Ayers-Rock-to-Cairns

Ayers Rock (Uluru) to Cairns

Sunday 16^th August 214 Km

We'd set the alarm but in fact I was awake before 6 o'clock, people were already leaving. It felt a bit like being at Le Havre and going for the early morning boat. We got up, dressed and left pretty well immediately and drove to Uluru - Ayers Rock, a total of about half an hour to get to the sunrise viewing place. It was a wonderful journey there, we set off in darkness with the stars high up and then the light just gradually coming and seeing it behind Ayers Rock. We got to a position where we parked ourselves and made a cup of tea, but were then very quickly bombarded by dozens of buses, all different sizes and a few private vehicles too. There were lots of lots of people crowding round us, but the spectacle of seeing sunrise was magical is all you can say, it was quite heavenly, out of this world. We could see the Olgas in the distance as well so it was a brilliant experience.

As soon as the sun had risen, there were quite a few clouds about today, but we did have a lovely sunrise and the sun shining onto the rock, everybody left apart from us and a couple of other campervans.
We then had breakfast, looking out watching the rock, so that was quite exquisite and we then drove down to the car parking area that we were in yesterday by a little water hole to walk around the rock (9.4 kms). This we did leaving at 8.15 and arriving back just before 11.00, and we enjoyed the walk very much. It was pretty chilly at first, but most of it was just the right sort of temperature. Not too many people, quite a lot of birdlife - we saw a butcher bird and several honey eaters. Lots of little black caterpillars crawled cross the path. Absolutely beautiful with the different wildflowers as we walked around and altogether a thoroughly enjoyable walk so we feel we've done Ayers Rock pretty well.

Sunrise at 'Ayers Rock' (Uluru)

Sunrise at 'Ayers Rock' (Uluru) with the Olgas (Kata Tjuṯa), in the distance

We had coffee when we got back, looking up at the majestic rock of this little bit that we were at which is called the Muṯitjulu Waterhole and we left there at 11.15 to go to the Olga's. Our drive to the Olga's gave us some lovely views of them and also sometimes of Ayers Rock but you couldn't stop along this road anywhere except at a designed stopping point about halfway about 25 kilometres or so. We stopped there and then climbed a walkway and had a view of the Olga's and there was one or two descriptive notices as well - I thought they looked better from the road as we were going along there, as the lighting was better.

The ground was carpeted with flowers

'The lips' at 'Ayers Rock'

'The Guinea Pig' at 'Ayers Rock'

'Wave rock' at 'Ayers Rock'

Rosie on our walk around 'Ayers Rock'

The Mutitjulu water hole, 'Ayers Rock'

There were also flowers there too which took our interest, a bush of tiny little flowers, which wasn't actually a Turkey bush but similar sized flowers on it. Also, we think was a honey grevillea with long yellow flowers and a thing which looked like a spinifex grass, which most of the time of year must just be that, but now supposedly after the rains, little red long flowers had come around the base of these plants. We thought maybe it was a native fuchsia and the name of some of the trees that we'd been seeing and we wondered what they were, were called Desert Oaks.
When we arrived at the Olgas (Kata Tjuṯa), we drove first to the sunset viewing area which doubles as a picnic area but the picnic tables were far away from the parking bit, so we made up rolls and plonked ourselves around just near the van looking out to the Olgas and left there at 1 o'clock. The Valley of the Winds walk through the Olgas was pretty good, we took about two and a quarter hours or so (7½ Km)and none of it was too difficult for me and the views were good and apart from the first and last bit we were away from all the crowds, so a very enjoyable walk. It was 3.30 when we returned.

On the way to the Olgas

The next walk was the Olgas Gorge Walk and was between two steep gorges and really it was just as impressive a view before we went on the walk.

The Valley of the Winds walk through the Olgas

On the way back from it, we met myriads and myriads of people going inwards and when we got back to the car park at about 4.30, which had been virtually empty when we'd arrived, it was packed out with every coach that you could possibly imagine.
We were sort of squeezed out with coaches all around and so we headed round to the sunset viewing car park and positioned ourselves there. We then had a shower in the van and I cooked supper of schnitzel which we ate looking out on to the Olgas, and we then walked along to a little viewing place. A lot of coaches had come in and we thought 'oh no', but in fact they only came to take a photo and the people left again and at the little bit that we went to, there were just half a dozen other people. We watched the colour fade through all sorts of shades of sunset and it was peaceful and beautiful and in fact we had thoroughly enjoyed our whole visit to this area, the only off putting thing being all the tours of people!

Adrian after 'The gorge' walk, The Olgas

[Rosie doesn't mention the temperature, presumably because it was a pleasant hot walking temperature. When we got home and met up with Hil & Doug, we found that they had gone there in February and the temperature was 45°C and all she did was get out of the air conditioned coach ,go to the lookout and then straight back into the coach again!]

The first part of the journey back was joy indeed as we could see Ayers Rock ahead of us, and the Olgas lit up by the last of the sunlight. We stopped at the Ayers Rock resort and got some diesel and after that we were driving in the dark and Adrian expertly got us the 80 Km to Curtin Springs by 8.30. We'd sussed out Curtin Springs on the way in, and knowing then that it was a roadhouse with free camping and plenty of room, what we didn't expect when we got back there, was that there was going to be some sort of big function or rally - a car rally. Everywhere, and there were huge, huge areas, was packed out and being pitch dark, it was rather hard to see what was going on. So we did eventually find a little spot to stop in the 3rd field! We walked out to see what this rally was all about and it appeared to a rally of cars from South Australia, dozens and dozens of them, and the people were all having get together meals, drinks and what have you. About half were in fancy dress, nuns, ballet dancers, golliwogs, all sorts of things, and it was a bit reminiscent of El Roccio in Spain, but this time we didn't get invited to join in. We did buy a beer and sit and watch the comings and goings for a while. It was getting quite chilly by now, so we returned to the van, but in fact, their frivolities went on until quite late at night.

The Olgas at sunset

Monday 17^th August. 342 Km

And so much for us thinking we'd find this quiet little place after our rather busy day and early start yesterday to settle in and have a lay in, because by six o'clock the noise was happening. We'd heard some noises in the night, there'd been fireworks let off. There was a noisy generator going all night long, which whenever we woke we could hear, but at six o'clock, these people in the dark were getting ready to leave and this continued until about eight o'clock when in fact we were ready to leave having been woken early. We saw the sunrise, another nice day and so an early start for us.
It was about 8.15 when we got going and we had a trouble free trip of 160 Km to the end of the Lasseter Highway to reach the Stuart Highway. We passed Mount Connor initially, looking very attractive, but other than that very unremarkable scenery. It was about 10.15 when we reached the Stuart Highway and the Erldunda Roadhouse there. We'd heard they did good bread, so we called in there and we bought two rolls and two fruit buns and we then returned to a nearby parking area to have coffee and the buns, which were good, but nothing to rave about. The parking area was disgustingly full of rubbish and flies, so although we sat outside in the sunshine, it was not as pleasant a stop as it could have been.
We headed north on the Stuart Highway, we were listening to our first tapes, Tahiti to Ua Pou and back to Tahiti, which made very interesting listening even though we’d already heard them once or twice. The scenery was mostly unremarkable, more or less flat, there were odd hilly bits that we went through and some wildflowers, but not as many as we'd seen previously. We stopped once for Adrian to look at the heater which had come on with overheating and we couldn't turn it off, and we stopped for lunch, some kilometres south of Alice, in a large rest area where we found a shady table. The sun was hot and it seemed a bit humid, although it wasn’t meant to be humid there, and we started thinking about things that we might do on our return to Alice.
We arrived in Alice early afternoon, earlier than we’d imagined we'd get there, and after a little indecision, we settled into Heavytree Caravan Site just by the gap in the hills to the south of Alice. Having found a pitch, we then thought we'd have a quick swim in the pool, which we did, it was cold but we'd felt colder and then a shower.
We were right near the Pichi Richi sanctuary which I'd wanted to visit. We were going to drive there and then realised it was more or less opposite and so made the decision to walk there. I'd washed out one or two things, so we got ourselves organised, and walked out to the gate, which was quite a long way and then we realised we hadn't got the camera, okay - or enough money. Adrian walked all the way back, so I waited and we then crossed the road to the sanctuary and saw new opening times, which were that it closed at two o'clock in the afternoon and what was more we then saw a a little shop and tavern opposite which came under the name of the caravan site and realised that we could have walked through. We did walk back through there and it would have been a much much quicker way to have walked across. So it was rather an abortive effort. Adrian had made a dental appointment for tomorrow morning.
We then made an abortive attempt to climb the great hill behind us, part of the Heavytree Gap called a scenic walk, but it was just a climb of a very steep hill with lots of loose stones underfoot. We returned to the van and wrote on one or two postcards and I'd seen that there were rock wallabies that came down to the site at sunset. So I went off to see where they were, and if they'd come down and saw there were three or four, so I went back and called Adrian and we both went across. This was a real delight, perhaps a dozen or so little rock wallabies came down to a particular area of the caravan site. I bought some food for 60 cents and you could feed them with pellets, they looked like rabbit pellets and they did come and eat right out of your hand and held on to your fingers just like a baby would. It was absolutely lovely to see the different natures of different wallabies, some that were really cheeky, and liked to come and feed from the people and some that didn't want to come at all and just found some little pellets amongst the rocks and other stuff to eat. We then saw that there was at least one that had a little jerry in its pouch, we stayed there for quite a long time, and took a couple of photos and some video.

There was a little boy and girl in their pyjamas who came across, the little girl was about three and the boy four. They obviously hadn't got any of the food, so they gathered up little bits and the boy was as still as still with his hand out waiting for the wallabies to come, so I spent some time giving him food to put in his hand and the little girl came as well. It was really a lovely time, I really enjoyed that. We came back and were feeling hungry by then so Adrian cooked steak outside and we ate outside in a really pleasant temperature There had been a few mossies and things around but not too dire. We had a bottle of Sauvignon/Semillon Blanc which was really nice. I'd not been enjoying the wines lately [mostly oaked Chardonnay] but that was really nice and having enjoyed that and washed up, we could hear music coming from a place called the Old Alice, a sort of pub.
So we went across there not knowing what to expect and spent a superb evening. It was like a pub and had a fire going which wasn't necessary as it was warm but it was nice atmosphere. It felt like an English pub, as it was done up and had lots of bits and pieces around, it had an old carriage and old shop signs and things around it and loos that looked like a dunny but you actually went through a corrugated iron door to some superb clean loos. There were two chaps playing guitars and singing, very differing fellows from each other, one we thought was Mark Appleton and the other was a Rowan Atkinson or David Barlow, very slender sort of face. Both were excellent performers and a brilliant evening followed. They sang and played and we got up and danced, it made us think of Germany and we jigged around to things like an old fashioned waltz. There was obviously a coach party there with one very extrovert fellow, a bald headed chap in his forties maybe, who seemed to go right to the end, got everybody up, and seemed a very likeable character. Another chap came later on with a washboard and played it absolutely brilliantly. Adrian was really taken with that and he also played harmonica. So it was really really good and unexpected evening with a beer which was good. It was nearly 11.00 when we returned to the van, under a partly cloudy sky having really enjoyed this place tonight.

