OK, so we finally made it!
OK, so I finally got around to doing the blog!!
and it only took 2 years!!!!!!
Stats
- 8 weeks
- 11,969km
- Diesel usage = 2235.2 litres
- Total Diesel Cost = $3184.67
- Average Fuel economy = 5.56km per litre
- 1 x Broken rear window
- 1 x sheared roof rack bolt
- 1 x dent in rear bumper (The handbreak on Barbara failed)
- 1 x Shredded tyre.....going offroad to collect firewood
- 4kg weight gain = Suzy
- Lots of Midgey scars = Suzy
- Nearly broken wrist/crushed hand = GM
- Post Holiday Blues = GM & Suzy
- Destination Cape York 2017 – www.cape-york-australia.com = our Bible for the trip.
©
2014 was when it was supposed to happen, but you know how
life gets in the way sometimes? (Trip to
Europe, return trip to Uluru and Kings Canyon, New house to build, etc, etc.) No
more excuses!! 2017 is the year, and we’ve done it!! We’ve lived another dream, and all with a
little bit of help from Barbara 😊
Yesterday we touched the tip, and I reckon that’s when GM’s
luck changed as well 😉
I haven’t been doing my blog weekly as planned, I haven’t
been taking notes as regularly as I used to.
I feel almost resentful at the thought of having to sit at the computer,
but here’s my office this afternoon in the shade of the Punsand Bay Camp
resort...bar and all….Scotch and Dry thanks….Cheers!!....., just to make it
easier to get motivated. The music is
chill and the geckos are doing their little kissy calling noises.
I’ll start with yesterday, Thursday, 17th August
around 8.30am in the morning. We made
our way to the very northernmost tip of mainland Australia via a 7km shortcut
over a very sandy 4WD track. There was
one other car in the carpark when we got there.
We have heard so many stories on the way here about the hour-long queues
for pictures at the tip, so we thought we’d head off before the tour
buses. After a 10 minute walk/climb
among the rocks we finally reached the tip, fully loaded up with the camera,
tripod, champers and our new fancy unbreakable wine goblets from Carnavon Gorge,
only to find we had the place all to ourselves!! How awesome is that right???? We took the obligatory tourist pics, drank a
bottle of champers that we bought in Emerald QLD, (we drank the really good
stuff at Carnarvon Gorge on the way up here) and all the while the sun shone down on
us. Million dollar views, the
works!! Then down came Luke, Kelly and
Kelly’s brother Jay from Albany in WA.
We’re on first name terms with everyone we’ve met or waved to on this
trip. This is how we Cape York vets roll
you know 😉 Anyway, they’re doing the
North, South, East, and Westernmost points of mainland Australia. Lucky kids!!
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| I stood right on the edge to take this, so I've been further north than GM!! |
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| People have their memorials here....nice idea :) |
By this time, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds for
the morning, the odd spray shower, and temperature down to around 28
oC.
After taking a heap of pics for the kids, the
first busload of oldies made their way down over the rocks.
Some of them were a wee bit wobbly, so we all
helped them get to the tip and took some amazing pics for them.
I love that they’re doing something so remote
that most Aussies wouldn’t even contemplate.
I don’t think that most people are aware of how close and accessible
most of this country is if you try and think outside the box.
We tend to get so caught up in the
seriousness of work and money that we overlook the importance of living.
We then went for a drive to Somerset Bay where Cape York's
original council and administrative centre was based before relocating to
Thursday Island (or TI as the locals call it).
There’s not much there, a cross, the Aussie flag, and three indigenous
graves. We toodled around for the rest
of the morning, drove along the 5 beaches and then ended up at Cable Beach.
(Just around the bend from Punsand Bay where we’re staying at the moment. If you ever decide to make the effort,
Punsand Bay is a fantastic set up…..especially good compared to some of the
places we’ve stayed!
