator, and none of our guides needed assistance.

Grant must have had his whole commentary memorised, because if someone asked him a question, once he’d answered it you could see the cogs turning in his head as he worked out where he was up to in his spiel.

We got back to Elsie to find …

I don’t really believe it was actually 49 degrees outside, but it certainly felt like it.

We did the 37km of gravel and 3km of bitumen back to Forsayth in about an hour.

Topped up Elsie ready for the trip towards Pinnarendi Station and then the Undara Lava Tubes on Sunday.

Now before I forget … Pierre-Jules Boulanger.

He was the boss of Citroen during WWII. The Germans wanted to buy his trucks and he couldn’t refuse without becoming at risk of execution, so he played a trick on the Germans. All of the trucks that he sold the German army had a fake dip-stick installed with the oil level markings incorrectly labelled.

So when the German engineers serviced the trucks, they thought that the oil tank was full, but it was actually desperately short of oil … causing the trucks to break down and the engines seize.

The Germans thought it was just poor engineering, but it was actually Pierre-Jules Boulanger sabotaging the trucks.

You can read all about that here.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

Here is the leaderboard:

Geoff 3. Birds 0.

Yes, I hit another bird today. Somewhere from Karumba on our way to Normanton this morning, another slow-moving bird hit Elsie’s radiator, and exploded. It didn’t fly (pardon the pun) over Elsie and Percy like other ones have done.

I’ve checked Elsie’s radiator and while there is some evidence of bird remains there, the bird itself is not there. So I assume it went under Elsie.

I also ran over a small kangaroo this morning, but to be fair, it was already well and truly deceased. Only recently deceased, though.

Deceased, but still fresh, if you know what I mean.

The buzzards had already found it and were fighting over it.

It’s never wise to swerve suddenly to avoid something when you have almost 6 tons of machinery moving at 100km/h, but I also didn’t want to run over it.

Hmmm. I mean, it wasn’t ever going to try to get out of the way, so it was completely up to me to avoid it.

I managed to avoid running over it with Elsie’s wheels, and in that brief moment of relief that you have, Percy got it on the way through.

All MBW said was “eeewwww”.

As I said, it was already deceased, but I guess that’s not the point.

We see a lot of kites feeding on roadkill. Some of them are very risk averse and fly away as soon as you approach. Others are pretty keen not to leave their meal behind and stay until the very last moment.

We have also seen what we assume is an eagle or two feeding on roadkill, and they are seriously slow at lifting off and getting out of your way. I really don’t want to hit one of them though – while I am sure it would be life-altering for the bird, I’d reckon that Elsie will take some damage also.

We packed up most of our camp last night so we would be ready to get going as early as possible this morning. Percy’s awning was in, towing mirrors clipped onto Elsie, and not much left to do this morning.

No alarm this morning to wake us up, but we were awake about 6.45. Well, I was awake about 6.45, and MBW joined me in a state of consciousness around 30 minutes later.

You need extra beauty sleep if you are going to look as beautiful as she does 🙂

All the usual morning stuff – I’m sure you know by now that means ablutions and breakfast – and we were rolling out of the park around 8.20am.

50 minute run into Normanton and we stopped briefly at the supermarket to get a couple of things. We are going to be in some pretty small townships over the next few days, so we need to stock up when stuff is cheap.

You will remember the wisdom from my mate Jack Reacher?

Here is a quick quiz: Will groceries at Normanton (population 1500) be cheaper than groceries at Karumba (population 500)?

Bzzzzt. No points for you.

MBW emerged with only 2 litres of milk because – if we had purchased anything else – we would have needed to get the credit limit on our credit card raised.

“Eyewatering” was the word that MBW used.

We rolled out of Normanton and onwards towards Croydon. That is about 140km and an excellent road. I think we got around 17.5l/100km today which was nice. The closer we get to the more populated east coast of Queensland, the better the roads get.

Well, you’d think so, anyway.

We stopped in Croyden to have a poke around the Visitor Information Centre and look at the history of the township, and look at the trains.

You will recall that we took the Gulflander to Croydon yesterday, but caught the bus back so we didn’t have a great deal of time to explore.

Topped up Elsie’s tank, and we headed off on new (to us) roads towards Georgetown and Forsayth – home for the next couple of nights.

Just to be clear, we didn’t stop in Georgetown, but we needed to drive through on our way to Forsayth. We noticed that they have a coffee van in Georgetown, so that is a good reason to stop and look around on Saturday morning when we are next on the move.

With any luck they will have an Op Shop. If they also have cheap fuel, that will be a bonus.

The roads from Croydon were good, but pretty hilly so fuel economy wasn’t as good as it could be. But the roads were good. No complaints from me.