Rosie feeding the rock wallabies and one with a 'joey' in her pouch

Tuesday 18^th August. 22 Km

Quite a cloudy sky when we woke in the morning and quite windy, but not unpleasant and we had breakfast outside and Adrian decided to fill the van with water and were ready to leave about 9.30. We drove down into Alice, located the dentist for Adrian and as we had a little time to spare, we ascended the Anzac Lookout, which was quite a climb up and it was quite warm by then. Then Adrian dropped me off, and I had to look around the shops and took my photos in, while he went and had a filling. Afterwards he went to Bilo and we met up again at about 11.30. I made a late morning cup of coffee. Adrian was able to drink tea through a straw and he'd bought an iced bun and so we had that. We then went back into Bilo & Liquorland and bought up the place and then got some diesel and by then it turned 1 o'clock.
We set off to visit some of the things we'd wanted to do in Alice, the first we stopped at was Diorama Village which Jeanie who had camped next to us last time we were in Alice, said we must go and see. We'd seen a signpost to it, so turned off but couldn't locate the centre that she'd she said about so in the end I went into a little fairy shop and asked the old lady in there and she said, "Oh, this is the village, and said about the centre" and then said "that's been gone at least two years". So we laughed - that was that one crossed off the list. We next went to the Aralien Centre, which had a lot of artwork on display, there was a couple of galleries with some Aboriginal, some local white people's work. We thought very much of Emma as there was some wonderful batik pieces and a lot of her collage type of things that she does, and also painted pieces of work by Namatjira the Aboriginal artist and we both enjoyed that. There was a frilled lizard made out of barbed wire which we particularly liked, that was pretty good.
Having looked around there, we then came and sat out the front, it was mostly a cloudy day today, but warm and the sun was out some of the time and we sat down and had a late lunch, Adrian's mouth was more or less defrosted. We then went into Strehlow centre, which was about a white man who worked a lot with the Aboriginals. We'd seen about him or his father at the Hermannsburg place we went to a few days ago. It was one of those big modern places with lots of lovely displays, but we didn't feel we knew any more about him as a person or what he did, at the end of it. We did buy a little book on Aboriginal people. We walked around a bit into the cemetery behind where there was the grave of the Aboriginal painter Namatjira and of Lasseter of the Lasseter Highway.
We thought we'd go to the Flying Doctor but that closed at 4 o'clock and it was now just gone 4.00. The School of the Air closed at 4.30 - nothing goes on into the afternoon here. So we went into the town centre and I collected my photographs which was a bit of a trouble because they couldn't find them at first. A lot of very red coloured, red centre, red and blue pictures, of Alice round to Kings Canyon. So armed with those we came back to Heavytree Caravan Site where we were last night and positioned ourselves more or less the same place as before. It was nearing 5 o'clock so a quick look at the photos and then I went for a quick swim in the pool and a shower.
We cooked and ate outside and earlier than last night made our way over to the Old Alice's pub complex and a very different evening followed. There were only half dozen people at the most in there and the Mark Appleton looking chap who was singing last night was there serving behind the bar. We said was he going to sing, so he came and sang for about half an hour, very nice country songs, very much our cup of tea. The excellent guitarist, had got a sore throat so he was finding singing difficult and he stopped for what he called the interval but in fact, he never played again. He came and chatted to us for quite a while and told us he came from Byron Bay. And we chatted to a couple, John and Janine from near Newcastle in New South Wales, who were sitting on an adjacent table to us and a very pleasant couple. We actually talked to them until everybody else had left and the two girls serving behind the bar suddenly said could we go! We still chatted out in the campsite and it was 11.40 when we got back to the van.

Wednesday 19^th August 86 Km

We awoke to a blue sky, but it was very windy and the sun didn’t get over the hills to us and so it was quite cool outside, so we had breakfast inside and we were ready to leave soon after 9 o’clock. But things don’t work necessarily as one expects and we went to Pitchi Richi which should have opened at 9.00 and was now about 9.15 and it wasn't open. So we thought we’d go to the transport museum which was a few miles south of Alice, which was where the old Ghan train ran from and unknown to us, and especially to Adrian, it ran today at 10.00. It was now 09.30, so we paid our money, looked around the museum and then had an enjoyable trip on the old Ghan train.

By the time we returned it was after 11.30 and so it was 11.50 when we left. We’d had coffee and a piece of cake cheaply on the train, so very enjoyable all told .
We now drove east down the Ross Highway to the East MacDonnell ranges stopping soon at Emily Gap, where we walked into a gorge. Very sandy under foot and the wind howling down the gorge, but the temperature in the 90°F’s. The pink rock, looked staggering against the vivid blue sky and there was a small pool of water there and some interesting Aboriginal paintings, very stripey ones looking like zebra crossings.

Rosie on the 'Old Ghan' - who needs a carriage

Adrian by an 'Old Ghan' engine

We drove on from there a few kilometres down the road to Jesse Gap. This was a similar gorge without the rock pool or aboriginal paintings but a lot of flies, so we put in as much netting as possible and sat inside for lunch.
Our next stop was Corroboree Rock, where there were some rocks jutting up, looking like a wall and obviously of great Aboriginal significance. We left there and drove a few kilometres to Trephina Gorge with its remarkable red rocks. We found ourselves a place in the little minimal fee campsite and in the heat set off for a walk for almost an hour along the top of the gorge and then down along the bottom of it. This was supposedly an easy walk, but pretty much climbing up and down and up and down with more stark red cliffs against a blue sky and ghost gums.

Adrian at Emily Gap, East MacDonnells

We were annoyed by flies, so we wore our fly head-nets. We got back feeling pretty hot and found a couple in a caravan had moved in almost on top of us which was rather annoying. Because of this, we put our table and chairs out round at the other side and we're sitting there quietly saying how can people move in on top of you? when the bloke came round, unabashed and said, "Where do you come from then?" and started up a conversation which we made as short as possible. He was full of all the things they'd done and yes, they had been on lots of tracks and trails, but wasn't really interested in what we'd done. We cooked kangaroo steak outside and ate outside, a very nice temperature. As temperature began to fall after supper, we took the torches and went for a walk and stood in the gorge, I'd like to say we saw things but we didn't, but it was nice to be part of nature and to be under the star-filled sky.

Trephina Bluff and a ghost gum

Ghost gums at Trephina Gorge - I think Rosie found them photogenic

Thursday 20^th August 100 Km

I woke early, the sun was just rising behind the cliff side and a clear blue sky, so we had a cup of tea looking out to that and had breakfast outside which was nice apart from the flies and were ready to leave at 8.45. Trephina Bluff looked absolutely glorious with its red rock against the blue sky, and the journey back to Alice, which took just over an hour was lovely. It really was a very attractive area, with these red rocks, often yellowy brown rocks but against the blue sky.
We arrived back at just about 10 o'clock in Alice and we went first to the Old Timers Museum we'd seen, but that was only open in the afternoon. We had one last go at the Pichi Richi which had the William Ricketts sculptures in, opposite the campsite we'd stayed at, but that was closed, we reckoned that it was closed for good. We parked in Alice and took my photos into a different photo shop, a Fuji one, who said they'd be ready early afternoon. We went into the post office but there was a great long queue but we finally collected our post, there were letters from Lena and Renee and one from Johnny Cape and Ruth and we posted off Paul's birthday present to him. We then went across to a very nice coffee shop in the precinct opposite, where the chap who served us had parents who had come out from Swindon.
We had real coffee, tea, and a piece of Paris Brest cake and having read our post, we then went to the John Flynn Museum, which was actually in the middle of a hospital building which he'd had the idea for and that was a very interesting time - the man had so many different inspirations. We then got some money, came in back to the car park and found a little coaster bus had parked itself right on top of us and they walked off without saying a thing, but we managed to get out alright and drove to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. That was sort of undergoing some renovations and things were a bit upside down and we did look at a video and had a look around and for which we weren't charged as it was a bit chaotic.
We then needed somewhere for lunch and had difficulty in finding anywhere shady, but we eventually did manage to park on the other side of the dry Todd River and perched ourselves on a little bench beside the van. There was grass here and lot of trees so it was quite pleasant. [The Todd River is for 95%of the year a dry river and it is famous for the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, held when the river has no water in it. The competitors use boats which have no bottoms in them and they race each other, running along the dry river bed. In 1993 it had to be cancelled as very unusual weather flooded the river!]. We then drove back into the shopping bit, went into Cole's and got a few more bits and pieces. Then I went off to collect my photographs, lots of Ayers Rock which were very good, and I'd also got a newspaper telling us as of the terrible atrocities in Ireland in Omagh, so rather sobered, we drove on to the School of the Air.
Here we had a tour and a video and then looked around which I found particularly interesting as it was a fascinating insight into how this had worked over the years from when it started in 1951. From there we drove off and we quickly looked in at a Britt's van hire but couldn't see the four wheel drive camper that we were interested in just having a look at, so we continued to the Telegraph Station. This was in a very large park which had lots of walks in it, and was still very hot. We paid another $4 to have a look around this rather National Trust type place, but interesting all the same to have linked it up with all these communication aids to Alice. We ended by viewing the actual Alice Springs that Alice was named after.

We were ready to leave at 4.40, and we tried to ring Emma but didn't get through to her. We stopped for diesel on the outskirts of Alice on the Stuart highway. We stopped just a few miles north of Alice at a place called Collier Creek, and this was a parking area that had plenty of space and suited us as a stop for the night. We sat outside for quite a while and looked through the photos, although it was rather windy and blew things around so that made it a bit difficult. But we did cook outside, ate outside and enjoyed the countryside all around and the sun going down, a gorgeous sky and then lots and lots of stars.

The actual Alice Springs

Friday 21^st August 371 Km

We put the phone on when we woke up and there was a phone message from Emma, which apparently had just got through. We tried immediately but couldn't get through to her, we didn't seem to have enough signal to make the phone call, which was a shame. It was a lovely morning with a clear blue sky. We had breakfast outside and we were ready to leave just after 9 o'clock. We retraced our steps northwards, there were hilly bits at first and then the country that we'd described on the way down and after nearly 100 kilometres, we came to Native Gap where we'd spent the night before arriving at Alice and this was just the right time to stop for coffee. We knew it was a nice place, much more pleasant than just pulling off beside the road and we had a nice time sitting there in the pleasant warmth and left at 11.00.

We stopped briefly to view and read about Ryan's Well, and by this time it was exceedingly hot. Ryan was a man who obviously liked adventure and had seemed to dig a lot of wells in this arid area in the late 19th century. On the other side of the road was the ruins of the Glen Maggie Homestead which we visited briefly. We managed to pull off at a slightly shady area for lunch, behind a truck which had pulled off and the noticeable thing there was the lack of flies. We had been listening prior to this to our last tape, which was Alice round to Kings Canyon and Ayers Rock and made interesting listening as always. The land continued, as we knew, pretty flat and not a lot to see and extremely hot in the 90°F’s.
We pulled into Barrow Creek, where there were a few hills and we saw that there was a post box in the Roadhouse there, but there were a few Aboriginal people sitting around there, as there had been on our way down and so we left in the heat and continued north. We called in all the roadhouses looking for a postbox but didn't find one and at Wycliffe Well we stopped and phoned Emma got her answerphone.
We arrived at Devil's Marbles about 3.45 to stay there for the night. One of the first things we did was to have a shower in the van as we were both feeling rather hot and humid. The sky had become very strange, in England we would have said it was going to tip with rain but by 6.30 there was no rain, but we did have some very strange lightings. We went for a walk around the marbles, enjoying the wonderful spectacle, particularly with the different sorts of sky.