We’d packed some spam and salad wraps with garlic aioli…..note
the spam….we really are living the high life at the moment!😜
After fishing advice from some
local guy called Dale (we’d been comparing tan lines at the bar the night
before) – I think he’s a Torres Strait Islander – he won! - We chose to do a
bit of fishing and lo and behold!!! GM
caught a fish off the beach!!! One that was
actually big enough to eat!!! We had it
for lunch today with a salad and it was superb😊
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| Dale you're a legend!!!! |
See!! His luck
changed the day he touched the tip!! I
expect fish for dinner whenever he goes fishing from now on!! Nearly 60 and nearly a fisherman…Woo
Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!! (See, you’re never too old to learn!!)
I think maybe it’s time to go back to where it all
began………..
We left home on Friday 21st July, 2017. It was cold, dark and bloody freezing….minus
1.4 degrees, foggy, wet and miserable, but we hardly felt a thing, we were so
excited!! I’m not sure if it was because
we were going on an adventure or because we were going to where it was warm!
Our first day was a non-tourist day that would take us to an
old school mate of mine. The drive was
dull and dreary until around 9.30am when the sun came out. GM pulled his sun visor down only to discover
two of his workmates smiling sweetly at him.
There were a lot of “What the's" followed by a few choice words that
turned my delicate little ears a deep rosy colour. They didn’t want him to forget about them
during his weeks away. Jacqui and Trevor
live in the middle of nowhere…Ariah Park….a tiny community in the south of NSW
which is “famous” (I use this word very loosely) for its “Wowsers, Bowsers
& Peppercorn trees”. It was lovely
to catch up, and we went for dinner at the Temora hotel with Jacqui, her
daughter Emily and daughter-in-law Tay who had made the effort to drive all the
way from Wagga to see us.
Up and out early the next morning, another freezing cold
morning of minus 4 or so, which saw Jacqui and Trevor with burst water pipes,
and flooded laundry and bathroom. This
has been such a cold frosty winter. Good thing I filled the kettle for them the
night before or they wouldn’t have been able to even have a cuppa!!
We stopped at the West Wyalong bakery for toasties and
coffee and then on to Parkes. This is
the place that has the satellite dish that transmitted man’s first walk on the
moon. Interesting little place, with an
Elvis museum, some awesome cars and the dish itself, which is what I found most
interesting. It’s also the first time I
saw Apostle birds. I could just take
them all home with me. They are so funny
and full of character, and very cheeky.
We kept going up the Newell Hwy until we reached Dubbo, and
then decided to do the tourist drive through the Warrumbungle NP where we eventually found a camp for the night.
What a beautiful spot. NSW do
amazing National Parks if this one is anything to go by. There were Kangaroos everywhere, and the Park
and facilities were amazing. The only
thing extra they could have done for us was turn the heater on. Another freezing night! Warm as toast under
the covers, but you can’t stay there forever, especially if you need to get to
Cape York. GM had a bottle of Glayva
that mum had given him for his BD, so this certainly helped warm the insides
(thanks Mum xx)
The next day saw another full day of driving, pretty much no sightseeing, but we camped up not that far from the QLD border, a little off the road where we woke again to a well below freezing morning. This one was the worst of the lot as there wasn’t a spot of condensation on anything. I’ve never ever been anywhere as cold as this without moisture. It hurt to touch anything!
The next morning saw us reach Roma, and then Injune in
QLD.
GM worked in Injune a couple of
years back building the water treatment plant for a gas plant, so we went for a
drive to check that out, then onto Carnarvon Gorge.
A really good drive!
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| Painted Silos.....we didn't see too many of these but there sure are clever people out there! I can't remember whether these were in NSW or QLD |
Carnarvon Gorge!
WOW!
I’m coming back here!
This is surely one of the 7 natural wonders of the world?
Put all the gorges in the Kimberley together and there you
have it!
Back to Carnarvon Gorge!
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t
this! I had pictured your standard gorge
like over in the Kimberley, but this place is one gigantic gorge filled with
the most beautiful gorges, creeks, and scenes you could imagine.
We stayed at Takarakka camping ground, a little like a
5-star resort for campers. No pool, but
that was fine as we had natures swimming pools around us. There was only one waterhole you weren’t to
swim in, as that was where the platypus live.
Takarakka camping ground has happy hour each evening where
you can have a beer or wine and some nibblies, but you have to watch the cheeky
kookaburras that swoop down to pinch your cheese and crackers the moment you
turn your head away! We enjoyed our happy
hours in the company of Ros and Robyn from Shepparton and helped celebrate Ros’s
birthday in grand fashion with a lovely bottle of bubbles.