But MBW has been obsessing about why some road surfaces are black while others are red. Reddish, anyway.

If you know the answer to that puzzle, can you please let me know.

Frankly my dear, I don’t care so long as the road is two lane (one each way).

And then it wasn’t two lane. Just single lane.

But that’s OK. I only encountered one vehicle on the single lane bit and they pulled right off the road and stopped to let me pass. Road signs say that the smaller vehicle must give way to the larger vehicle, so I won.

But if it had been a road train, it would have been me sitting on the dirt.

The single lane road wasn’t too bad – I’ve been on better roads, but I’ve been on worse. At least it wasn’t gravel.

And then it became gravel. For a couple of kilometres, then back to bitumen, then back to gravel …

… then it became even trickier. Roadworks. Dirt. Soft and messy. With lots of graders and trucks.

Fortunately this only went on for a few kilometres and then we had bitumen for the remaining 5km or so into Forsayth.

Forsayth is a pretty little town (population 129), so not exactly a thriving metropolis. But the Forsayth Tourist Park is a friendly place and Ian – the owner/manager – walked us to our site and gave the directions to assist with reversing Percy into a tricky space.

I really do appreciate it when they give that personal service.

And only $30/night. Cheap, cheap.

He then took the time to tells us about everything going on around the place, and what there is to see nearby, before inviting us to “Happy Hour” tonight.

$15 parmys tonight, so while we have eaten out more than we have needed to, we are going to go over and support them anyway because places like this need all the support they can get so that they can survive and thrive.

Because they deserve it.

We did a quick walk around town and checked out the township and the trains (I can’t get it out of my system).

You may know that I don’t mind the odd Gingernut biscuit with a cup of coffee. Here is a fun fact: Arnotts make different GNBs for different states of Australia.

I guess that probably explains why the ones we bought in the NT seemed darker and harder than the ones I’m used to.

Weird.

Tomorrow we are going to Cobbold Gorge and that should be a great day. We decided to stay at Forsayth rather than right at Cobbold Gorge because we are better doing that last 40km or so without Percy on the back – we only have to come straight back out again on Saturday so it will shorten our trip when we leave and the less we tow Percy, the better fuel economy we get.

But mostly we are staying here because the 40km to Cobbold Gorge is 37km of gravel, and if I can avoid showering Percy with rocks all that way then there will be less damage.

Much easier to drive Elsie there and we will make better time anyway.

Okey dokey – I need to go and work up an appetite for tonight’s parmy.

I’ll tell you all about Cobbold Gorge tomorrow.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

We did something today that we haven’t done for … maybe 6 weeks. Something really unpleasant.

Something that I’d hoped never to do again.

We set the alarm to wake up at 6.00am.

Sunrise here in Karumba today is 7.03am. For context, sunrise in Brisbane today is 6.35am. So our sunrise is 30 minutes later. Which means it is dark for 30 minutes longer here in Karumba.

Old habits die hard. I was awake at 4.00am wondering what time it was, and worried that if I had slept through the alarm?

No, not yet.

I went back to sleep and woke again at 5.15am, wondering the same thing.

Nope, not yet.

I woke again at 5.57am, and realised that I may as well just shut off the alarm and get up, because near enough is good enough.

Unless of course you are performing brain surgery, in which case I’d suggest that near enough is NEVER good enough.

But no brain surgery here in Karumba. Today we are going on the Gulflander.

I’m not going to bore you with yet more sunset photos. 

Nope, no sir.

Today we were lucky enough to witness the sunRISE.

We needed to be at the Normanton Train Station by 8.00am, and Jolene tells us that trip from Karumba is about 51 minutes or so, so by a process of deductive reasoning, we figured that we needed to to leave Percy by about 7.00am.

My mate Jack Reacher reminds me, “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

So I advised MBW that we needed to leave about 6.50am to be in Normanton in plenty of time. That gives a nice “Geoff buffer” to allow for anything that could possibly go wrong.

Flat tyre, roadworks, meteor crashing to earth. You never know what could happen.

Unlike MBW, who likes to taunt me with “just one more thing that needs to be done before we leave” … which makes me very nervous when we leave much later than I am comfortable with.

Now if you do the math, if we leave at 6.50, and sunrise is 7.03, then we will see the sun rise on our way.

And rise it did. In the east, where it always rises. And which way were we headed?

East.

So the sun rose directly in front of us, astonishing us with its beauty, and blinding us with its brilliance at the same time.

Another thing that happened on the way in to Normanton was that we hit a bird. Or perhaps it is more correct to say that the bird hit us. Straight into the windscreen. Ka-boom!

This is the second bird that we have hit. 