Native Gap - we stayed here on the way down, coffee on the way back,

It continued to be a very warm evening, but no rain at all. We cooked pork steak and ate it outside, it really was very warm but pleasant for sitting. We did a little walk around before coming in for bed.

Sunset at the Devil's Marbles

Saturday 22^nd August. 302 Km

We were awake early, so were lots of other people and we saw the sunrise initially through some bits of cloud but making a lovely lighting onto the marbles. We had a little wander around and had breakfast outside and we were ready to leave by 8.30.

We'd enjoyed watching the little spinifex pigeons running around like little soldiers and a few crested pigeons too and the carolling of a magpie, to listen to this morning. We left and drove north on the Stuart Highway and arrived at Tennant Creek at about 09.50.
When we left it was about 12.50! We got diesel, Adrian emptied the loo, we thought the water was a bit strange but we did fill with water, brought some milk and potatoes and then we drove a little distance back into the town - it was a long spread out town there. We found a laundrette and thought we would take the washing in and buy a cake and coffee while it was doing. We walked down through the town but found it hard to find anything. We found a postbox and posted the letters, and did see a little corrugated iron Uniting Church and another church which had been moved from Pine Creek in the 30's. We got back to the laundrette and thought we'd put the stuff into a tumble dryer and then found that there was what it said was a baker's next door. So having put the stuff in the tumble dryer we went into this baker's, got a cup of tea and coffee and there were a few cakes looking pretty awful but we bought two Chelsea buns, which we thought would be okay, but found them absolutely solid so I took them back and got the money back. There was a couple sitting at the adjacent table who were travelling through or staying at a local caravan park it turned out and we then spent the next hour or two chatting to them. They came from Perth, a place called Linden, were in their 40s, and she was obviously a lady who liked things to be right and she travelled for a few weeks but then liked to go home. It was very interesting talking to them. We then left them at about 12.30, took the washing out of the tumble dryer and then proceeded to get gas from the BP station.
We stopped for lunch at the actual Tennant Creek, a few kilometres north which wasn't a very pretty spot, being rather strewn with beer cans, but it did us as a stop, we found a bit of shade and we hung the washing up that wasn't quite dry and it dried while we were having lunch. We left at 1.50. We drove a few more kilometres to the turn off to the Barkly Highway and said goodbye to Stuart Highway. There at the junction at Three Ways was a young chap waiting for a lift, and we'd read in Lonely Planet how Three Ways was a difficult place for lifts.
[Also Tom had hitchhiked around Australia last year and had spent a whole day waiting for a lift at Three Ways. He had gone done to Uluru and it had rained and he said 'it was a long way to see a rock'. So when we had arrived at Three Ways from Darwin we had thought long about whether we had wanted to go there. Our trip there had taken over 2 weeks and we had travelled nearly 3000 kms, and we loved every moment of it. It was wild, boring sometimes, beautiful, remote, interesting, the weather had been perfect if a little cold some nights, and we had seen so much of the pioneers of outback Australia and wouldn't have missed it for anything.]

More Devils Marbles photos in the early morning

Spinifex & a Crested Pigeon at the Devils Marbles, Wauchope

this chap had been there since 10 o'clock, so three hours and it was pretty hot. So we gave him a lift to the Barkly Homestead 190Km away, where we were going to stay over in the caravan park behind the Roadhouse, almost the only place on the Barkly Highway between there and Queensland 440 Km away. The land was flat and uninteresting. We had been thinking we'd listen to one of our tapes, but instead we had this young chap from Launceston in Tasmania. We chatted quite a bit to him and he opened up a bit after a while. The one exciting thing that happened on this journey was that Adrian spied something in the middle of the road so we went back and there it was, a thorny devil. The chap hadn't seen one either, so that was quite exciting.

We reached the Barkly Homestead, left our chap in the roadhouse and settled in to the caravan site. I went immediately and had a shower and washed my hair but before Adrian could get there, we started chatting to the couple in the next dormobile van, Eric and Vronnie , a couple from Lake Alexandrina, South Australia and we chatted to them until 5.30, when Adrian went for his shower. It was a very warm evening, we cooked and ate some steak outside and then the couple came back and we ended up chatting with them until 10 o'clock. We then thought we'd go and ring, Emma, so we walked right up to the front of the motel, but the phone didn't work with our card so we returned to the washing up.

The Thorny Devil

Sunday 23^rd August 315 Km

It was very windy in the night and Adrian was awake very early with mossies and a party of teenage schoolchildren, in a coach, who were camping. They had been very quiet and well behaved last night but were up and about very early, earlier than I had heard them apparently and all left just as we were getting up. We had breakfast outside, it was still very windy so blew red soil into everything and Eric and Vronnie came back to say goodbye and chatted again for quite a while, they were really from Marion in Adelaide. Adrian went to view a collection of old engines on the site, but we got going at 9 o'clock.
Our hitchhiker wasn't there so we presume that he must have got a lift. The road was rather flat and uniform (Adrian said boring!) although the yellow savannah grass with the sun shining on it and the wind blowing was quite pleasant with little green trees protruding from it and the occasional little burst of a yellowy coloured grass, but no flowers, and anything else to add to the variety. We pulled in for coffee in a rest area by a picnic table and were deciding whether to get out and sit at the adjacent table which was partly in the shade and wondering how hot it was as it was very windy, when before we could make the decision a caravan pulled in on the other side and thought they'd utilise the table. They were a larger couple and didn't show any signs of recognition but I suppose we were a bit annoyed about the way they just came in and took over the table, but perhaps we were too English. So we had our tea and coffee inside, the wind howling sounding like a terrible winter's night.
We now went through miles of savannah grassland just flat grass, mostly short, no trees even, nothing, just the occasional bird of prey overhead. We had been listening to our cassette number 3, telling of our troubles when the van broke down which was quite hard to listen to. The road continued like this until the border with Queensland, nowhere to pull off and in the end we pulled off for lunch just by the border where all there was, was the low yellow savannah grass, as far as the eye could see, a couple of trees on the skyline in the distance and pale blue sky and a howling wind, although it was very hot.

So we sat inside to have our lunch and we both felt a bit dozy, so we had a little nap and then six weeks after entering Northern Territory, we left it and into Queensland. We put our watches on half an hour, so we were now 9 hours ahead of England. We arrived at Camooweal, Queensland and the time was now 2.30 and filled with diesel.
Adrian went to enquire from the police station about the road we were thinking of taking from there to Lawn Hill, but being Sunday, of course, there was no one there, so we continued along this road, still the Barkly Highway and we came to a second turn off which joined up with the road to Lawn Hill. There was a Rest area at this junction of the Barkly Highway and Thorntonia-Yelvertoft Rd which we pulled off into and Adrian chatted to a man who had just come down this road, and who seemed to think it was passable, [the reason for all this investigation about the road to Lawn Hill was that we knew much of it was really an upgraded 4WD road and it was 200 km long , but it saved some 450 Km if we were to go on the surfaced road!].
Being now 3.45 by our new time, we decided to stop here for the night. It had been windy all day, but it got very windy after we settled there, and put the table and chairs out and sat for a short time. It then got very, very windy, so we came in, but perhaps it was to our advantage as we had a really good catching up time, Adrian with writing his notes on people and I got up to date with all the cuttings.

The eternal flat dry hot savannah grasslands of the Northern Territory at the Queensland border

Monday 24^th August. 205 Km

The wind did drop during the night, so we had a pretty good night's sleep. We woke to hear strange noise, we didn't know what it was but a man had come in to mend something on his vehicle and he'd made a lot of noise about it. As we wanted to be awake early and the clocks had gone on half an hour anyway of course, it wasn't a problem. We said goodbye to the other chap here, who'd camped overnight and who'd told us that the road was okay and had breakfast outside in a pleasant sort of temperature and were ready to leave about 8.50. We then heard on the radio that the ‘bashers’ that we'd met at Curtin Springs and who were obviously travelling right around and would be speaking on the radio very shortly. We delayed our departure a little because of this and we heard a person, who was one of the drivers, driver number 54 called John, who was on the Variety Club Bash, and we were correct in our estimation of 100 cars because it was 83 cars plus officials and a helicopter and we found out that they were based in Sydney and were raising money for children and were the Variety Club of Great Britain - the one in Australia I suppose, and all the cars were pre 1966, and we knew how long ago that was!
We set off on this dirt road at 9 o'clock. Sections of it weren't too bad, there were one or two little tarmac sections initially which were a nice surprise, so we progressed quite well. We were pleased to see little morning glories shining up in this arid landscape beside the road, one or two other flowers too and Mula Mula. We passed a service vehicle for Mount Isa Council (150 Km away!) and when we asked him about the road, the chap said, “well it's okay for a road”. So on we progressed. We joined with the Gregory Downs Rd which we hadn't come up yesterday at a junction, thinking the section we were on would be better and slightly shorter but after the junction the road did deteriorate! There was some sections bad and some not so bad. We were heading for an area where the man at the junction this morning when we were camping, had said there was a river we could stop at because there was not really anywhere else to pull off, but all there was when we got there was a dried up river with a wee bit of water in it and a whole lot of cows, the only thing that seemed to be there as it's cattle country and knowing how flies are always near the cows, so we progressed a little further.
We stopped just beside the road where it was a bit wider and we found a bit of shade.

Later in the evening, the wind did drop, but we still cooked veal and ate inside, which was unusual for recently. We did notice that the wind did cool the engine down much quicker than it normally did, so it's an ill wind as they say [the biggest problem with the bus was that the engine was under the floor at the front and so all the heat came up inside. If you had to be inside when it was hot outside after a long days driving you really needed to be on a powered site so that you could put the air conditioning on to cool the van down]. The one annoying thing that had happened was that although we were both inside, we both had got badly bitten by a mosquito during the time we were doing the paperwork.

Our overnighter layby (streetview 2023)

We had noticed the kitchen roll had been unrolling, but worse than that we'd just noticed the window at the back was open and everywhere was covered with red dust. We continued on this road which rattled and bumped the van around like anything, and then we came to another turn off marked as a 4WD track on the map but looking as though it might go and be a quicker way still to Lawn Hill. We stopped at this junction and decided to have lunch here thinking that if anyone came past we'd ask them about the road, but only one lorry passed early on at great speed and just waved. So we decided to go for it and hope that the road goes through. This 4WD road seemed certainly as good as the other one that we'd been going along, apart from the fact that we had to negotiate three river crossings but they weren't too deep and Adrian did that expertly [although I remember that the longest, which did have a concrete base was probably 100m long - I would like to have included a Streetview photo of this, but the road is still so bad they haven't gone up it!].
After about 60 kilometres we came to a turn off we hadn't expected to see and nothing really marked on the map at all apart from two mines and one little homestead. We had seen one small sign which said to Lawn Hill National Park so we took the road hoping it was the right way to go. Just as we turned the corner we came across two derelict vehicles which gave Adrian a great delight to see just the wrecks of these vintage vehicles.