It was so very lovely that we stayed an extra night 😍
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| The Happy Hour Bar |
Another day of driving and temperature was significantly warmer, with a strange little camp on the side of a culvert.
No more icy nights for 2017 fingers crossed!
We leisurely made our way to Port Douglas via Emerald, Charters
Towers, Townsville and Cairns. (we camped nearby in GM's workmates backyard in Balgal Beach) Thanks Dave, your hospitality was amazing and so was your shower! 😊
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| The local bar....very quiet that day! |
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| Beautiful beaches, but deadly! |
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| Cairns....lost my good set of reading glasses here! |
We were only half way up the state of
Queensland.
It’s then you realise just
how immense it really is.
We tend to hug
the coast, but I’m so glad we took the inland route as there is so much beauty
there.....and a lot of dead roos on the road......south central Queensland has
a dead roo about every 100m.
We camped up at Port Douglas for 3 days where we played the
tourist to perfection!!
A wonderful day spent snorkelling in the inner reef and a
wander around Sand Island.
Another day spent at the local market on the waterfront
where we bought some natural cream to stop mozzies, sandflies and other
stinging insects, made of lemongrass and smelled delicious but didn’t work one
little bit! Bought a beautiful Sarong
from the main street which I would later accidently leave at a villa in
Bellagio much to my disappointment......some other lucky tourist would no doubt
score!
We went to Mossman Gorge.
This place was well worth the visit.
The visitors centre is also a hospitality training centre for the local
indigenous community. It was run
beautifully and they should be extremely proud of their training. Even the bus to the gorge was driven by a
local elder of the community. The
community itself was very clean and tidy and you can see the pride they
hold. A nice change from some of the
places we’ve been. The Gorge itself was
beautiful and the walking track easy and well maintained.
And then there was the Daintree! Heaven!!
The world’s oldest lowland tropical rainforest and the trees were
amazing. We didn’t see any Cassowary,
which is fine by me!! Nasty things, but
I was a wee bit jumpy just in case.
It was time to leave the luxury of civilisation and brave
the wilds of Cape York.
We took the Bloomfield track to Cook Town, stopping at the
Lion’s Den Hotel in Rossville for lunch and souvenirs....caps and singlets
thanks very much!
It was getting late, so we found a campsite at Archers Point
just south of Cooktown.
This place was incredibly windy, and we
struggled to set up camp and find any shelter.
We went for a wander along the bay and watched Kite Surfers having a
grand old time.
The next morning found us camped up at the local caravan
park in Cooktown. Cooktown!!! What a fantastic place
for anyone interested in Aussie history.
This is where it all began baby!!
If they hadn’t been able to get the endeavour into the river, they would
have sunk and we wouldn’t be here today to tell the tale. Or we’d all be speaking a different language.
The museum was so educational from both the English and
Indigenous tellings. We were there for
ages absorbing as much as we possibly could.
We went to the look-out hill that Captain Cook used to see if he could
get the ship in. Fantastic views!
We wandered around the town taking in everything, had a
lovely meal and a couple of beers at the pub.
We went for a drive to Elim Beach (another indigenous
community) and the coloured sands, quite lovely little camping place there that
would have been more relaxing than the caravan park at Cook Town.
I thought the mozzies were bad in Cook Town, but they
weren’t to be my problem. The sneaky
little midges were my downfall. I ended
up having quite a severe reaction to them, but thought they would settle
down. They didn’t!
We left Cooktown and made our way up to Cape Melville
National park, and stayed at “Crocodile Camp” at Bathurst Bay. It was a wonderful drive in but very slow and
difficult in places. The sand was so
soft that we barely had any air left in our tyres to get through. We only got bogged once but were lucky enough
to reverse out.
