"He's already tried to mount Isa......."

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Editors Warning.....we take no responsibility for the colourful language that our authors use and suggest you read and make deletions before allowing children to read...or then who gives a s%*t!!

Hello again to those of you who are still travelling with us......

Our 6+ hour trip from Katherine turned into just over 10 hours instead. We had originally decided to stop at Renner Springs but thought let’s see how far this entourage can keep going. We left the Stuart Highway and turned east at Three Ways, stopped for gas and a toot stop, then decided to “get on the road again”. As a farewell gift from the Locals a display of an assortment of fires had started as we travelled along, although we had nothing to do with the lighting of these fires. It was like we were going through a guard of honour. What they will do to attract tourists!! It’s amazing what unusual things you can come across while on the road.

We were more than two hours beyond the corner of the Three Ways turnoff when we passed a man and his pooch out for a lovely long afternoon walk. Now, “what is so strange about this?” I hear you ask. It’s not that he is out walking his dog that is the issue and it would seem normal if there was a car, house, garden or anything to show where he had come from but all we could see was farmland and acres and acres of isolated farmland at that. Not a clue was to be seen of where he had come from or where he was going to. The last civilization was over two hours away. Amazed and confused, we just kept going coz he didn’t seem to need our attention and waved us on. We are of course in the Country!!
After quite some time on the road and darkness was starting to hit, one by one our electronic gadgets batteries slowly ran out. Finally after the last one died it was “I Spy” that kept us going for the rest of the trip. Who ever thought up road games for kids needs an award or OBE. We had a multitude of suggestions for the game. Although it was a close tossup who had the more bizarre ones, Scarlett with her Peas that you eat, Giraffe, Teddy bear and other assortment of items we just couldn’t see or G saying ER, ER and ER over and over again (ER= Endless Road).

We finally arrived late and weary at Barkly Homestead and G declared that he was exhausted and not lifting a finger to set up the van, so when checking in he decided to rent a motel room instead. The cost of this luxury was $155. Room #4 was ours for the night and what basic facilities it had. A double bed and two singles and a big screen tv that we were too tired to even switch on, but it was nice enough. Dinner was had at the hotel which was again at no expense.

Please excuse me for a bit and allow me to air some frustration / issues that appear to have annoyed me during our fabulous adventure. Now I’m no Masterchef in the kitchen, just ask my poor family when I’ve served up crucified chicken (beyond recognition), dried out lasagne with hard crispy edges, soggy vegies, burnt soup and gooey rice so I am certainly not one to normally complain when I’m served a substandard meal on occasion. But I really dislike paying top dollar for something that I could pay $6 or $7 for at the Coles frozen food department.

My dinner of frozen then defrosted I&J chicken schnitzel and very basic small salad and I mean really small and very basic, cost a whopping $22.00 while G’s special of the night: bangers with onion gravy and mash with veg on the side was ordered, cost $18.50 and then arrived with no veg at all. The girls had hamburgers with nothing in them other than the bun and burger patty itself and chips on the side and they cost $10 each. Now I understand that we are in the middle of nowhere but this bar/restaurant / hotel/motel venue was the only thing in town and you would assume that the country folk would just stay home and cook for themselves and not bother to go there coz the food was really average but this appeared to be the highlight of their day. I JUST DON’T GET IT!!!! I&J frozen foods are doing a roaring trade out here in the OUTBACK.

The girls wanted a dessert coz it was of course dessert night (allowed twice a week) so we looked at the menu, nothing of interest on it there, then into the cafe section we go. Once we all decided on a chocolate bar each (been a while since we’ve had some chocolate) we went to the counter to pay. The cost was $11.80 for one of each: flake, mars bar, kit kat and smarties.

How about I remortgage the house- to pay for crud and gruel to be dished up on a plate for my dinner under the guise of a restaurant quality meal. That’s an idea....let’s do that. Or what if I just hand over the entire contents of my wallet and just walk away, coz that’s what it felt like we were doing. Also on the way out I noticed that it was $1.80ea for a chuppa chup lolly pop. We can buy them at our local servo 4/$2. What madness!!!