The Platybus on the road to Lawn Hill

Tuesday 25^th August. 37 Km

Beautiful blue skies with the sun just rising as we awoke and we had a cup of tea which Adrian got. We had breakfast outside by which time the sun was already hot and we were amused on the radio that the woman news reader got the absolute giggles over something. Three times she broke down in giggles but we never really ever heard what the news item was that made her giggle, she just stopped reading it and said we'll keep it for later - very un-English that. I had a shower and we were ready to leave just after 8.30. We stopped at the little office shop and bought some frozen barbecue steak and posted or gave them the card for Paul and Tom to be posted out when the mail came. When we left Lawn Hill last night, we were so cross that we had said we wouldn’t go back there, but of course by the morning we had decided that having gone so much out of our way to go there that we had to go back!
We took the unsurfaced road back down towards Lawn Hill. When we passed the junction to Riversleigh that we'd come out of yesterday, three kangaroos leapt across the road and into the savannah grassland. A real Australian sight in that parched landscape. We arrived at the Lawn Hill Gorge National Park and an action packed day followed.
We first went on a circular walk, which initially went through spinifex which was not very exciting, but then we reached the gorge which was quite spectacular, quite lovely.

We continued on this road and found it not too bad, we went through one deep dust bit which was a bit disconcerting, but apart from that was all right. And before we knew it there we were at Lawn Hill. [One thing that we found out later, was that in our ‘rush’ to get to the end of this seriously dodgy ‘road’ (for us anyway) and with very little information on the area, we had passed the Riversleigh World Heritage fossil site, one of the top 10 in the world].
Having finally joined a slightly better road, we progressed to the campsite in Lawn Hill National Park Campground, well pleased with ourselves, and parked in one of the many available pitches and as we felt really hot and dusty we had a shower, washed our hair and some of the dust away. Adrian fitted all the net windows in and I said was he putting the mat out and, and he said oh no just in case he tells us we can't camp in this spot, but I can't think he will. So he did put the mat out and the tables and chairs and we then went in search of the Ranger who was a couple of hundred yards walk or so away. As we walked along we looked down and could just about see the creek of the river and some fish in it. When we walked to the Rangers office he said “how can I help you” and Adrian said “have you got site for tonight?” “No” he said, “not unless you are booked, it gets booked out all the time, always fully booked a year ahead”. We stood there quite dumbfounded, but no way was he going to change his mind, 100 campers a night was their limit and he wasn't going to have any more, never mind if they had available pitches. So having travelled all day today on these dreadful unmade up roads to come to this place, we couldn't believe our ears.
So while we were still in a state of disbelief, we set off again back up the road, for a private site he had mentioned. I was quite happy to park just outside the camp gates but Adrian found a no camping sign there too. So we progressed 10 kilometres along the road, it was a good long 10 kilometres on a very rough road, to a privately owned site called Adele Grove. And there a very jolly little lady booked us in and it seemed to be a pleasant place, we also bought a loaf of frozen bread from her and so we were settled in just a bit later, at 5.15. The area was once owned by a Frenchman who grew many exotic plants, but most were lost in a fire many years ago, which also destroyed all the records of them. By the time Adrian had had a beer and we'd collect ourselves a bit we realised it was gone six and the sun was just going down, but we went out for a pleasant little walk down to the river where I had a delightful swim. We saw turtles in the river, lots of fish and lots of kangaroos bounding around on the bank and birds everywhere in the trees. It was still very warm.
We returned to cook an omelette outside and we sat outside for some time looking up at the stars. Adrian was trying to clear up some of the red dust which was everywhere and we gave a shake out to the sheet. A young Austrian chap came up and asked if we had any spare beers he could purchase, he had hoped to buy some in the shop (you can only buy them in Liquor stores) [and we hadn't got any left!]. He was here for 2 months during the school holidays with his wife and daughter. At 9 o'clock when the generator was turned off and it was a bit quieter, we went up to a public phone at the entrance to the campsite to try and ring Emma again but again no luck. We saw a little kangaroo on the way back and came in at about 9.30

An old car on the road to Lawn Hill

Convolvulus beside the road to Lawn Hill

We had a swim there by the Indarri Falls, the stone there being tufa stone and we walked back, climbing high and with lots of lookouts. It was then a pretty steep climb down, and we had another swim across the river and back before returning to the van where we made up some sandwiches and took them down to do a walk in the opposite direction. However we found that there were canoes for hire there and I thought that would be a nice thing to do. So we ate our sandwiches and then had a very pleasant hour or so canoeing down to the falls again and back. There were waterlillies on the water, the deep red sides of the gorge, lots of bird life and some cormorants.

Adrian on our walk above the falls at Lawn Hill - note the canoeists below

There was a circular walk climbing high up to an island stack, they called it, but we thought it was too hot to do that in the intense heat. So we just did a walk around one side of it , to some cascades where we had a quick dip in the water to cool ourselves. There had been a lot of flood damage to the palm trees and they were lying scattered everywhere.

Adrian in a canoe by the Indarri Falls and the waterlillies

We were running out of water to drink by then as we'd been very thirsty. We walked back from that and went in the opposite direction where there were a few Aboriginal paintings with a boardwalk and we could see into another part of the gorge. It was very, very hot, we returned and had a very welcome drink of water from the fridge, then another swim and a shower by which time it was 4.20.
We left Lawn Hill and drove some 20 Km along this dusty road towards Gregory Downs and stopped beside the road in a parched area with lots of flies. We passed lots of cows , particularly the Afghan sort, Indian looking cows. So there we were in the heat and the dust and we didn't sit outside initially as it was a bit windy and there seemed to be a lot of flies and then suddenly lots of cows came up and walked past and gave us the once over, lots and lots and lots of cows. But as the evening progressed we realised that it was actually quite pleasant outside and we watched the sun go down rather beautifully, with a lovely sky and a beautiful star filled sky after that.

A Dragon Lizard at Lawn Hill

We cooked some beef outside, that we bought frozen in the morning from Adele Grove, and it looked like rather bashed around supposedly barbecue beef and we fried it with some potatoes and baked beans. The gaslight hadn't got much gas left in it so it wasn't giving out a very bright light and just as Adrian went to get the beef out of the pan the whole lot fell into the dirt. So we tried to wash it off but it tasted rather gritty and it wasn't terribly good beef anyway. So we had to enjoy the wine and supped that down so that we didn't notice what we were eating.
However the setting was lovely and during the whole time we were there only one vehicle went past as we arrived and then a road train which rather surprised us, and tooted this horn and that was all for the whole of the evening - we really did feel as though we were out in the middle of nowhere and the nearest habitation hundreds of miles away apart from the couple of campsites.

Platybus in our overnight spot beside Gregory Downs Rd

Wednesday 26th August 65 Km

Another beautiful blue sky and we awoke to see the sunrise, and we sat outside for breakfast in this absolute remoteness and were ready to leave just after 8.30. The road to Gregory River was 65 Km and was flat, hot and dusty. Several road trains passed us in the opposite direction, stirring up absolute clouds of dust so we couldn't see anything and two oversize vehicles went past but there was mostly just grass savannah with the occasional areas of trees, which made it more interesting as they were slightly green, plus the Indian looking cows.
We got to the Gregory River Crossing at Gregory Downs at 10.30 and decided to stop for coffee as there was a free camping place there. It looked so lovely with palm trees beside the water that we decided to make our base there for today. A beautiful day passed very quickly and having had coffee, we walked around and moved up the river just a little and settled in beside it. We spent a lot of the day watching the bird life, there was a robin which we had great difficulty in identifying, but we came down to it being a white browed robin, but the buff sided form. It was the mother on the nest, with one egg and one just hatched and the father was around too and lots of zebra finches and crimson finches and other bird life and lots of dragon lizards.

There was a big bust up with some Aborigines, who had been sitting happily the other side of the bridge. We had a chat to a lady from Newcastle, NSW, who thought that Lawn Hill was overrated. We had a swim in the river later on which was quite delightful and spoke to a couple formerly from Lithuania who'd lived there for 50 years and had accents which were really strong.. We did some cleaning jobs and made a list of purchases in Oz and 'downers' and we trimmed our hair and altogether had a very pleasant day.
Later in the afternoon, we also saw 'freshie' on the other side of the water and a heron. An Aboriginal woman had to come and asked me for some cigarettes but she soon went away. We had some of the steak which was left from yesterday and that was more successful tonight as it didn't fall in the dirt! We sat outside hearing great disturbances from the Aboriginal people still, but they quietened down after supper and we came in as it was actually getting cooler, it had gone well below 70°F! [ what I do remember about this beautiful place was that after the Aboriginal bust up, which was quite ‘loud’ and violent and was mid morning, it was quiet for the rest of the day, and the police turned up early evening, probably 6 or 7 hours later, which was probably why we heard the Aborigines again later – but how far had the police come? We never felt threatened, it was purely an aboriginal conflict and no doubt caused by drinking]

Adrian swimming by our idyllic free spot at Gregory River and little Crimson Finches

Thursday 27^th August 328 Km

And it was a cooler night which was quite welcome really and we awoke to a clear blue sky but still quite cool in the shade. I started the day with a quick swim in the river in the wonderfully exotic location and we enjoyed having some crumpets for breakfast sitting outside in the sun, watching the various bird life, the robin and the crimson finches. What a lovely spot this was, so we didn't rush off and were ready to leave at 9.20.
We crossed the rickety bridge and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the Wills Developmental Road had been newly surfaced, as the end part of it which we were using, was shown on the map as unsurfaced. So we progressed quickly across flat savannah grasslands. I photographed two of these strange looking cattle.

Later we passed an area of dozens and dozens of brolgas and galahs beside the road. Where we pulled off at 10.40, it was just beside the road and it was extremely windy. We stopped at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse at the junction with the Burke Developmental Road which we were going to take to Normanton. We got some diesel and went into the Roadhouse but all we could see to buy were two postcards - there was virtually no food, so we had to make do with what we had.
As we set off on the Burke Developmental Road, there was a sign saying beware, soft verges for the next 250 kilometres. We pulled off for lunch at what seemed to be the only pull off place, mostly for lorries and it was still pretty windy but the worst thing were the flies getting in our faces. We were getting a bit low on resources, so it was a tin of tuna. We'd been listening to tape number 3, which was Tasmania and so again enjoyable, except for the downers about the van (the Melbourne saga). We'd noticed Kapok trees again, which we hadn't seen since probably the Kimberley's, but a lot had their fruit hanging like just large apples on a bare tree. Soon after that we came to what must have been a 'bang bang jump up', which wasn't at all impressive and no sign telling us, but we calculated that it was where it must have been, as after that we left the escarpment and were now on the flat plain north. ['Bang bang jump up' was a place near Calgary in Canada where the local Indians herded buffalo and forced them to fall over a cliff ]. It hadn't been very flat before and was just grasslands now.
We were soon heading for Normanton, and a short distance outside there were some roadworks and just as we went to pass the man with a slow sign, he changed it to stop and a digger came out, which made us stop rather abruptly and the loo to turnover. In the end today the road was surfaced all the way, even if some of it was a single track in the middle of the road!
We soon found ourselves in Normanton and had a quick discussion about what to do and decided we would stay there for the night as there was a caravan site there. Normanton was a small town, in this area of nothingness. We booked in to Normanton Tourist Park and positioned ourselves almost next door to a 25 metre swimming pool.
As it was now almost 4 o'clock, we thought the first thing to do was to go out and ring Paul being 7 o'clock in the morning in England and to wish him a happy birthday. The first phone was occupied but at the second one we got through to Paul who was back from his holiday in France with Nicky and he had some bump in the car but they seemed to be okay. We then had to recharge the card but were then able to get through to Emma and had quite chat to her too. We called into a shop and got some milk and eggs, and eyed up the Purple Pub which seems to be doing food tonight, and then went back. We had been a bit squashed in by campers all around, but it was still quite a pleasant sort of atmosphere. There was still quite a cool wind, but we went next for swim in this large pool and then a shower and hair wash.
Being rather low on food and finding that the Purple Pub across the road had a reasonably priced carvery tonight, we decided to go there and for $13.50, about £5 each, we had a carvery with four different sorts of meat and 'help yourself' to vegetables and salads and a roll, and dessert to follow. There were three desserts, custard type things, trifle and cakey things, so we thought pretty good value. It actually got quite cool while we were sitting outside - we were in the pub garden and this place, miles from anywhere, was just full of ordinary people living their lives and sitting around in the pub, and young people sitting in jeans as ordinary as could be. We came back about 8 o'clock.
[I couldn't understand why we haad no photos of Normanton, until I tried to find some on the internet. The only ones I found of the campsite were the swimming pool which was a nice pool for such a basic campsite. The one for the entrance from streetview in 2023 shows just how basic it still is and equally for the Purple pub. But we loved the town as such a typcal outback Aussie town - it wasn't called the arsehole end of Australia for nothing!