MBW didn’t see the first one happen the other day because she was doing something important on her phone, but I was looking out through the windscreen and I saw this pretty little coloured bird smack into the windscreen and literally explode in a kaleidoscope of colour as it bounced off the glass and flew over both Elsie and Percy.

It looked pretty spectacular to me, but I imagine that it was fairly catastrophic for the bird. I didn’t see it land, but I expect that it didn’t get up again.

Today’s bird was the same cause and effect – too slow, hit the windscreen, feathers go everywhere – except that this one was a little black and white bird.

I’m not proud of this BTW, but I am glad that I didn’t run Elsie off the road and crash trying to take an evasive manoeuvre.

So the current tally is Geoff 2, birds 0.

I’m sure that if I hit a slow-moving pelican it will be a different story, but I’m trusting that won’t happen on this trip.

Anyway, today is Gulflander day, and we had to be at the Normanton Train Station at 8.00am for an 8.30am takeoff.

We checked in, got our souvenir coffee mugs, took photos, looked at the museum, and found a seat – right up the front with the driver.

Well, just behind the driver.

The Gulflander was built in the early- to mid-1900s and has a 102HP diesel engine with a 4 speed crash gearbox.

Let me put that in layman’s terms for you. Big noisy diesel rumble, lots of double-declutching, and lots and lots of crunching and grinding of the gearbox.

And lots of rocking, rolling, and shaking going on.

It was a 5 hour trip from Normanton to Croydon. We travelled at a top speed of 25mph (that’s 40km/h) with frequent slowing down to 10mph (about 16km/h) due to flood plains or for other safety reasons.

Safety reasons, like ensuring that we don’t go flying off the track and being derailed.

Garry – our driver, and station master at Normanton Station – gave us a great running commentary and pointed out all of the interesting features along the way. 

Like the 1974 flood marker.

You may recall that in 1974 Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin (you will have to go back a couple of weeks to read about that), but the same cyclone dumped so much water in the gulf that they had the worst flooding ever.

That flood level in 1974 would have been 2 or 3 metres above the top of the train.

We stopped at a place called Black Bull siding and met up with an “over 50s” bus trip, who then joined us for the remainder of the trip to Croydon.

Honestly, they could have called it an “over 70s” bus trip and they still would have been correct. It was walking sticks, wrinkles and blue rinses everywhere you looked.

No air-conditioning on the Gulflander, and it must have hit 32 or 33 degrees today by the time we hit Croydon. And it was a rough and bumpy trip … so I’m kinda glad that we are only going the one way and catching the bus back.

It was a great experience, but I have to say that it wasn’t built for either speed or comfort.

It was so bumpy, in fact, that my watch reported that I’d done about 1000 steps, while I had only been sitting in the Gulflander looking out the window.

Oh, and the return trip isn’t until tomorrow anyway, so we would have had to pay for a night’s accommodation in Croydon while we waited to go back again.

Garry and his guard Kiwi (yes, his name-tag said “Kiwi”) did an excellent job looking after us all and serving morning tea.

It wasn’t the most comfortable trip on the Gulflander, but you don’t do it for comfort. You do it for the experience.

As they say, it’s the journey, not the destination.

And it was an excellent experience, and a lovely day. And MBW and I had a lot of fun.

We arrived in Croydon around 1.45pm and were given a quick tour of the township by the local council representative, whose job it is – apparently – to pick up passengers at the train station, give them a quick loop of the township, and then drop you off so that (I presume) you can spend your money there.

So we got dropped off at the pub, and had a lovely lunch of a BLT and chips. By the time that was done, it was time to wander across the road to the spot where we were due to be picked up by the Cairns to Karumba bus service, to drop us off back at Normanton.

$73 for that experience (Senior’s rate), and while the bus was air conditioned and made the trip in only about 90 minutes (compared to the Gulflander’s 5 hours), the seats were sooo uncomfortable and narrow that I completely lost all feeling in my derrière.

So seriously uncomfortable that my bum went to sleep.

We were dropped off back at the Normanton Train Station, and we hopped into Elsie around 5.15pm and started the trip back to Karumba. Remember how we drove into the sun all of the way from Karumba to Normanton this morning? We drove into the sun all the way back to Karumba this afternoon.

Over the last couple of weeks, not only have we hit a bird or two, but we have also copped some serious rocks into the windscreen from passing trucks. Fortunately no obvious damage to the windscreen though …

… until this afternoon when we arrived back at Normanton. An enormous crack in the windscreen from the top of the glass (under the spot where the rear view mirror attaches to the glass), away in both directions and up towards Elsie’s roof.