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| Isabella Falls....the road goes right through the top of them. |
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| We're about to get serious now....it's to be a long break between bitumen! |
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| The Old Laura Homestead at Lakefield National Park. The 2nd largest NP in QLD after the Simpson Desert |
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| The shearers quarter |
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| Huge flocks of these red tailed black cockatoos and you can hear the noise from them over the sound of the engine for miles. |
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| A Rainbow Bee Eater |
Before we’d even set up camp a pod of dolphins had swum by
about 20m from the edge of the water. By
this time, my hands and feet were like balloons and I had lumps the size of
golf balls all over my arms, legs and neck, and was feeling a little drained,
so GM set up camp while I tried my luck at fishing. We had no bait, so I used a rusty old lure
and lo and behold, before GM could even get his rod in the water, I’d caught us
a beautiful Golden Trevally for dinner.
And lunch the next day!!
The next day was gloriously sunny and I was pretty crook by
then, but still managed to catch a decent sized blue tipped salmon that was not
too bad, but nowhere near as nice as the Trevally. That day saw a rather large shark feeding in
the bay about 10m from the water’s edge.
It was quite amazing to watch it threshing around on top of the water. We had a swamp behind us and at night you
could hear the baby crocs calling out.
There were a couple of other camps set up in the distance, but it was
still like having the place to ourselves.
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| Delish!!! |
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| Golden Trevally |
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| Blue tipped salmon |
We had only been there for 2 nights, but I wasn’t getting
better, so we left our little patch of paradise and headed for Coen, the
closest medical centre to us. The first
night saw us camped on Annie’s River where I was confronted by a snake. I’m pretty sure it was a Taipan or Eastern
Brown. GM assures me it was just an
olive python, but I wasn’t going for a closer look. I must admit I impressed myself with how fast
I can run😊.
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| The swamp behind our camp......you could hear the baby crocs calling at night! |
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| Ants really are strange creatures!! |
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| This is what will close it off to the public eventually. Lazy filthy pigs!! |
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| Blue Kingfisher |
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| Sand Monitor |
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| Brolga |
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| Magpie Geese |
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| Annies Creek |
Coen is a small town on the Main Peninsula Road. It was chocka block full of motorbikes and
4WD’s, the pub was humming....it was the only place that seemed to have any
shade.........and we had a fairly decent clunk coming from underneath the floor
of the beast by the time we got there. I
found an indigenous medical centre and they agreed to help me. The nurse was a FIFO nurse from Northampton
in WA, lovely woman, but she had to call someone to get permission to even
issue me with antihistamines. Meanwhile,
GM had found someone to help him fix the exhaust mount on the car. He had to weld it up and Graeme the local
Pastor had all the gear and experience to help him. He wouldn’t accept payment other than
allowing him to bless us. GM withheld
this detail from me for quite some time. We camped up next to the river just out of town, a beautiful and clean
fresh water river where I zombied out for the rest of the day and GM bless his
little heart washed our clothes.
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| Inside the Coen Pub |
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| GM getting his domestic on!! |
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| One of the best places....under the Coen bridge! |
The drugs hadn’t done much, so we had a change of plan and
headed to Weipa to access a pharmacy. It
turns out this was a really bad year for midges and “they” were warning
everybody to take antihistamines 2 weeks before they headed north. We must have missed that warning!! GM was advised to take them as well. He had a number of bites, but not a severe
reaction.
We met a lovely family, Brian, Val & daughter, who gave
GM some freshly caught Barramundi for dinner because they felt so sorry for
me. They were having a spot of bother as
they went through one of the river crossings too fast and put their car into
limp mode. It looked like it was going
to be a very slow and long trip home for them.
There were a few cars in limp mode and we saw a couple being towed away
with their caravans attached. We spent 3
days in Weipa, the biggest town on the Peninsula and known for Bauxite
mining. We both really liked this place
and met quite a number of people in the caravan park who we would continue to
meet along the way.
By the time we left Weipa, I was well on the way to
recovery. The swelling had gone down in
my hands and feet, the golf ball lumps were virtually non-existent and I was
just scabby looking by this time.
Now it was time for the real adventure! The OTT or Old Telegraph Track....this is
what lures adventurers and 4WD’ers to the cape.
We turned off at Bramwell Junction after fuelling up and
treating ourselves to an ice-cream.
We
drove to the first of the river crossings....Palm Creek.