Brahman Bulls by the roadside

Friday 28^th August 0 Km

It had been windy in the night and I hadn't slept that well. We had our cup of tea inside and went out into the wind and had our breakfast. We'd seen the fruit van go round the campsite but we hadn't been in time to catch it. We decided to stay here today and go on the Gulflander train tomorrow morning.
So we went across to the reception to pay for another night. The woman in there probably about our age, late 50's, had a blue eyed granddaughter 12 months old and very sweet, who she looked after whilst her mother taught and we talked to her for quite a long time. They'd got a coaster at Sarina on the Queensland coast and were going retire next year and travel around Australia and go to Scotland where they had ancestors. We put in one lot of washing and then went out and searched for a baker's, which we never found. There were one or two shops, which just seemed to be in houses and you couldn't see what they were selling, we couldn't find anything like a cake. It reminded us of the Marquesas. We met up with the fruit and vegetable van, and we bought one or two bits and pieces. The man said the fruit comes in every Wednesday [by boat] and that's it up here. We went to the post office and posted a card to Hilda.
We came back and hung the washing out and then put in a second lot, of sheets and the curtains, which were pretty red with dust. The washing was very quickly dry on this hot and very windy day and, as always on a quiet day, the time just rushed away. We had our elevenses outside with a piece of fruitcake as it turned out we had not gone down the right road to find the bakers. I had a quick swim before lunch. We made pancakes for lunch which we cooked and ate inside, as it was too blowy to cook them outside. We did some other cleaning jobs, trying to get rid of all this red dust. We walked out into the town again going first to a supermarket in a historic building that we'd seen pictures off, a corrugated shack. I bought a few things in there, but there was not a huge selection of fresh foods, and we were amused at the shops there which seem to have a bit of everything in every shop. We bought some meat from the butcher and we located the bakers and bought some rolls and a Chelsea bun. We came back and shared the bun with a cup of tea - quite an unusual thing for us to have an afternoon cup of tea.
A chap came across from neighbouring caravan, he and his wife were going to take over the running of the site while the owners went to their son's wedding next week. This chap had come from Hull in 1976 and his wife was Australian and he chatted for a few minutes. Although there was still a very strong cold wind, we still went for a quick swim and after we had a shower and soon found the afternoon had disappeared. At 5.30 there was what was called a happy hour, I'm not sure why it was called that, but Len who runs the campsite comes and chats about the local attractions. Although we thought this was a godforsaken place when we first arrived, certainly one has a great feeling for it and it was very interesting hearing of the history of the area, and of the local towns and the various things that there are around. He told us about places in the town and having walked out and around, knew the places, so it meant something. The sun went down while he was talking and people had brought drinks with them. There were about 40 people listening to him and a great feeling of camaraderie, and although we didn't talk that much, Adrian talked to a chap next to him. The sun went down and it got quite chilly. Luckily I was prepared as last night had been a bit chilly, so I'd bought a jumper and had trousers on tonight. The sky went a delightful colour of orangey purple and it really was a very nice feeling and the talk added greatly to our understanding of this area.
One of the things Len told us was that the Purple Pub was doing fish and chips tonight at $8 a portion which would probably serve two and after some discussion we decided to give it a try. We went over and collected our fish and chips and brought back to the Normanton Tourist Park, what was the best fish and chips we've probably ever tasted. We sat outside, the wind had now dropped and the evening was cool but it was pleasant enough to sit in and we enjoyed every scrap of the fish and chips and a fine bottle of wine. We looked through the list of our different night stops during this trip and we didn't come in until gone 9 o'clock. We were even more pleased about our fish and chips when we found out next day that the couple who Adrian had been sitting next to last night and came from Gosford, went over for fish and chips and they'd all gone, they were too late. We told them what they'd missed!

Saturday 29^th August. 76 Km

I was awake quite early at 6.30 when some noisy birds went over and the people were packing up or leaving just behind us and I got a cup of tea, and we breakfasted outside. At 8 o'clock we were due to take the bus the short distance to the railway station at the other end of town and people started wandering over at 7.40. We went over and were taken down by the bus to the station and purchased tickets, but in fact the train didn't go until 9 o'clock. The mad rush really was for people to get into the front carriage which we didn't do, but nevertheless, we spent a very enjoyable morning on the Gulflander train. It travelled at quite a speed through flat country but with a lot of trees and some water in various places including crossing the Norman River. We came to a triangular bit where the train could turn around and then came back to a little area beside Critters Creek, where we had what was called billy tea and damper, in fact quite a fine spread of what I would call tea breads, with cream and jam and syrup, tea and coffee. It was a very enjoyable atmosphere, a very pleasant temperature and a very nicely renovated train, so comfortable to travel on. [Altough we didn't realise it at the time, the line actually ran all the way to Croydon 150km away and a train ran all the way on Wednesdays , and still does]

We didn't actually get back till 11.15 and the chap from Hull was waiting to bring us back. We packed up and left for Karumba nearing midday, by then. We had seen some birds on the train trip and in particular, two Jabiru taking off, which we're really pleased to see, also some brolgas and various birds of prey. The road to Karumba was absolutely flat and after the initial bit through some trees was just flat grassland. We did have the delight of seeing lots of brolgas and it's obviously the time of year that they come here and we saw twisters in the distance. We'd been told that it was not very pleasant in Karumba when it's windy, so we had to wait and see what it was like. It was quite windy but not that windy.
We drove first to Karumba itself, the bit on the river. It was quite pleasant and we knew we mustn't go in the water as there could be 'salties' around. We then drove down to Karumba Point and viewed the sea, which we hadn't seen since Darwin. We were at the Gulf of Carpentaria, again with the sea looking quite nice, rather sort of muddy, with trees in the distance on islands or peninsulas.

Our 'Gulflander' experience in Normanton

We'd seen two campsites here. The first one we were recommended to go to, but was actually quite a distance from the sea and one of the things we were supposed to see here was the sunset - there was not actually much else to see or do. So we decided on the campsite nearer to the beach at Sunset Caravan park, a relatively new campsite, clean and nicely laid out but perhaps a bit dearer. The other site had free food on tonight, so maybe that's why that one's packed out and this one hasn't got many people in it. The swimming pool was being repaired but although there was a warm sun, there was a chilly wind so that wasn't too much of a problem. We had lunch sitting outside the van and then we walked out and along the beach composed mostly of crushed shells, some sand and some muddy stuff, not a soul around - we didn't see anybody at all. We walked back through the town, if one could call it that, a few holiday flats, a tavern and a cafe.
We came back to the van and Adrian had a doze and we later had showers. As always, time disappeared and soon it was time to go up to the Sunset Tavern and watch the sun go down over the Gulf of Carpentaria, which we did. Adrian had a beer and I had an excellent glass of Chablis which was fruity and elderflower tasting and despite the clouds, which did come up during the afternoon, or maybe because of them, there was a glorious sunset. We were able to have an excellent view of this, we just sat out right by the water's edge, well there wasn’t actually any water as it wasn't that far in, but it was a lovely spectacle.

The Gulf of Carpenteria at Karumba - No swimming!

The fact that you couldn't swim in those waters, you didn't feel that by looking out there. On the way back, we stopped at Ash's to get fish (barramundi) and chips as we'd been told to, which we came back and ate in the van. They were good, but certainly not as good as the fish and chips the night before, we thought the chips weren't quite as good, but the fish was excellent, so that was that.

Sunset over the Gulf of Carpenteria at Karumba

Sunday 30^th August. 82 Km

Adrian woke at 6.50 with the sun just rising, and it woke me. We put the radio on, and as it was Sunday we had Macca, and we tried to understand the attraction of this man. It was a very strong wind, and clear blue sky, so we decided to breakfast inside. It wasn't really cold by the time we left at 9 o'clock but the wind was still strong.
We then came across quite a lot of aussieness. The swimming pool annoyingly did seem to be filled this morning but we hadn't swum in it because they were working on it yesterday, which hadn’t been too bad as actually there been a cool wind most of the time, but I certainly would have had a swim, had there been water in the pool. On the way out of this part of Karumba Point we passed a place where Adrian could get gas and also diesel which was very reasonably priced and this whole procedure took about half an hour and the man was, it would seem, the original laid back slow speaking Aussie. Having done that, we then thought we'd head for the barramundi farm which was in another part of Karumba, on the river. We located this with great difficulty driving up and down the road - the map supplied was rather inefficient, one could say and when we did find the place, there was a notice on the gates saying closed and it seemed to be locked up, although the leaflets and the signs said that it was open daily until 11.00. and it was only 10 o'clock. We saw a whole lot of cattle in their pens presumably waiting to be loaded onto a ship. We went back a short distance and parked by the river, opposite another caravan park, which we thought had not much going for it. It was very pretty there looking across the wide Norman River with mangroves either side of it, we couldn't see any crocodiles, but we knew crocodiles were there. The sun was really hot by now, so we decided to make this our stop for coffee. It was very pleasant there and we put the cushions out and sat looking out over the water. It was pretty hot - any hotter and we'd have wanted to swim and we knew that we couldn't. We were just finishing our coffee and cake and sort of making a list of how lucky we were with things that had happened like the Adelaide River Bridge being closed soon after we were there and floods soon after we were at places and things like that, when two chaps came up. They were looking at the fishing, they'd come up from Normanton but were from Townsville and they had quite chat to us - one of them said 'eh' all the time. So after that we were just packing up to go again and a lady aged 40's maybe, came along and asked us if our coaster was a fitted out as she'd just bought one over in Mackay and was going to collect it. Neither of these people seemed to know how wet it was over on that side at the moment, it's all flooded. It was so easy for time to go and it was over an hour that we were at this spot in the end, but it looked very pretty with blue sky, the river and green trees and the flat countryside, looking to very Finnish.
We finally set off about 11.30 to drive back to Normanton across the initially flat plain, just grass savannah, but we did have a few delights. There were cattle beside the road and brolgas and a Jabiru which we saw take off. At one point I had a short drive until I tried to get into fifth gear. We stopped for lunch at the Norman River just outside Normanton at a nice look out with a funny shaped picnic table - made for tall people maybe, but was pleasant enough. We arrived back at the Normanton Caravan Park to find the swimming pool still closed. Very few people there, we were told to go back to our same position but in fact it was hard to get in there, there was one someone just next door, so we parked, ironically right in front of the swimming pool. The afternoon disappeared as ever doing reading, dozing,having a shower and looking back over some photos. I read the booklet of the School of the Air and we also cleaned the carpet. A chap who was working for Telstra came and chatted to us for quite a while, an interesting man.
We went over for the free curry and rice night and Len was doing his spiel about local attractions which we heard the other night, so we came in half way through that and then had curry and rice and bread and butter. Pat his wife seemed to have epilepsy but got all this ready, the last one of the season. It was quite nice to have perhaps 30 people sitting around, tucking in, although we didn't really talk to anyone new, except we did talk to Len quite a bit more and Pat and her granddaughter Hannah was there with her parents so that was pleasant and a good atmosphere. We came back about 8 o'clock.