Trucks are hooning up and down, to and from and going in all sorts of directions to the main towns and cities and they claim that it costs them heaps to get it trucked in to them. Ha and phooey, how dumb do they think us silly ol’ city folk are!!!! Their little trick is that they don’t put a price tag on things. It’s not until you get to the register that you find out the cost, hyperventilate or pass out and by then you are too embarrassed to renege on the purchase. As we would say back home “they’ve got you by the balls” and they know what they are doing. Their motto should read “If ya want it ya gonna have to pay top dollar for it”. I would be much happier with this coz then it’s in your face and confirmation that you are getting ripped off, not under a guise of “Poor lil ol’ me in this twee lil ol’ diner that costs me a fortune to run and I can’t afford to have stamps or other basic essentials but can charge you $75 for a slab of VB beer coz I know you want it and there is nowhere else you can get it for a thousand miles so just pay up!” Now do I seem cynical to you......!!

One night there, fill the car with gas and then on the road again. We arrived a few hours later to the town of Camooweal, three service stations in town and one BP that has Autogas. Yeh for us!!!! Yep they had the gas, yep they had a pump, yep we had a car requiring both these items to fuel the bugger, but the bloody pump wasn’t working that day to put said gas into car. Oh great. A quick chat to the owner of the BP to explain about the car being dedicated Gas and that we really need to get gas as the closest town was 190kms away and we probably wouldn’t make it. She agreed to open the bowser to see if it would pump but it just wasn’t going to be our day. Thanking her and moving on with our eyes fixated on the fuel gauge yet again, we were heading to Mt Isa. Obviously we have been in this situation before...
On our way to Mt Isa it was a pleasant trip with not a lot of excitement. About 40kms from the edge of town we noticed that the petrol gauge was running down really quickly. A decision was made to ditch the van (with me in it) on the side of the road at a truck stop so we could get more mileage out of the fuel tank and locate a petrol station with gas. Graham and the girls departed and I sat waving them farewell not knowing if they would come back for me or just keep going. While waiting I attempted to read my book (yes Deb, I do read occasionally) all the while watching cars and trucks go by with my Staysharp knife in easy reach for all the potential robbers that may attempt to steal the van (anybody watched Wolf Creek- I was crapping my daks just quietly).

After G and the girls visited 3 service stations, one was finally located that had gas. A return trip on the highway to collect the important cargo (the van, not me I was so kindly informed) and then on to our latest park. Not a lot to say about Mt Isa. It was lovely, sunny and warm during the day but come late arvo it turned cold. Out came the doonas, windows and vents in the van were closed, flyscreen door closed at night for the first time since leaving Darwin, flanny pj’s put on with a windcheater over the top and bedsocks to keep our toes warm.

Day 2 at Mt Isa was a quick look around town, locate the post office (amazing how many places throughout Oz do not sell stamps), visit the Info centre/Museum and go to the Lookout. Back to the van we go, meet and have a drink with our new neighbours (they had only arrived that arvo), another few drinks, then another neighbour joined in. After 3 hours of chatting, dinner was had at The Overlander Hotel and finally a delicious and decent meal was had by all of us (none of us had the $7.95 steak & chips on offer all day, every day!!!).

Mt Isa was nice enough, similar to other mining towns such as Broken Hill. However every town has its defined theme and this one has two. All service stations close at 8.30pm (every goddamn one of them) so even though the mine runs 24 hours a day, if you finish your shift at 11.00pm you’d want to make sure you have enough petrol to get home. And (most importantly), you can’t get mudshakes at any bottles shop...Mrs V-S was getting mighty tetchy until we finally found some mocha vodka shakes at the last bottle shop!! Two things she can sniff out; chocolate and mudshakes. It was not looking too good......
Having checked, double checked, and triple checked our fuel options we finally left Mt Isa heading for Winton about five hours drive away. We stopped at Cloncurry for gas and bumped into several trucks all heading to Canberra to deliver a petition of no confidence in the federal government. They asked me (G) to sign the petition and I had to think long and hard about it (for about half a second....) then added my signature. All the way to Winton we kept catching up with them (and passed one truck several times & he us).