Not ideal, but I’m pretty sure that we get a free windscreen with our RACQ car insurance … unless they removed that benefit the last time they jacked up the premium.

But I can’t do anything about that until we get back to Brisbane, unless the windscreen completely shatters, or I get a stern talking to by a police officer.

But if that happens, I’ll just use my charm. Flutter my eyelids. That kind of thing.

They say that you have to be careful driving at dawn and dusk. We saw a few kangaroos at the side of the road heading into Normanton this morning, but there were dozens of them feeding at the side of the road coming home tonight at dusk.

Dozens and dozens.

And I certainly wouldn’t want one of them to bounce of the bullbar and crash into the windscreen.

We have eaten way too much today, and eaten out too much generally, so we had breakfast cereal for dinner tonight, along with coffee and chocolate, and it’s almost time for bed.

It’s been a great day, and a great experience riding the Gulflander. It’s a “must do” if you find yourself up this way, but I’d urge you to consider only going one way as it is quite a long and taxing trip. And bumpy, And hot.

Off towards Cairns tomorrow, with some more fun stuff planned. We have about a 410km (4.5 hour) drive from Karumba through Normanton and Croydon to Forsayth for a couple of nights.

We are going to stop off in Croydon tomorrow for a while on our way through, so I’ll tell you more about it then.

Stay tuned!

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

If you cast your minds back a couple of weeks, you will recall that I sent out a “mayday” call for some book suggestions.

While I am sure that you have all been worried sick about whether I found something, MBW had my back and suggested Tom Thread-someone. He has two series’ of books – the female Texas homicide detective (2 books) and the male FBI special agent (3 books).

Well it’s an indication of how much I like an author as to how hard it is to put the book down. And when I say “book”, I don’t mean that in the traditional paper and ink way, but rather in the Kindle electronic download way.

Paper and ink is so yesterday.

I’ve finished the female detective books and started on the male FBI agent.

Crawled into bed early last night, feeling pretty tired, but also chuffed with myself that we had found a nice spot with no cost, and we had a lovely big space upwind of the toilet block.

I’d had a shower and crawled into bed, and got comfy with Tom. Well, with his book. Book 1 in the series of 3 books.

90% of the book was showing as complete, so I should get it finished easily last night.

Right, but also wrong. I got it finished in about 9 minutes … and it was only about 7.30pm.

But that’s not a problem. I just need to download the next one in the series off Amazon Unlimited. Except … downloading needs network connection, and we had no mobile coverage at Bang Bang.

Bugger.

One of the things that we love doing when we travel is to stop in the small townships and poke around their Op Shops to see what stuff we can find. MBW normally tackles the kitchen section (… or toys, or clothes, or …) while I look at the books to see what I can find.

You know what? This trip through the NT has found us going through so few little townships that we have virtually had no Op Shops to look in.

No Op Shops means no books bought … so I had no backup plan for my next book.

Fortunately MBW had my back once again, and now I am reading something else by a different author again, about a female FBI agent who is a profiler.

Not that any of that has any relevance on todays blog, but I thought you may be interested.

Or not.

One of the strange things about the wind is that while you can be “upwind” of something one moment, if the wind changes you can suddenly find yourself “downwind”.

So when I woke this morning, there was an unmistakeable .. sniff, sniff … smell in the air that was … unpleasant. The wind had shifted and we were suddenly downwind of the toilet block.

Needless to say we made a pretty hasty exit this morning. We had a quick coldpress coffee and we were on the road post haste.

Before that smell really embedded itself in our clothing and hair.

We had a relatively short run to Normanton and we decided that we would stop and have breakfast there.

The roads were good. No, that’s not true. The roads were GREAT.

Flat, smooth, wide, fast. It was hard keeping Elsie below 110km/h which was the posted speed limit. Only about an hour into Normanton, and we’d be there in no time.

And then there were roadworks. And then there were people mowing along the side of the road.

There were narrow bridges with the most beautiful water flowing through them. Under them. You know what I mean.

And then we got a sign that said “single lane road for the next 20km”. So that’s OK so long as there is no oncoming traffic.

Like the trucks towing horse floats. Or the cars. There was a police car.

So there was a lot of slowing down, and pulling off to the side of the road to allow another vehicle to pass.

But we got there safely.

Normanton. Home of Krys the crocodile.

Seriously, those roads are the widest roads that I hav ever seen. In Brisbane, they could probably fit 2 or 3 houses side-by-side across those streets.

And pubs! How many pubs does a town of 1500 people need? And not an Op Shop in sight.

We stopped for breakfast, checked emails and made a few phone calls.

As my mate Jack Reacher says, “Make your phone calls and check your email when you have 5G”. He is a wise man.