Unfortunately the young ones had chewed up
the chicken track with their need for speed and we were unable to get across
without taking the side out of Barbara.
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| $10k to get towed out! |
We stayed for an hour or so watching others do the crossing and having a
chat with a few people.
There was a
serious queue waiting to get across.
It
was too late in the day to drive around to Gunshot Creek (the next entry point
to the track) so we headed off to Captain Billy Landing on the east coast for
the night.
It was a beautiful drive in
through rain forest and amazing coastal views but very windy when we got
there.
A week after we’d been there, the 5m croc had been reported circling someone’s tent in the morning and a big brown snake was seen under the
steps to the toilet block, so we probably left there at just the right time
😊
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| The Heathlands we drove across to get to Captain Billy Landing |
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| Captain Billy Landing |
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| The little caves in the cliffs were full of bats and crabs |
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| This place sorts out the weak from the strong. |
The next morning we headed back to the track and came in at
Gunshot Creek where we met up with the people from the previous day.
We hooked up with Dave, Jeanette and Brad
from Mackay for the remainder of the track and had a wonderful time.
GM was having a blast with his river
crossings.
I was standing in one of the
rivers with a bunch of other people when a nosy snake decided to pop its head
out of the bank.
I think it was more
scared than I was as it popped back into its hole before I even had time to bolt!!!
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| This was a grave of one of the cable layers, and his cable plough. |
After a very social day with all the 4WDers, a fabulous
bunch of kids, we camped up at Elliot falls for the night.
We’d stopped at Fruit Bat Falls on the way
for a swim.
What a spectacular
place....paradise!!!!
Elliot Falls was
pretty good too
J
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| These hungry suckers were growing along the edge of the pools |
The next day we completed the track, ending
with Nolan’s creek, the only one we had to get winched out of, and then we
crossed the Jardine River.
You’re no
longer allowed to drive across as it’s far too dangerous and there are crocs
everywhere.
So you have to catch the
ferry.
This costs about $170 per vehicle
and includes the return crossing and camping in the national parks.
I think we worked it out at $33 per minute.
We were getting close!!
We drove to Bamaga.
Another mainly indigenous town, very clean
and quite interesting.
We saw a couple
of WW2 plane wrecks and stayed in the Seisia (Saysha) Caravan Park.
Seisia is where you catch the ferry to the
Torres Strait Islands.
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| The barber shop on Seisha Beach |
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| This is where the Ferry to Thursday Island leaves |
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| Our crazy neighbours followed us from Weipa |
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| The kids in camp thought they were awesome :) |
Nearly everyone we’d met so far on the cape was staying
there.
It was fun.
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| Note the old junk behind the yacht on the left.....We were to see it being towed out to sea a week later where they were going to skuttle it. This had been a refugee boat that had been seized by customs. |
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| One of my most favourite pics :) |
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| A couple of old wrecks! |
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| Afternoonsies with Jeanette, Dave & Brad |
The 2
nd day we were there GM decided to wash the
beast.....I wanted to throttle him!
The
red dust was like a trophy and we ended up with the only clean car within a
1000k’s!!
It just about glowed in the
dark!!!
We took the ferry across to Thursday Island and learned
quite a bit about the Torres Strait Islanders, their history, and the
differences between them and the Aboriginals.
While we were there we decided to do a pub crawl.
We had a beer in both pubs then caught the
ferry back to Seisia.
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| A bit of protection...... |
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| The Torres Strait Islands.....almost close enough to touch |
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| ok |
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| The firepits |
The next morning we packed up and headed north to Punsand
Bay.
It was Wednesday 16
th
August.
After saying a very sad farewell to the northernmost tip of
Australia, we said our farewells to newfound friends and started making our way south. We
had more adventures ahead of us.
We turned off not far down the road and made our way to Mutee Head South, a beautiful camping spot about 1km before the mouth of the Jardine
River. It was supposed to be heavily
infested with crocs but I couldn’t for the life of me find even a sign of
them! It was hard going getting into the
camp as the sand was so soft and the track quite narrow and windy. It was a glorious outlook though and well
worth the trip. We caught a few inedible
fish and GM caught the most evil looking thing I’ve ever seen....we threw it
back. A Stout Long Tom. We had Rainbow Bee Eaters swooping us all day
long and their chirping is just beautiful.