Monday 31^st August. 174 Km

Adrian was awake early and made a cup of tea. Today we had to be quite early as we were going on a trip to Burke and Will's last camp along with the man who managed the campsite there, but we were ready in plenty of time having had breakfast outside in the sun. It had been a cool night but got hot very quickly.
We went across to the coaster bus, a similar age to ours. It was quite strange to see the signs saying that it was a bus and about 10 of us left with Len driving on this little trip, out initially down through Normanton, when he told us a few things that he'd already told us about the place, and headed off on the unmade road to Burke and Wills last camp. We saw quite a few brolgas and cattle and when we got near there, we had to go off road to the little site where there was a 'blazed' tree with the date carved into it and a plaque. [The expedition was led by Robert O'Hara Burke, with William John Wills being a deputy commander. Its objective was the crossing of Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (approximately 2,000 miles) which no white man had done before. This was their last camp as they had reached the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition was dogged by bad luck and they died on the way back.]

After this, we went on to the stage-coach crossing on the Norman River which was used by Leichardt. This was a pretty little spot, the river was quite mucky and as there were crocodiles in there, one had to keep away. We stopped there for morning tea, coffee and date scones, which Pat had got up and made this morning. So an enjoyable morning, and we came back a different way on a dirt track, near to the railway to Normanton. When we got back to the campsite, there were a whole queue of people trying to book in and annoyingly the pool was still closed although the notice had been taken off one gate and along with several other people who'd just arrived back, commented how annoying it was. We sufficed with having a shower and hair wash before we left at about 11.30.
We progressed to the baker's where we bought some rolls and milk and when we looked at the milk and it was out of date the chap there said, I'll get you one from out of the cold store”, which he did, but it still had yesterday's date on it and so he said, "oh here you are, just have it"! Then Adrian tried a couple of the phones to get hold of Landbase. The first phone was an old fashioned one that he couldn't use and the second one you could only use for emergency services, so that was thwarted. In a third one we couldn't get through either as it seemed Telstra, was doing something today. We went down the road and stopped outside a different supermarket - a one stop shop. We collected up a few bits and pieces but it was just as the school turned out, even if it wasn't yet 12.00 and the store suddenly filled with about 20 children, who'd come in to spend their dollars on sweets and drinks and bits and pieces. But we did get served relatively quickly, the lady spied us.
We set off on our way towards Croydon retracing the steps of earlier this morning initially, through rather flat and one could say monotonous country. After a while we came to an unsurfaced stretch and just after we came back to a tarmacked bit, we managed to pull off into a shady spot to have lunch. It was 92°F. We continued in the heat towards Croydon, but just before we reached there, we turned off to a historic site, which was obviously the site of one of the many mines of this area. It was baking hot, and all we found was a pile of sand and some bits of old machinery.

The Old stagecoach crossing on the Norman River

Adrian at Burke & Wills last camp (1860)

We found a phone box in Croydon, a good old fashioned one the sort that I remember, and managed to get through and asked for our post to be sent to Cairns. We went into the general store in a tin shack, which apparently housed a museum of which there was no sign from outside. But inside was a bit like a museum and she said yes, we could go in, but the modern things of the shop, like they sold refrigerators and clothes and all sorts, were mixed up with all sorts of memorabilia from the last century. As it said in Lonely Planet, 'all fairly well hidden under an even more impressive collection of dust and cobwebs', which I thought was a bit unkind, but when we got there and viewed it, it was absolutely right and had to be seen to be believed. It obviously hadn't been touched for decades and had a real “Miss Havisham” feel to it. We bought a postcard which didn't show the cobwebs, but it did show it looking a bit dusty.

Adrian beside one of the many former gold mines near Croydon

We then set off from Croydon, which had very little in it now to show of the 1000’s of gold mines from the past. We continued out for some miles eastwards, the land got slightly undulating and more interesting and wooded and around 4 o'clock we pulled off onto a large layby about 25 Km from Croydon, backing onto these woods and decided this would make a suitable stop for tonight. And so it did, we had a very pleasant time there, it stayed warm right through the evening. We cooked and ate steak outside, but unfortunately, I was bugged a bit by mossies but with an antihistamine I improved and we didn't come in until about 10 o'clock.

Postcard of museum in Croydon

Tuesday, 1^st September 175 Km

The first day of spring here, but not that it's been winter up here anyway. It was a clear blue sky and very hot very quickly but also very windy. We had breakfast outside, but we were slightly later today and didn't leave until 9.30. We found that the milk that the baker had given us yesterday had already gone off - it was thick so we threw it away.
We travelled on westwards listening to one of our tapes of Kangaroo Island and around 11 o'clock we pulled into the Cumberland Chimney area, the chimney of an old mine, built by Cornish miners. Just beyond that, there was a so called picnic area which looked out on to a small lake and there was a varied amount of birdlife there. A lot of cattle had come down to use this waterhole too, some were wallowing in it and paddling and enjoying themselves. Apart from that there were apostle birds very noisily around us, a mud pie lark who came and sort of stayed beside us and didn't make any fuss. Other birds were coming down and getting fish from the water and there were birds of prey. Darters, egrets, cormorants, brolgas, a sirus crane, ibis, various ducks, a stilt, large crows, herons - the list seemed to go on and on. It was very hot about 95°F and we made this our coffee stop and sat in the shade, with binoculars, watching all this wildlife around us. We couldn't have wished for more, had we gone to a wildlife park or sanctuary and telling us we might find these birds. Sometimes the wind got up really strongly. It was 12.30 when we left here, it was really quite a barren spot and there had been dumping of poisonous waste which Adrian said was cyanide, but the birdlife was wonderful.

We stopped a few kilometres on at Georgetown for Adrian to get some diesel and to check the tyres, we also bought some milk. It was a small town, we drove round a couple of roads viewing some quite nice old tin buildings and we found a little park containing some old mining exhibits. We found a shady spot under a tree overlooking a large, dry river and there we had our lunch. Leaving Georgetown and travelling east we went through some very pleasant hilly country, supposedly with a couple of lookouts, but we never found where you were supposed to look out. I did take picture of a kapok bush here with its green fruits hanging.

Old car beside the Cumberland chimney

Lake beside the Cumberland chimney

We cooked pork chops outside, ate outside and sat out until about 9.30. There was some bird life, but not as much as we might have thought would be there.

We continued, going back to more of flat land, and saw the turn-off to the Talaroo Hot Springs but decided against going there as it was a fee to go into it, a dirt road there and we'd been to many hot springs and anyway it was too hot! Soon after that about 3 o'clock, we tried to locate a 'natural camping site' as it was marked on the map, beside the Einasleigh River.
We couldn't see anything at first, but after a few 100 yards there was a track going off and decided to follow it, we thought it was probably going to someone's homestead. We followed it for quite some distance, a couple of kilometres and we did eventually come back down to the river, but no signs to tell you that this was the place, Australia is a bit like that. We were beside a very wide river with some amount of water in it, in certain places, lots of paperbark trees and it seemed an ideal place for us to stay for the night. As there was water there we cleaned the van a bit and later on, the wind got up, so Adrian moved the van along a little bit, so it wasn't underneath the trees. But then the wind died down again and we spent a very pleasant time, enjoying the solitude, miles from anyone and anywhere.

Kapok bush with flowers & fruit

Remote camping spot by the Einasleigh River

Wednesday, 2^nd September 259 Km

We certainly heard bird life early on. I'd heard something, maybe an owl that woke me in the night and at 5.45 we were woken by the first bird song and then it was a real chorus right until we left at 8.30. In particular, we'd heard a laughing kookaburra as well as perhaps the non laughing blue winged, but the laughing, we must just be on the verge of this one, which is on just the East Coast and the extreme southwest of Australia. It was a fine, sunny morning, and the rain and wind that we might have thought by the cloud formation last night never occurred at all. We sat outside for breakfast just surrounded by birdsong. It was nearly 9 o'clock by the time we left as we tried to identify some birds that we thought might be firebirds but they didn't keep still very long.
We drove off eastwards and it wasn't long before he came to Mount Surprise. The BP station here, which was also a caravan park and all sorts of other things was also a little gem museum and we bought a couple of pieces of nice blue agate. We then had a rather frustrating time. It wasn't long before we came to the turnoff to the Undara Lava tubes and this was a 15 kilometre rough road, very corrugated - the great big sign at the end said it was an ‘environmental road’, for that read bloody awful. We didn't stop for coffee as we'd understood there to be a tour of these tubes at 11 o'clock, the only way you can see them. We arrived shortly before at about 10.50 and I went to inquire if there was an 11 o'clock tour. I had to wait a long time in a very nice reception place doubling as a shop and the girl just said the next tour was at one o'clock. It was extremely hot at this place and I conveyed the news to Adrian and we thought we might as well have our coffee. So we had to then travel further on to a car park. There was no shade, no seats, nothing, we sat on a bit of a rock underneath trees and having had coffee, we walked back down to the reception and asked again about the one o'clock tour to be told it was fully booked. The next was 3.30. It's a two hour tour, whereas from the Lonely Planet, we'd understood it to be one and a half hours and so going on the 3.30 tour would have meant camping there a night which was $9 each for what didn't seem a great deal - in fact nothing. So we were feeling pretty angry about all this and deliberating what to do and then we really tried to find out what the tour entailed because nothing told you anything anywhere. On asking another person we were told that most of it was underground, apart from the 15 minutes in the bus to get there. We thought that having waited from 11 o'clock to 3.30 to go on a trip which was underground for two hours and I might not cope with anyway and then stay at a campsite we didn't want to stay at made it all too difficult and we decided that we wouldn't stay [ in retrospect of course we should have stayed, but when things seem against you, sometimes you just give up.]
So we travelled back the 15 kilometres on this wonderfully corrugated road which filled everything with dust when we'd just cleaned all the van up and then rejoined the main road.