That done, I reached out to one of my colleagues from (where I used to) work to find out our chances of getting onto the Queensland Rail Gulflander – one of the tourist train services between Normanton and Croydon.

And it’s looking like we may be able to do that on Wednesday. Woohoo!

Karumba – home for the next 3 nights – was only about another 75km or 50 minutes, and we were keen to get here, get set up, do some washing, and kick back for a while.

We were tired.

That road from Normanton to Karumba is probably one of the best roads that I have driven on in a long time. Honestly, you could probably land a 747 on that thing, it was so long and straight, and flat.

We got into Karumba around 11.30am, found our site, and set up camp. A beautiful spot with nice shady trees and only $39/night.

We did some administration (code for washing, emails, blogs that had been written but not posted due to the lack of mobile reception, etc) then had a quick bite of lunch and went out for a looky-see.

And we found the water.

Beautiful. I could live here.

Some groceries, fuel and a look around to orient ourselves, and we were back at Percy around 3.00pm and settled in for a quiet afternoon.

Some of the things that we want to see in the next few days require just a little bit of management – confirming dates, checking distances, confirming availability … all that sort of stuff – so we spent the rest of the afternoon doing that.

MBW’s world-famous chicken enchiladas for dinner out in the cool evening watching the sun go down.

And while I’m sure that you are getting sick of sunset photos, here are some more.

That’s about it for the day. It was a good day – not too much driving, but seeing some things that we haven’t been before. Normanton (population 1500) is very pretty, and Karumba (population 500ish) has a really casual, beachy feeling to it.

We are really looking forward to a couple of days of rest, and (hopefully) a trip on the Gulflander down to Croyden, then the bus back again.

And it looks like we have been able to plan and lock in things for the next week or so, so that is a load off our minds.

Once we leave Cairns, we will probably think about making a run for home, so it is likely that we will be back in Brisbane late June.

If you are talking to Zach, please let him know that he will need to put the diswasher on soon, mow the lawn and clean the pool.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife

Another cool night last night, and another cool morning this morning. Around 7 or 8 degrees which was unpleasant for us, but must have been a great deal more unpleasant for the people beside us in a tent.

At least we had hot water for a shower.

We didn’t set any records getting out of the WWII Airfield free camp this morning, but 8.15 wasn’t anything to be ashamed of.

We are still trying to catch up days after staying longer than we planned in Darwin.

Yesterday was a long day – around 650km – so we were in the sack early and woke with the birds.

6.30am. Yikes! I don’t want to make a habit of that!

If you have been following along you will recall that a couple of weeks ago we had a 24.5 hour day when we crossed into the NT and turned our clocks back 30 minutes.

Yesterday they took it back off us again when we crossed back into Queensland, and we had a 23.5 hour day.

Today we were targeting about 400km, but the difference between yesterday and today was that yesterday we really only went through one township – Camooweal – while today we were going through a few. Well, two to be exact but they are both significantly larger in population than Camooweal.

Camooweal is a “blink and you miss it” kind of place, while Mt Isa and Cloncurry both have supermarkets, and gyms, and coffee shops, and ATMs, and Supercheap Autos.

Well, Mt Isa has a Supercheap Auto. Cloncurry had an Icom dealership.

I may have mentioned that we fill up Elsie when fuel is cheap, and top her up when it is expensive. And when I say “top her up”, I mean put in just enough to get us to the next cheap fuel location.

Mt Isa was only about 45km from last night’s stop, and the Elsie’s fuel range indicator said that we had about 85km remaining in the tank … so we have plenty of fuel to get to Mt Isa … right?

Maybe.

I obviously miscalculated how much I put in at Camooweal, because by the time we arrived in Mt Isa there was only about 20km range remaining. Or maybe the condition of the roads resulted in must worse fuel consumption than I expected.

We made it OK, but I think that Elsie was getting thirsty.

Not only does Mt Isa have cheap fuel ($2.04/litre), but it also has a Coles and a Woolworths, so we had the opportunity to stock up on groceries.

… except that both Coles and Woolworths are closed on Sundays … so no stocking up was able to be done.

We stopped at the side of the road in the Isa and had a video call with some of our favourite little people (Teddy and Lili), which meant that our emotional tanks were full also.

Full tanks, so off we set towards Cloncurry.

Our experience on the roads between Cloncurry and Three Ways (basically the straight road that runs east to west) is that a combination of bumpy roads, potholes, hilly terrain, cross winds and head winds together result in poor fuel consumption. On that east-west road – travelling in both directions – we were lucky to get below 24 litres/100km.