The next stop was McKinlay where we enjoyed a pleasant half hour or so in the Walkabout Hotel, made famous in the original Crocodile Dundee film. I could have happily stayed for a few beers but remembered that I was the one driving and stopped at only one (Coopers Pale Ale has become my beer of choice however I have to admit I haven’t minded the odd XXXX Gold.....). Finally it was back onto the road and we arrived in Winton around 4.00pm. After filling up with gas (our first priority nowadays) we stopped at the Pelican Caravan Park. From the outside it looked very basic (and it was) however I couldn’t help being drawn in by the owners welcoming smile and great attitude. He was telling me they had bought the place about 10 months ago and was trying to do it up a little. He was a hell of a nice bloke and chatting to some other RVer’s they reckon the place has never looked better.

It’s interesting that when selecting caravan parks we have generally looked for places with pools, playgrounds etc and this had none of them, rather it was all gravel/dirt with artificial grass for the annex but we had a really pleasant stay. Just like the parks we have stayed in at such places at Daly Waters and Mataranka, you could tell you were in places where the owners genuinely cared whether you were enjoying your stay.

For those of you who don’t know, just outside of Winton is where evidence of a dinosaur stampede 95 million years ago was found only in the last 30 years. This stampede influenced a lot of scenes in Jurassic Park as it showed various dinosaur species and how they move. Now this was something we had to see....but didn’t (well, sort of). The actual site is 110km out of town on a dirt road and we discovered that there is a life sized diorama in town which also has other dinosaur displays. So we opted to spend the day in town. It probably sounds like I’m gushing (especially after Lisa’s price rant) however I must say it was a very nice town indeed, with lots of history and things to explore. Just outside Winton, Banjo Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda (and performed it for the first time at the Gregory Hotel in town), the first board meeting of QANTAS was held there, and it also has plenty of Boulder Opals to view. So, we rummaged and purchased some rocks containing opals, viewed the dinosaur exhibition, walked past the Gregory pub, wandered along Arno’s wall and finally ended up at the Waltzing Matilda Centre and baulked at paying $50 to the enter the only museum dedicated to a song (unfortunately the tickets weren’t going for a song....). For lunch we ventured to the musical fence which is a wire fence tensioned so that you can bang away making different noises. In addition there is a drum kit and other musical instruments made from tins and other junk. The kids and I had a ball and even regaled Lisa with a beautiful percussion piece. At that point it was decided we needed to leave, destination Longreach.

I know during these blogs that it has been mentioned (on several occasions) that I don’t like splashing out for luxury apartments when there’s a perfectly good 3 star hotel down the road however from this moment onwards all talk of this must stop. Nothing is too good for my ladies and it was with wide eyes and wonderment that we arrived at our site. The site with an ensuite toilet and shower!!!! No more traipsing off to the communal loo in the middle of the night; we had our own personal bog. Straight away the decision was made to extend from two to three nights.....

The next morning, after a long and luxurious shower we headed off to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. This is a large site dedicated to the people who work on the land, showing the history since white settlement and the challenges they have faced right up until modern times, very enjoyable. After that it was off to the QANTAS museum where it became apparent straight away that the staff model themselves on the current QANTAS service charter; the service was shithouse!!! After finally catching the eye of a staff member who dared look up we handed over a small fortune and entered. The museum was very good however a benefit of handing over ownership of our next born child provided us with a tour of a 747. The guide (Gene – he even spelled it for us so we knew; clearly an ex-hostie...) gave us, what I must say was, a very interesting tour of both the outside and inside of a 747 plane including the cockpit and standing in one of the engines. He definitely knew his stuff, he just needs to unwind a bit (maybe QANTAS just gave him service training....). I bet you didn’t know the black box flight recorder (which is actually orange) is kept in the tail of the plane as logically that’s the last bit of a plane to hit the ground, water or mountain.....

