21 August 2016

It seems like it been forever since I last downloaded.  My last email was written in Mataranka NT where we had a day off from driving.  Mataranka’s claim to fame is thermal streams that you can float down in 28c water.  Very relaxing.  After Mataranka we continued on to Daly Waters and back on to the Savannah Way.  This section of the trip involved many days on dirt roads with several creek or river crossings.  Very remote country.

We have now crossed the Gulf Country ie the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria and are now on sealed roads.  Yay!  The weather continues to be hot but less humid in the gulf country.  We have arrived in Cairns having reached the end of the Savannah Way and suddenly are surrounded by green grass, people, traffic and lots of towns.  After two months on the road the car has been washed and vacuumed.  We feel like we have rejoined civilisation at least for the moment; we still have four weeks of travel ahead of us.

Observations filling my head:

Remoteness

• We haven’t been in or anywhere near a town big enough for a supermarket in nearly three weeks.  This develops a strong need to replenish our stock of food and to remember ‘what was it I said I needed to buy when I am next in a town’.   Of course that conversation in your head was weeks ago and in a very different setting.  Now you just have to try to remember and visiting camping stores is always a good way to prompt your thinking, alcohol outlets also help.

 

US Taxpayers and the GPS

• I would like to recognise and thank the US taxpayer and their investment in GPS satellites.  This is the first time we have used the SATNAV system so much and what a value it has been. Without guess work the navigation system tells me how far I have to go to my destination and the software in the car tells me the range I have left in my fuel tank, especially useful when driving in 4WD.  Across the vast distances on dirt roads when refuelling points are separated by 100s of kilometres these two numbers, distance and range are my guiding stars.  So thanks again US taxpayers, keep it up.

 

Strange aircraft

• On the side of the road at Daly Waters is this broken shell of an aircraft.  According to the plaque in the pub the plane was operated by Australian spies during WW2 and was present when the first A  bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  It was there to take pictures.  And yet it’s not in a museum it’s just left on the side of the Stuart Highway to deteriorate and how many people drive past this relic without ever wondering about its past.

 

A Tale of Woe

The Premonition

• On the first night of our travels I unwrapped a mattress overlay for Barb.  We had not installed it prior to departure and so I had the large plastic bag it came in to discard.  Now, I thought this is an excellent piece of plastic sheeting.  I don’t know what it is good for but it seemed too good to just throw away.  At this stage the minimalists amongst you are shouting throw it away!  (You know who you are.)  I compromised and cut a section of plastic bag and folded it up for storage.  I had a solution to an as yet undefined problem. It was light and compact and therefore needed to be kept.  This happened on 18 June.

The Event

• On 7 August as we drove into Doomadgee, an aboriginal community, on a wonderful piece of sealed road a passing car threw up a rock which destroyed the passenger window right behind the driver’s seat.  The window went off with an incredible bang.  In all my years of driving I have never seen a passenger window broken by a passing rock.  To make matters worse this happened on a sealed road after all the kilometres we had driven on corrugated, dirt roads!

The Repair

• The plastic sheet suddenly was the solution to the problem of a missing window.  With lavish use of duct tape and with the plastic sheet trimmed to size I had a workable window that would last until it could be repaired in Cairns.   Well almost last, it required regular maintenance of additional tape as the hot days soften the adhesive but it is so much better than no window with clouds of dust entering the car.
• This to me is a salutary story and valuable rationalisation for why some stuff is useful and should be kept.  Why some stuff needs to be kept may not be immediately obvious but in time all shall be revealed and you will celebrate the day you kept that piece of something that seemed to be a solution to an undefined need.

The Tragedy

• A small piece of glass fell down into a case of beer and between two cans.  With the bouncing on corrugated roads the tiny chip wore a hole in one of the cans of beer, released the pressure in the can and allowed beer to slowly spill on the floor of the car; that was a tragedy.

Campsites

• It amuses me that once you pay for a campsite and set up your camp that the piece of land you are established on suddenly becomes yours and anyone walking across it is suddenly a trespasser.  Nothing is ever said you are just thinking, this is my site what do you think you are doing walking there!  Of course as soon as you drive away your site simply reverts to the surrounding bush.

Employment in the Outback

• It seems everywhere we go someone is looking for people to employ.  There have been ads for camp cooks during mustering on cattle stations, there are vacancies at campgrounds and even some that have closed because the cattle station is mustering and they can’t find the staff to keep the campground open.  At Hells Gate Roadhouse we found an Italian family operating the roadhouse and campground. Hells Gate has only recently reopened after being shut down for illegal alcohol sales.  What is incredible is finding this family who were all well dressed and well groomed in the middle of nowhere.  A little piece of Europe in the Gulf country.  They are making a huge effort and the Hells Gate campground will be a place to stop in coming years.

The Circle of Life

• Latvian and Polish youth work in UK restaurants, hotels and bars.  The British and Germans work in Australian and New Zealand restaurants, hotels, campgrounds and bars.  And the Australian youth work in US coffee shops and bars.  All the older people ask ‘why aren’t our young people working in these jobs?’.  They are, just in another country!

Burke and Wills camp

• It’s pretty sobering to visit Camp 119 of the Burke and Will expedition.  You can still see a few of the remaining trees that they blazed back in 1861.  The trees are not big now and yet they were big enough to mark over a hundred years ago.  It would suggest these are very old trees that grow slowly.  Very poignant place to visit when you think this was the last campsite for this expedition before their dash to the coast.

 

 

That’s it for a while.  We are now faced with the dilemma of ‘where to from here’.  I think the fear is that once we turn south we are effectively heading for home rather than away from home as we have been doing for 2 months.