That situation wasn’t helped any by a large number of pushbikes that were out for a Sunday morning ride. The highway is quite narrow – only one lane each way, and quite windy and hilly with a lot of blind corners – and there just wasn’t enough space to easily (and safely) swing out onto the wrong side of the road to pass them. 

So there were times where we were stuck doing 20km/h behind them because we just couldn’t get past. Well, not without knocking them off their bikes, and I’m fairly certain that there are rules about that.

And there was plenty of chatter on the radio from truckers who were less than pleased with the situation.

Yep, pushbikes have a right to ride on the roads too, and they did it on a Sunday morning when – I assume – traffic was lighter. But it was still pretty chaotic. And dangerous.

And frustrating.

You see some strange road signs warning about various things, and this one caught our eye. I assume that it means to beware of giant cows that eat cars?

Or maybe not.

We arrived in the Curry around 11.00am with just a few things to do. Fill the water tanks again because we are off grid again tonight, empty the grey water, get coffee, and make a booking to stay in Karumba.

Cloncurry is a very RV friendly town. Wide streets where you can easily turn a bullock train around … or a caravan for that matter … and a nice rest area just out of town with a dump point and potable water facilities.

Plenty of reasonably priced fuel at stations where you can easily pull in your caravan (… many of them have low roofs, or very small spaces between bowsers which makes it very difficult to manoeuvre a van).

And it is a pretty little place to boot. We went to a local coffee shop to get coffee, but we only managed to progress one place in the queue in about 8 minutes, and we just couldn’t be bothered. Going out for coffee and breakfast must be a popular pastime in the Curry on a Sunday morning.

Someone that we were speaking with the other day said that they were heading east and planned to be in Townsville for the Super V8s racing there soon. Something that I would really like to see one day.

You don’t get an appreciation of the logistics involved in moving the racing from one location to another, but I imagine that there is a lot of complexity involved.

We saw this car carrier in Cloncurry that is obviously on its way to Townsville for the race and transporting all of the official vehicles.

I’d never really given that any thought before …

So with the water tanks filled and our booking in Karumba secured for three nights from Monday night, we set off north on roads that we have never driven on.

I mentioned that the road from the Curry to Three Ways gives bad fuel economy. Travelling north towards Normanton and Karumba, we were getting an average of 18.5 litres/100km which was far more acceptable.

But then the roads were flatter, more even, and nicer to drive on.

We stopped for lunch at the Quamby Hotel which was about 45 minutes north of Cloncurry. They get good ratings, and we were getting hungry. And it is a quirky little pub.

MBW pointed out that we have only eaten out once so far on this trip, and that was lunch at Julia Creek. Sure, we have bought things to eat, but many of them were just a quick bite and often fundraising anyway.

So we stopped at the Quamby Pub and had steak sandwiches for lunch. And because we had some network coverage, we were able to upload a couple of long-overdue blogs.

The original plan was that we would stay at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse at Four Ways tonight. Four Ways is a location north of Cloncurry where roads to Lawn Hill, Normanton, Cloncurry and Julia Creek all meet.

But we were keen to stay off the grid again (actually we were keen not to spend any money again), so we found another location about 80km beyond Four Ways. Plus some WikiCamps reviews of the Roadhouse described the owner in not particularly flattering terms and gave him increasingly poor ratings, so even though there were plenty of vans stopped there, we kept going.

We blasted through Four Ways around 2.30pm and kept on towards home for tonight – a free camp called Bang Bang Rest Area.

The section from Four Ways to Bang Bang had quite a bit of roadworks going on, with a few bits of dirt (getting ready for bitumen to be replaced), and road crews working in a few locations.

And we arrived in Tropical North Queensland.

Just like the Promised Land, only … Tropical 🙂

One of the most unusual things that we saw was a paddock of anthills, just before we arrived at Bang Bang. There must have been hundreds of them on both sides of the road. Quite unusual, but also quite stunning.

A few stops at traffic lights and a few stop/go people doing it the old fashioned way, and we arrived at Bang Bang Rest Area around 3.30pm.

Only one other van here when we arrived and they had jagged the better spot further away from the toilets. There is probably room for 10-15 vans at a pinch, but rather than cramp their space, we stayed at the toilet end, upwind of the loos.

A pleasant little free camp site for the night that serves our only purpose of somewhere to stay the night.

As a wise person once said, “Home is wherever I park my caravan”. So tonight home is Bang Bang Rest Area, about 110km south of Normanton.

I will say that despite my complaints about the cold, the further north we go again, the hotter it is getting. When we stopped at BBRA it was 27 or 28 degrees, and once we had set up for the night, we were back into shorts and T-shirts.

We bought lunch at the pub today, so dinner tonight will be eggs on toast. We figure that we had better hurry up and eat those eggs before they turn into chickens.