After the visit it was back to the RV (then to the bottleshop for more mudshakes.....) and yes we do have cruddy dinners supplied by ourselves. By choice we had two minute noodles and cup-a-soups.
On Monday we went back to see the Horseman’s show at the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. This was a pleasant morning with light entertainment from a stockman/entertainer telling jokes & stories, to, the cattle dogs herding the bullock teams and horses doing all sorts of different tricks. Lunch was included with the show and afterwards we went for a walk throughout the grounds and gardens.

We had been trying to book a trip on a paddles steamer but all were booked out so a decision was made to take the girls on a helicopter flight in the afternoon. Now we have attempted to do this on at least five occasions (Uluru, Darwin, Alice, Katherine and of course the infamous trip at Kak) so we were not really holding our breath that this was going to actually happen. A quick call to the company and within minutes confirmation was received that 4pm was our booking. Our pilot was Tom, a lovely man who made the kids and me (LVS) at ease during the safety demonstration. The cockpit only takes the pilot and three passengers so it was decided that we would split into doubles, Scarlett would go up with G and Charlize would come with me. Once Scarlett and G were all tucked up inside the helicopter (Scarlett had front passenger seat of course), Tom came back to the gate and told Charlize that he was feeling generous so would she like to go with them on the first flight. Naturally she obliged and went up while I sat under a tree watching them go skywards hoping they would all come back safely.

When the first trip ended the pilot took Scarlett out and put Charlize in the front seat. Then to our surprise he placed Scarlett in the backseat with Lisa. So both kids were getting an extra ride for free. This was a fantastic gesture and the kids absolutely loved it. This was a first time in a helicopter for all of us and while the trip was only short it was a great experience which we talked about for a long time. After the flight Tom got our email address and emailed the girls a certificate each of their flight. When we think of the many flight ads we have seen which were either very expensive, too hard to organise or usually both, this trip was an absolute breeze from start to finish.

Because we were feeling so great after our flights we needed to be brought back down to earth quickly (pardon the pun) so then went off to the local cemetery. We were told there were quite a few famous people buried there however we needed a guide from the Information centre and got there two minutes after closing. While things are pretty laid back and easy going in the country this doesn’t extend to closing times which are on the dot (or earlier)!! So we had to make do with making our own stories up. For example, “Annie McGlarity died in 1946 aged 27 when she fell under a bus trying to pick up her engagement ring her fiancée dropped while proposing to her. Thomas Finnin died in 1946 aged 28 after being hit by a car after falling back in shock when seeing his girlfriend fall under a bus,” and so on......

After that adventure it was back to the caravan park for a farewell dinner at the Woolshed restaurant where we discussed our next port of call. Now, those who had been observing closely at the beginning would have known that we would be heading east to Rockhampton then down the coast. Then why am I writing this sitting in a caravan park in Charters Towers several hundred kilometres north? Well, most people would know that I (Gman) am an early riser and yesterday (Monday) morning I was sitting in front of the Van Royce enjoying a coffee while wearing jeans, a jumper and jacket when I suddenly thought, “F*%k this, I want to be warm again!!! So over dinner I casually mentioned to Lisa that the current forecast in Townsville was 28 degrees and if we drove all day on Tuesday we would be there in time for dinner. So a hasty family meeting was arranged where we asked the kids would they rather be warm or cold. You would all know the answer, so, today we drove back to Winton (180km) where we had to turn north to Hughenden then head north east towards Townsville. The total drive is 760km however as soon as we turned north we were buffeted by side and then head winds which slowed us down considerably. As a result we have ended today’s trip 135km short leaving us a short drive tomorrow to start our week in Townsville. Then we may start thinking of heading home. What a life............

By now you are probably all jealous and/or hate our guts so this is a good as time as any to finish. Until next time, stay safe and we’ll see you...........whenever!!!!

Love The Van Royces.

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