A few kilometres along the road we came to the Millstream Falls, now a National Park. We were enjoying being in this hilly country with lots of trees and looking more green, but more traffic, we weren't enjoying that. It was a kilometre off the road and a dirt track and used to be a camping spot- not any more. The walk started off with a concrete path and steps and a rail, and then went to some awful barbed wire alongside it and then a steep bit in a gorge where you really needed a rail and there was nothing and it was pretty sheer. The falls, supposedly the widest in Australia, were very pretty and we climbed down to the bottom on a very, very rough path with trees strewn everywhere, and were very disappointed at the bottom to not be able to get near the water. But we found another little overgrown track and we could get to a bit of water where we managed to get in and swim across to the falls, which was pleasant, and just as we got across to the falls, we saw two big dragon lizards on the side, big for dragon lizards. We swum back and climbed all the way up again, by which time it was 4.30.

This was just a strip of tarmac in the middle of the road for most of its length, but not long after that we joined the north south road - the Kennedy Highway. We were looking now for somewhere to stop for lunch. We went through a little bit of the Forty Mile Scrub National Park. We couldn't see anything National Parkish about it - there wasn't very much of a park. There was one rest area which was the most barren rest area you could imagine, not even a picnic table, so we continued out of that and some little while afterwards, when we did find a place, it would have been a very good overnight stop, well back from the road and this is where we decided to stop for lunch and a dear little dragon lizard welcomed us. Having now got a bit ahead of ourselves, we had a discussion over lunchtime as to what we will be doing next. We returned to the road and alongside this road the termite mounds are rather different, I thought they looked rather like elephants hiding in the bush. We passed Mount Garnet and continued along this one lane surfaced road until we came to the Innot Hot Springs and this was a little stream running under the road that looked pretty grotty with algae sort of stuff growing in it and a lot of animal poo beside and around it. But there was one little pool that obviously somebody else had made and we sat in it for a while. We then walked along the stream for a bit, it had very large gritty sand in it which hurt my feet and mostly the water was just too hot to stand in. Being a rather hot, humid day, we didn't really need hot springs today - anyway, we'd given them the once over.

Not only was it a rubbish road, what did this mean?

Rosie in Innot hot springs

We set off from there and the change in scenery was absolutely dramatic, all of a sudden everywhere was green. It had been hilly, but it was then more so, with a winding road, lots of flowers and we felt very English looking, and just a total change, quite hard to take in. We had arrived on the Atherton Tablelands and the change was instantaneous and staggering from the dry savannah to this lush greenness, and we really couldn't believe it. It was like we'd sometimes felt in the past, coming back through the Pyrenees from Spain to France. The smallness of the farms and the prettiness of everywhere was lovely, overwhelming, but that left us sort of longing for that loneliness of the flat savannah land when there was no one around but us. Our scenic route seemed to get us where we didn't know where and we were enjoying the scenery, but suddenly found that we hadn't any idea where we were. We took another turn and went into what seemed like drizzle, but actually we were in cloud, which was a shame because the road that we did turn out to be on, was one to a lookout which obviously had spectacular views, but we couldn't see anything at all. It reminded us of the Conners Pass in Ireland, but we still couldn't get over this feeling of the greenness and also this mistiness and dampness. It was as though we'd gone to sleep and woken up back in England. Apart from the bit of rain that we'd had in the hills in Timor which was rather similar to today, it was two months since we'd seen anything like rain and this wasn't really rain it was just being in a cloud. It did come on to give us some rain afterwards.
We came to Millaa Millaa and turned off on the little circuit which visited three falls, the first of which was the Millaa, Millaa Falls and we decided to have a look at these. In fact, it was a very, very pretty waterfall and reminded us of Tahiti, it was so tropical, so so different from what we'd seen earlier today. It was quite chill because of the dampness that we were in, otherwise known as rain, but we thought that no one would be bothered if we stayed there tonight. It was about 5.45 when we got there. A different evening as we had to do everything inside and we then realised how difficult it was to cook inside because it immediately gets very warm and there's not much room to move. We enjoyed some sweet corn bought in Normanton and then some prawns bought at Karumba with some rice and a bottle of Australian Lambrusco which was different, so a very different evening. We could hear rain outside, the noise of different birds and we also thought frogs or something at one point, but a fairly quiet night followed apart from the sound of the waterfall. I finished reading the Roy Castle autobiography which I found a very moving account by very lovely man.

Had a nice swim in Millstream Falls

Thursday, 3^rd September. 114 Km

It was not sunshine to wake up to, it was very grey and drizzling. We had a cup of tea looking at this lovely waterfall, and had breakfast inside. During this time a car had come down with a young couple who had a baby, and the couple took it in turns to go in for a swim. I'd been wanting to do the same so after they left I went across and had a swim in this gorgeous tropical pool, with its high waterfall falling into it. It was still drizzling, but the sun was trying to shine through, it made me think of being in a Devon lane.

It was just after 8.30 when we drove back up this steep lane, the sun shining down, but heavy clouds.
When we got back onto the little circular route passing different waterfalls, it seemed even more like Devon, so green, black and white freesian cows and lots of trees. We really felt we could have been in Devon and thought, what a world away from the savannah grasslands of yesterday. We stopped to view the Zillie Falls, and for this one, you could walk through a bit of rain forest, which brought back happy memories of our previous visit to Queensland, but you couldn't really get down to the base of the falls, just look across to them. We were still overcome by this green luxuriance and there were lots of busy lizzes growing here wild.
A bit further on were the Ellinjaa Falls with a pretty little picnic area at the top and we walked down lots and lots of steps to these and there was a little swimming hole. I was about to take off and have another swim but I could see when Adrian pointed it out it looked too shallow. The rocks behind meant that the falls had bounced off rocks as it came down and it looked very pretty.

Milla Milla falls for an early morning swim - dramatic change of scenery

Friday, 4^th September 87 Km

It rained a little in the night and we woke up early, before 6.15, to hear a light bit of rain, and I got up to make a cup of tea and found the gas had run out. So while Adrian was changing the gas, I thought it was time for an early morning swim in this lake, in beautiful surroundings, it could be Switzerland, or Canada even. We looked at the sky, which was varied and pretty cloud formations, but we could see some heavy cloud too and we were bothered we might not get off this grass, so decided to move on a bit around the lake, which we did, leaving at 7.30.
There weren't many more campsites or picnic sites by the lake, but we did stop and have a lovely walk through the rain forest for about a quarter of an hour to a lookout to another lake, Lake Euramoo, which is a double crater lake.

A bit further on from there we stopped at the Chimneys Picnic area where there were two chimneys, the only thing left of a house, which was once there, built in 1924. And we thought we'd try out for the first time, a gas barbecue which was under a shelter here, in case this grey weather turns to rain again. We had heard on the news of a disturbing air crash off Nova Scotia, 200 or so people feared dead in a plane crash there. [We visited the memorial to it near Halifax, Nova Scotia on Thursday 27^th July 2006]. We were out of luck with using the gas BBQ because it didn't seem to want to work. So we reverted to using our stove outside and had a very pleasant fried breakfast in this rainforest atmosphere, very damp, not cold and surrounded by lush green grass and tropical green trees and these two chimneys which were here from the old house, so a very pleasant stop. We were watching some birds we'd seen yesterday and we decided finally, after a great deal of discussion that they were bush thick-knee (or bush stone-curlew) and they looked like mini ostriches but not really. So by the time we were ready to leave this place it was 9.20.
Our next stop was at the Mobo Creek Crater Lake - they don't know how it was formed, but possibly volcanic. There was a short walk around here through the rain forest and as we started it we saw a scrub turkey, otherwise known as a bush turkey. The sun was coming through by now and it was one of the most glorious walks, tall, tall trees, lots of birdsong and noises of frogs. Just before we reached the next place, a little thing ran right across the path, we thought it was a little black pig and then we saw a nest of a scrub turkey. The male builds a mound of leaves, and keeps it at the right temperature to incubate the eggs, quite an advanced way of making the nest work. The walk was thoroughly enjoyable and we twice crossed the creek on a stone bridge, but when we got back to the van Adrian found he had got a little leech on his ankle.

Adrian in the rainforest

Just before we reached the last stop on this forest drive a thing ran across the road which we thought might have been a musky rat kangaroo, it was certainly about the size of that. The last stop was the Cathedral Fig Tree, and this certainly was enormous and impressive and here we had our coffee stop.

Our walk at Mobo Creek

While having coffee outside in the sunshine, leaning against a post, we chatted to a couple Carol and her husband from Brisbane, who were up here for a holiday. We left at 11 o'clock. Back on the Appleton Road, which was also known as the Gillies Highway, we descended from the Atherton Tablelands, a long, long, long winding road. It felt really hot as we stopped at Heales Outlook and looked out onto hills and forested land in all directions, with very little habitation, just the fertile valley floor - splendid scenery and we shared the view with a young chap who'd come up the other way.

Cathedral Fig Tree

We descended to the Bruce Highway at Gordonvale and we had sugarcane on either side and we had to get used to the greater volume of traffic and were soon heading north on it towards Cairns. The weather was now warm and we arrived in Cairns very quickly and located the post office without too much trouble. There was a computer screen there to tell you first whether your post was there, and were then able to collect our post in a separate post receiving area. We had a letter from Emma with some photos, one from Tom, a book from Simon belatedly for my birthday by Matthew Collins, one from Roger Wagstaff, one from Doe and a postcard from Harry & Maureen, plus my contact lenses and phone bill. So we sat outside and read these, looked in at the tourist information and then went and collected the van. It was feeling increasingly very hot and humid. We then had a frustrating time driving around trying to find a parking place which seemed very difficult there and eventually stopped on the Esplanade and made up a sandwich and sat looking out onto the muddy mangroves, but quite pleasant. There were quite a lot of birds around and forested hills in the distance beyond the little bit of water and the few sailing boats.
A very busy afternoon followed. We walked down to a Tourist Information place that we'd been looking for earlier and picked up various leaflets on either hiring a four wheel drive vehicle or on tours up to Cape York, and came back to look at those. We then did quite a bit of phoning up for various prices and went off looking and spoke to a lady about tours. We took in my film to be done and found they also did slides so we took those in to be done as well and we were still going through all the various options for going to Cape York. It was funny being back in Cairns, after five years, and enjoying the tropical feel of it all. We came to the end result, that a tour was probably better value than hiring a vehicle by the time we'd added on the extra insurance for driving up difficult terrain and we came down on the side of two tours. This was after a visit to a tourist place and a very nice lady, Ann, showed us all the options and the different tours that were going. There was one going next Wednesday, it being Friday today, for nine days and similar priced one going on Monday for eight days, doing more or less the same thing but not going across to the Gulf of Carpentaria which we had visited anyway. Lots of phone calls and tooing and froing of which to go for and we eventually opted for the Monday one the main reason being that they had foam beds to sleep on and the others had lilos and we were hoping the foam beds would be more comfortable for me.
So having made this decision, I then also collected our photos, had an ice cream from a place we thought we'd visited before on our previous visit here. We went back to actually book this tour from with the really pleasant lady, Ann, who was probably a year or two older than us and extremely busy. When we got there, she wasn't that busy, she only had a few people to deal with, and she took a lot of interest in us booking this trip. While she was doing so, the place filled up with about a dozen people all wanting to be dealt with, but she never lost her cool at all and still remained pleasant, and tried to deal with one or two of the quick ones. So we finally left her, booked up, but during this time it had got dark. We'd watched the light fade from the sky and looking very lovely and looking out over the tropical views but we'd broken our golden rule of not trying to find somewhere in the dark.
We had thought of staying where we were, people seem to be staying there but it seemed to be the place people went to sell their camper vans, and we might have been sold by the morning! It was also rather unlevel and there was lots of traffic there. So we looked up what we thought was a reasonably near caravan park and with some difficulty located the Sunland Caravan Park and arrived there about 7.30. We wanted an unpowered site but had to have a powered site for $17, so we put on the air conditioning, and we used the microwave for cooking the last of the prawns from Karumba which were excellent value as it did us two meals and they only cost $5 dollars for the lot. We ate this outside with some rice and the wonderful cauliflower we'd bought. We did a load of washing and hung it out. It was a very warm evening, but we came in just before 9 o'clock as there were lots of things for us to attend to.