Although given the bird flu issues and the shortage of eggs in Coles, maybe we could sell them on eBay?

I must say that I am looking forward to a short day tomorrow and staying in Karumba for 3 nights. And getting some rest. We have done some long distances over the last few days, but that’s OK because we have travelled (most of) these roads before, and there is not a great deal to see anyway.

But now we will start to be going through small townships again, so we will have something to slow down for and look at. And because tomorrow is Monday, there is a better chance of things being open. Everything out here closes on the weekends, and in many of these small townships you could fire a cannon down the main street on a Sunday and not risk hitting anything or anyone.

Although it seems that if you fired a cannon into the coffee shop in Cloncurry on a Sunday morning, you’d probably wipe out most of the township while they sip their lattes.

The sunsets continue to be spectacular. After dinner we went out and watched the sun set over the toilet block.

The perfect end to the perfect day.

And MBW says that there is no romance in our marriage … ha!

Ciao

#Retirement2024 

#VanLife 

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 

Brrrr.

Let me say that again.

Brrrr.

We went to bed last night pretty early. I think that MBW was asleep by 9.30pm, and I read a bit longer until 10.00pm.

The guy behind us (the one with the NSW plates on his LandCruiser and Queensland plates on his van) was sounding a bit emotional watching the Women’s State of Origin, with cries of “come on ref” and “no, that’s a penalty”.

I don’t know who won the game, but I have a working assumption that some of the decisions didn’t go NSW’s way.

It was warm when we went to bed last night. The air was cool when I was walking back from my shower, but it was pretty toasty in Percy. So toasty in fact that I threw the blanket off when I finally headed off to the Land of Nod.

And that was the last thing I remember … until I woke up in the dark, shivering.

I think it was about 5.30am. Pitch black. Someone had pulled the blanket up. I don’t remember doing it, and MBW swears that it wasn’t her either … so either some elves came in during the night and shined everybody’s shoes and pulled up the blankets, or one of us did it.

I don’t believe the elf theory, and experience tells me that when MBW and I have a difference of opinion I am normally wrong anyway, so I’ll have to assume that I did it in my sleep.

But even with the blanket up, my feet still felt like two blocks of ice, so I did the right thing and pulled up the quilt also.

When I emerged from under the quilt a bit later, and long enough to check the temperature, it seems that it was about 13 degrees … which is unpleasantly cold when you are becoming accustomed to 33 degrees that feels like 37.

Not a huge incentive to get out of bed.

But get up I did, and I put on the little portable heater to generate some hot air.

What a shame the lady from Bitter Springs who came in on the Ghan and was having her surprise 50th birthday adventure even though she is now 52 wasn’t in the van with us. She was full of hot air.

My mother always used to say that “if you can’t think of something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

So forgive me. My comments about the Ghan lady were not nice. They were true, but still not nice.

Psst: If you want to get the scoop on the Ghan lady, read yesterday’s blog.

Elsie was still (mostly) hooked up from last night, so with our normal morning stuff done and dusted it was a pretty quick and effortless path to departure.

You’d expect that we could have been on the road by 7.30am or 8.00am, but no … it was closer to 9.15 before we pulled out and then we stopped at Mataranka to top up the fuel tank and pay Percy’s registration that is due tomorrow.

Like my mate Jack Reacher says, “Pay your bills when you have internet available”. Or something like that.

So it was closer to 10.00am before we actually got going in earnest.

As we were pulling out of the Bitter Springs Caravan Park, there were already people checking in, and a row of about 5 or 6 vans in convoy arrived and all pulled in together. Good luck getting space for all of you … we only freed up one spot when we departed.

We were heading south today.

We were really surprised at how many vans were travelling north. It was almost like everyone with a caravan is migrating north for the winter, which is probably not too far from the truth. I’m sure that if I checked more closely, they are probably all from NSW or Victoria where the weather is cold and miserable.

We needed to decide how to occupy our tiny minds today, and the choices were to do Country & Western karaoke, or count how many north-bound caravans we saw.

Given that neither of us even likes the sound of our own voices, we decided to count caravans. By the time we had made this important decision, we had probably already passed 40 vans, so that was our agreed starting point.

So how many north-bound vans did we see today? Ha! You will need to wait until the end of the blog for that important piece of information.

There is really nothing of note to report on our trip today.

We did almost 500km, and the temperature didn’t get over 21 or 22 degrees all day. I was in jeans all day because it was so cool.

We had a couple of leg stretch stops along the way.

Comfort stops. Lunch stops. Coffee stops, which then result in the need for more comfort stops. And some genuine “get out and stretch your legs” stops because driving for hour after hour is tiring.