We also had the miracle of watching a dolphin round up fish and run them
onto the beach to feed. GM forgot to
press record in his excitement, and I just filmed the sand because I was so
enthralled with the whole thing I forgot to hold the phone up!! I don’t think David Attenborough would be too
impressed with us!
Sadly we were running out of time, so we made our way down
the Frenchman’s Track and camped the night on the Wenlock River before heading
down to the Pascoe River crossing, one of the most difficult on the cape.
GM was beside himself with excitement!!
We drove all the way to Lockhart River, a rather
dark and dirty community that didn’t feel in the least bit safe, where we
stocked up on supplies and then made our way to Chilli
Beach........sensational!!!
We had no
booze much to GM’s horror, but we did have fresh coconuts much to my delight!!!
We went for lunch at Portland Road and it
was lovely
😊
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| Chilli Beach |
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| Chilli Beach Camp Grounds |
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| Portland Road. There is only one restaurant, and strictly no alcohol.....we just managed to survive this!!!! |
After a couple of nights it was time to go, time to leave
the Cape.
We headed south to Laura,
camping wherever we could on the way, mainly along dry river beds, then got to
Laura and stocked up on booze.
Can’t be
getting used to a dry camp!!!
We made
our way down to the Atherton Table Lands,
just amazing and would love to do a
bit more exploring there........the tablelands are so fertile and green after
the cape!!
We drove west along the
Savannah Way, across to the Undara Lava Tubes and resort,
then Karumba on the
bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria where the sunsets are just spectacular.
After catching up on some laundry, we headed
into Normanton, had a look around and caught the old train to Croydon....2
hours and very slow and boring on the trip back!!
But the old train was just fantastic and the
Normanton Railway Station was great
😊
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| This is a scale replica of the largest Croc shot here at Normanton......Fancy cowardly hiding behind a tree and shooting something that's taken years to get to this size, just for the notoriety....what a bloody hero!! |
Time to head south 😭
We drove down a long dirt road heading to Gregory Downs
and
much to our surprise we came upon camp 119....the furthest point north Burke and
Wills got.
This piqued our interest in the
history of their exploration.
We were to
learn a whole heap about them in the next couple of weeks.
We camped for the night at Gregory Downs and
made our way to a place called Adel’s Grove next to the Lawn Hill National
Park, about 50km from the Northern Territory border.
If I thought I’d seen paradise before, then I
was mistaken.
This is the most
breathtaking place I’ve ever been.
The
property of Adel’s Grove occupies an area of some 30 hectares (80 acres) and
extends from Lawn Hill Creek at one end to Louie Creek at the other. It was
originally gazetted in 1904 as a Miners Homestead Lease. In 1920 Albert de
Lestang took up the property as an experimental Botanical Garden (hence the
name “Adel” arose from Albert’s initials). Albert planted many species of trees
and shrubs and supplied the Botanical Gardens of the world with the seeds
produced by his nursery.
We canoed up the Lawn Hill Gorge and wandered amongst
thousands of Fruit Bats, this place is amazing, with hikes to do, a fabulous
resort and the weather is bliss!
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| The water was like milk due to the calcium content. It was so warm and dry here. |
I never want to leave this place, but alas, we had another
life to go to.
We drove forever, stopping to check out the Miyumba
Riversleigh World Heritage Fossil Fields, boring!!! Unless you're into this sort of thing 😜
Then down through the Barkley Tableland
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| They were all so curious and friendly :) |
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| All you need is frozen pastry, tinned apples, custard, a campfire and a jaffle iron and voila!! The perfect apple turnovers :) |
to Mt. Isa, where
we stocked up on supplies and checked out the town.
It was very warm there.
We made our way to Boulia, the area is best known for
sightings of the Min Min lights, mysterious shimmering lights that
appear at night, but we didn’t stop.
We
drove to nowhere in the middle of nowhere,
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| Nowhere in the middle of nowhere!!! |
then onto Diamantina National Park
where we spent a couple of nights at Hunters Gorge.