View from Heales Lookout, Gillies Highway

Saturday 5^th September. 32 Km

I hadn’t slept well and felt a bit grotty later. It became a very hot day very quickly. We had breakfast outside in the shade and then we had a swim and a young girl in the pool who was travelling around Oz with her parents talked to me. After we had showers/hairwash and then attended to chores. Adrian cleaned the van outside and I did a bit of a ironing and time seem to disappear. It was getting on towards 11 o'clock by the time we were ready to leave - check out time 10.00!
We drove a short distance towards the Botanical Gardens stopping at a popular bakers to buy rolls for lunch and a cake for now which we ate at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens on a lovely shady seat. We then had a pleasant time walking around these very tropical gardens and then a boardwalk down to a lake through an area of rain forest and back round to the road. It was nice after all the arid Botanic Gardens we've been in around Australia to go through this really tropical one.

We now looked for somewhere for lunch and ended up down on the front beside a delightful children's play boat called the 'Funtime Endeavour', made of wood very aesthetically, and seemingly the very thing for children young and old to do. There were some shades above it, made so that it had the feeling of it being the sails of the boat.

Palm trees in the Botanic Gardens, Cairns

This was right besides the mangrove mud, but really a very attractive front at Cairns and we sat there and had rolls for lunch. It was breezy down there so we didn't feel the heat so much.
We located a huge indoor shopping centre and spent some time looking around getting various bits and pieces that we wanted for next weeks trip. I also bought a swimming costume and Adrian bought some sandals and we then headed off to get some gas. We now needed somewhere to stay for the night and we took a road down to a beach, the first one north of Cairns to Machans Beach. It was not exactly built up, there were just a lot of people living there in low cost housing from the past, but 'no camping' signs at any appropriate point. On the road back to the main road, we wondered about whether to stay at a particular little area off the road and weren't too sure about it and just at that point an aeroplane came into land just above our heads - we were very near the airport, so that was not on.
So we turned off to the next beach Holloway's Beach and similarly 'no camping' signs and quite a resort there and we were just about giving up and wondering what to do when we took a road down to a boat launching place which actually came down to a river and there we found what seemed a suitable spot right by the river. We went down and watched the little mudskippers, and there seemed to be some noseeums or sandflies or something which wasn't very good, but there were kookaburras and later fireflies around too. It was very sultry. We cooked outside but ate inside. The tide came up quite high.

The 'Funtime Endeavor', Cairns

Sunday, 6^th September 24 Km

A very early start to the day as I'd woken at 3.30 for the loo and there was a lot of birdsong and it was very noisy and a couple of aeroplanes went over so I didn't get back to sleep. So about 4.45 we decided to ring Paul and Nicky's house as Tom's 21st birthday party was going on and this we did and chatted to all our four children and Adrian to Martin. It was nice to talk to all our kids, but we did both feel rather deflated afterwards, that life was going on and the fact that we were not there didn't really seem to matter to anybody very much. There was a clear blue sky and the sun was up, so we were up and about early, but because of the little, noseeum things, we decided it wasn't a good place to stay for breakfast.
We drove the short distance down to the nice sandy beach and there we cooked bacon and eggs, which we sat and ate overlooking this beautiful bit of tropical coastline. In fact, we stayed there the whole morning, we had elevenses there and lunch there too and we spent a pleasant morning getting ourselves organised and packing up ready for our trip to Cape York. We phoned Ali during the morning and Adrian also spoke to Barry and we had a swim and found the tide was going out and it was actually quite shallow but beautifully warm.
It was about 1.20 when we left and found our way to Trinity Beach, the place where Tom, who's running the tour lives, so we know where to get to for tomorrow morning. We had thought that we might be able to stay there as we were going to leave the van there for the week, but he said that no it wasn't on, not allowed, he'd lose his licence and the rest of it [I'm sure that was a load of rubbish, he just didn’t want us there!]. So after a few words with him and his wife, we set off north heading for Palm Cove, where Lonely Planet said there was a nice little site run by the local council for $7 for cold showers or $8 for hot showers right on the beach.
We didn't really imagine it would be okay as it was a very resorty place, we'd remembered going there to pick people up from the nearby resort hotel on a day tour, when we were there five years ago. The woman where Adrian booked in, we thought must be German as she was very slow speaking, very dour and everything had to be said precisely and took so long I thought she was turning us away, but no there was plenty of room. The little site was right by the beach, it was very green and pleasant and so after this we quickly made our way down to the beach for another swim.

We just had a wonderful time, the water was warm, and slight waves, so it was just nice lying around in the water and we really enjoyed it with wonderful surroundings and beautiful scenery.
We came back about 3.30 and went for shower and hair wash and then more finishing off to make sure we were ready for tomorrow morning.
We went for a walk along this beautiful cove, lovely sky and lovely scenery all around. We walked along the pier where lots of people were fishing and it was actually a full moon, so we saw the full moon rise into sky.

We cooked outside, ate outside and just sat in the beautiful temperature. We were aware of a lot of pleasant noise around us, a barbecue site was nearby, and we found out later that people just gathered together and some people had obviously been here a while. There was music playing, different sorts of music and at one point someone joined in with 'bones' or whatever, making a rhythmic sound and then the music changed to something that sounded Marquesan and then again to John Denver. We were enjoying that, I sat outside listening and after a long time we did go for the end of the evening and joined in with the group of people. In particular, the lady of a couple who liked the John Denver music was a mother of 7 and 15 grandchildren and a couple of great grandchildren and her husbands mother was alive at 92, so quite a few generations. They lived in Cairns, a real local Australian family, you might say the old country lady, she used the word to 'you's' as a lot people do for the plural of 'you' and we chatted with them for a while - nobody else seemed to bother whether we were there or not. The barbecue broke up around 9.40 really, and went quiet and so we went back to the van, ready for our big adventure.

The entrance to Palm Cove campground (Alex Monkton 2014)

Palm Cove in the evening light

We were then able to walk down to the Dinner Falls on the Barron River and these were quite picturesque, falling in lots of little waterfalls. It was quite a nice walk around. We arrived back about 12.30 and retraced our steps a bit to take the road to Herberton. By the time we stopped for lunch half an hour later we'd again gone back into dry lands, not as dry as the savannah grasslands but pretty dry and sunny, although there were clouds about, so we could sit outside by an old railway line bridge. We were now almost in Herberton, an old tin mining town established in 1880, which we drove through. There was a museum here of old houses, rehoused from all over the Tablelands, but that was $10 each to go in and we decided that wasn't really worth it. We'd been to a tin mining village in Tasmania and it said no cameras, which put us off.
We then went down a very very long hill and it wasn't long before we came to Atherton, a large town and we were rather taken aback by the amount of traffic. We were looking for the Forestry Department of Primary Industries, like our Forestry Commission, to find out the state of the road round the Tinaroo Dam. We drove up and down the road a couple of times without any luck and gave up on that and stopped to get some diesel. Diesel was 69.9c/litre, the cheapest anywhere we had been in Australia, it was 100c/litre in some places on the Nullabor. We found the civilization of this large town now hard to comprehend after the remoteness we've been experiencing for the past month. Things like paved paths, roundabouts, lots of bedding plants, bottlebrush trees, it could just be a large English town anywhere. We felt that this area had far more in common with England or say France than with the other parts of Australia that we'd been in for the last few months.
We turned off at Tolga and took the road to the Tinaroo Dam and we passed through an area of cultivated fields with rich deep soil and we saw potatoes growing at one point. At Kyrie we went into a grotty little craft shop and then we headed for a lookout where the trees had grown up, but we could spy through them to the Tinaroo Lake. It wasn't pretty but there were wooded slopes all around. There was a tarmac road up to this scenic lookout. We drove on down to the actual Tinaroo Dam which we had visited five years ago but the area didn't seem the same, they'd built a cafe and we got a leaflet on driving round Lake Tinaroo from the visitors information. Adrian went and spoke to the man there, he didn't seem to be very keen on us having a leaflet, he said all the information was the same as on a board outside, but we thought it was much better to have a leaflet when we were driving around the lake with lots of places you can stop off.
We set off around the lake on the Danbulla Forest Drive and the first place we stopped at was the Platypus Camping area, but we didn't stay there as we didn't see any immediately suitable places. We drove up to a lookout there but we couldn't see anything, trees had grown up and so we carried on round the lake to the next camping area, Downfall Creek Camping area and we positioned ourselves there looking out on this picturesque lake. We paid our money and had a swim in the lake, which was very silty and muddy at the edge, but a pleasant swim and then a shower in the van afterwards. We'd seen some different birds Kookaburra, some long legged birds which we couldn't find out what they were, some swallows, and ducks of different sorts. We found the phone had actually been working for the last little while so attempted to ring Tom and got the answer phone but he phoned back immediately. We cooked liver for supper (which wasn’t very nice) and bacon outside and we sat out on a lovely evening until 9.00 pm.

The sun and drizzle had been battling with each other and on the walk back up the drizzle was winning. We saw a little quail type of bird beside the road. We stopped in the little place of Millaa Millaa and did a little bit of shopping. We went into a bakers and bought some cream buns and rolls and a loaf and then found a little old supermarket selling everything - a variety store - where we bought some other goodies like cheese and a beautiful cauliflower and lettuce at a fraction of the prices we'd been paying previously in the dry lands. A bit further on was a butcher's where we bought some liver and minced beef and then walked back in the drizzle in this very green and pretty place, just abounding with prettiness of flowers busy lizzies, begonias, and nasturtiums and we realised how we've been missing such prettiness. We drove on back to the lookout that we'd passed yesterday, where the visibility was still bad but with we thought it would make a coffee stop. We continued now on the road towards Herberton and we noticed it wasn't quite as green as the area by the waterfalls we were in this morning where we stayed the night and then beside the road we saw a very large but unfortunately dead, python.
We turned off to view the Mount Hypipamee Crater in a bit a rain forest, it was raining for us, we actually took the umbrellas out and used them for the first time. It was warm and drizzled on the way down to the crater but then it was a mixture between rain and clouds and sun. The crater was an enormous volcanic hole in the ground which we looked down upon.

Ellinjaa Falls (Tripadvisor 2016)

Mount Hypipamee Crater (Tripadvisor 2020)

The swimming pool at Normanton Tourist Park (tripadvisor 2015)

The entrance to Normanton Tourist Park (streetview 2023)

The Purple Pub Normanton (streetview 2017)