We stopped at Elliot for lunch around 12.30 and topped off Elsie’s tanks again because fuel was cheap.

And when I say “cheap”, I mean that it was less eye-wateringly expensive than at other places where we have filled up. If I had my time over, I’d bring a 20 litre Jerry can of diesel with me … not so we can drive longer distances without stopping, but so that we can carry enough fuel to get us past the really expensive places and allow us to fill up at the less expensive places.

As it is, I often stop at an expensive fuel stop and put in just enough go go juice to get us to a less expensive fuel stop where I can fill up.

But that assumes that we get back to the Northern Territory again some time. And given MBW’s comment the other day that she has decided she prefers beach holidays to outback holidays, I’m guessing that we are likely destined for North Queensland holidays in future.

It’s not like the NT doesn’t have beaches, but the box jellyfish and the crocodiles make them seem less … appealing.

We heard some chatter on the radio yesterday about a van that hit a pothole just south of Elliot and rolled over. That’s not ideal, but apparently the road crew were already out today filling holes.

We had an interesting game of “dodge the potholes” ourselves today – we are back on the roads that had a great deal of flood damage, and the closer we get to the Barkly Highway (the one that takes us east into Queensland), the more potholes we see.

More roadworks, more “reduce speed” signs … although to be honest I would have to speed up to achieve the lower speeds that they require around roadworks.

We are quite happy to beetle along at about 95km/h, which seems to be a sweet spot that allows us to achieve best fuel economy while also not barrelling off the road and dying in a massive fireball.

Because we will be off the grid for a few nights now, we have filled Percy’s tanks, and that extra 200kg of water sitting on the tow hitch makes everything just that little bit more challenging to keep on the road at speed.

And it messes with Elsie’s fuel economy. About 22 litres/100km average today, which wouldn’t make the environmentalists very happy.

Actually, it doesn’t fill me with joy either, but you have to do what you have to do. I’ve said it before – if I wanted fuel economy I’d have bought a bicycle.

We have been looking for somewhere cheap to stay tonight … and when I say “cheap” I mean “free”. We really just need somewhere to crash (figuratively) at the end of a long drive, have dinner, sleep, and continue on our way.

We had a few options that gave consideration to how tired we would feel, and we finally decided on one called Churchill’s Head. It’s kinda in the middle of nowhere, in between nothing and Three Ways (the turnoff back to Queensland).

According to WikiCamps, we were to look for a signpost near a Telstra radio tower. We found that and followed the instructions past an enormous washout to the parking area at the top.

I don’t know how Evil Knievel would have felt about that hole, but I was feeling pretty terrified.

There was nobody else there … which was quite lucky because if another van had been there, it would have been impossible to manoeuvre our way back out again. It was a very small space. As it was it took about a 7 point turn to get around and out.

So we resorted to following Jolene’s directions and found ourselves on a different road, and then 5km further along – hey presto! – we found the space we were looking for.

We were a bit concerned about ensuring that there was at least another van nearby. I’m sure you have seen that movie (Wolf Creek?) about the nutcase who abducts and kills some travellers in the NT … and we don’t want to be the sequel.

And I have a feeling that was on the Stuart Highway too? Spooky.

Only one other van here when we arrived, but another 2 or 3 arrived after us. Plenty of space for everyone and not much road noise. And hopefully none of them are psychopathic serial killers.

And we didn’t need to unhook Elsie.

And it was free.

Hopefully we won’t freeze to death tonight, because the weather is definitely cooling down and the little portable heater wont work without 240V.

Tomorrow is just more of the same. Drive. Coffee. Comfort stop. Fuel up. Repeat.

We are about 100km from the turnoff back east to Queensland, so we will be looking for another freebie again tomorrow night. Last time on the Barkly Highway travelling east to west, we stayed at the Barkly Homestead which is about half-way. While that was quite nice, we are happy to stay off the grid somewhere when we are tired, and stay at no cost again.

I know that you are all beside yourselves wanting to know how many vans we passed today heading north.

And the answer is 216 vans heading north. Two hundred and sixteen.

And you will recall my previous comments about how everyone wants to wave at you as you go past each other? That’s a lot of waving.

A lot of being friendly.

I think I have developed a bad case of RWI – repetitive wave injury.

I tried to outsource the waving to MBW, but she wouldn’t have any of it. So it was up to me to wave.

We also saw a convoy of Army vehicles heading north. About 40-50 vehicles in all. Not sure if they were going somewhere, or going home from somewhere, but they didn’t seem to be any great hurry to get there.

And most of them waved too.

Time for coffee. I’m going to have to get the generator out so we have 240V for a short time, but it will be worth it.

Ciao

#Retirement2024

#VanLife