And this is where we first encountered flies.....gazillions of flies.....in your ears, eyes and nose!!! 😩 This had been given a great write-up in a
magazine we subscribe to but it wasn’t very nice there at all, especially after
the last 6 weeks we’d just had.
I did
catch a fish though 😉
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| Slight difference between the national parks in Victoria and here!!! |
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| Yes, I can even catch a fish in a puddle whilst in my pyjamas!! |
We left Hunters Gorge and drove to nowhere in the middle of
nowhere again and made our way down to Birdsville.
About 2km’s before town we ran out of
fuel.
The fuel gauge hadn’t been working
properly and we weren’t sure how much we had in the tank.
Luckily we were carrying a bit of spare fuel
hey!!
After getting up and running
again, we got into Birdsville.....the day after the races.....there were a lot
of hangovers by the look on the faces of the people there
😊We went to the pub for a beer after filling
the fuel and water supplies.
The place
was packed!!!
You couldn’t hear the
person next to you and you couldn’t move without spilling your beer.
We decided to keep going for a couple more hours and made
our way south to Cardillo Downs where we camped up for the night in a deserted
outstation. (Cadalga Outstation) I really enjoyed it there,
but we found our back window smashed from a rock when we were passing all the
race goers on the road in to Birdsville.
Our roof rack
bolt had also sheared off, so a bit more patching up was needed before we
headed off. We were taking the more
isolated track to Innamincka. Along the
way we passed a group who had lost the axle off their camper trailer and were
in all sorts of strife, and had a long boring wait for help to arrive. We drove and drove and stopped and had a
coffee at Gina Reinharts place (a little cow pond on Innamincka Station) which
we shared with about a hundred zebra finches.
Coming into Innamincka was hysterical.
We rounded a bend to see 4 emu’s running across a culvert straight at
us. We weren’t quick enough to get the
camera out but their faces were exactly like the cartoon paintings you see
everywhere.
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| People are getting fed up of the losers who have no respect for our Country. This includes the filthy toilet paper dumped all through our roadways.....we have a huge asian tourist population that are very good at this and don't give a hoot what they dump. |
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| This was Barbara rolling into the car and it nearly took GM's hand off with it!! |
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| Heading south 😢 |
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| Coffee at Gina Rineharts place.....Innamincka Station |
We had a beer at the Innamincka pub....as you do......then
made our way to the Cooper Creek for a couple of nights, camping a couple of hundred meters from where Wills died. And there were even more flies here than Hunters Gorge!!! We went and had a look at the Dig Tree where
Bourke died, and read a lot of history about them.
It was ignorance and arrogance that actually
killed them.
I caught a turtle, and
didn’t want to fish anymore after that, and GM managed to completely slash one
of his tyres looking for firewood.
The
nights were far cooler now so it was getting harder and harder to get out of
bed.
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| I caught a Turtle 😭and that's the end of my fishing!!! |
We drove to Cameron’s Corner via Moomba and had a beer there
too 😉 This is where QLD, NSW &
SA meet. Got pics of GM
behind the dog fence then drove to Tibooburru, had lunch at the pub, played
ball with a dog called Suzy and bought a book called the “Dig Tree” which was a
biography on the Burke and Wills expedition.
It was a great read. Now I know a
lot more about our history than our schools ever taught.
We headed down to Broken Hill, but had hired a cabin as it
was just so freezing at night.
We did a
tour of the silver mine and town the next morning then headed to Mildura where
we hired another cabin for a couple of nights.
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| Needs a bit of a wash!!! |
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| Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
Then we went home. We
didn’t want to go home.
It will be a couple of years before we get a chance to go
outback again. 2018 is Italy.
We live in the most amazing country in the
world. Very few of us ever leave our own
back yard or if we do we go overseas. It
may take a week of driving to get from one end of the country to the other, but
if you ever decide to make the effort, you’ll get to experience the whole wide
world in one hit without crossing any oceans other that Bass Strait or
Endeavour Strait (both on ferries)!!!
Well, we did it!! Why not
give it a go?
A bit of fun on the old telegraph track.......
Down into Captain Billy Landing
The Pascoe River Crossing on the Frenchman's track....the hardest of the crossings apparently.....
See you soon!
