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Published: October 13th 2009
DAY 340
The night had cooled quite considerably, it has not been this cold in a while, so migrated into sleeping bags leaving the blanket and sheet over the top for extra warmth.
Sun was streaming into the tent, it was early but we were warm so getting out of bed too early was not so tempting. I think it was about 7.00 when we finally surfaced, the first thing being as ever that first cup of tea of the day.
A nice slow start to the day as we moved the chairs into the shade and then Charlie joined us for a chat, telling us tales from his 35 years on his gold mine. His story is riddled with politics, not to mention people trying it on in order to swipe the land from under his feet, but Charlie seemed very clever and stood his ground, which is why we were lucky enough to camp here last night.
Camps 5 says it is a gold coin donation to camp, Andy and I paid, after negotiating with Charlie, $10 which is not bad for a decent hot shower and somewhere safe to camp. Especially after
Charlie was telling us about the recent trouble in Coen, where the town had kicked off and the Aboriginals had started stabbing each other..
Extra police had to be drafted in from other areas of Queensland to cope with trouble. He told us that a couple had set up to camp at “The Bend” just outside of town and the police suggested they moved to a campsite as they would be safer! Fear not it is not like the Wild West all of the time, it was just a bad few days apparently.
Charlie tells us that once he telephoned the council regarding his property rights, they took his name down which he spelt for them, (Charlie Spitori) but a letter came back addressed to “Charlie Spaghetti”, he just laughs about it.
Time was moving on, we had quite a chat, with the politics of Australia and Cape York specifically being put right but it was time to pack, the sun was getting higher and hotter. Charlie set about repairing a piece of mining equipment while we packed up.
Once packed we saw Charlie to say goodbye, he gave us a tour of the house that he
built out of rock from the land here, inside is a refreshing coolness, it is dark and sheltered from the sun. We see some paintings that he has done himself to decorate, people had thought it was aboriginal art, but no, it was Charlie’s Art.
At 9.55 we headed back into Coen to fill up with diesel and as we did not have breakfast we popped into “Grunters Bistro” on the corner to order a bacon sandwich to take away. We find a nice little cosmopolitan bistro a really refreshing sight, they also serve decent coffee, you don’t expect this in some of these remote areas.
$10 later we jump back in the truck and tuck into our bacon sandwich, which is one of the nicest that I have had since being in Australia.
The day itself is pretty uneventful, there is a lot of dirt ahead of us with the occasional bitumen break.
From here on in the roads change from being rough, to fairly good, to amazingly good for dirt, especially on the bits that are still being worked on. We have to watch out for dust holes, which is a large hole that
is filled in with dust only, so in other words if you hit one of these then it will easily thrown you off course.
We arrived at one set of road works, we are stopped by the chap holding the stop sign, a road train pulls in behind. The traffic controller comes over to chat to us and lets us know we may be waiting for a while as a side tipping road train is on its way through, followed by a grader.
Eventually the road train comes through, he radios ahead and we are allowed to go, however we were not really sure about the grader and if it was still coming through. We soon found out, a couple of bends later we see the grader in the distance coming toward us, no problem we still have room in the dirt on the left, but then we also see a wide load next to the grader and they are both coming toward us. Hmm, just a small dilemma, we hope that one of them notices.
Eventually the grader pulls off, the wide load pulls over and we pull to one side and we all happily pass
each other.
The next set of roadworks, we did not see a traffic controller until we suddenly see him running down the bank struggling to keep hold of his stop and Go sign and make sure that it was facing the right way. He comes over to talk to us, only really to tell us what is ahead and to drive carefully, have a safe journey and enjoy the rest of our trip. How pleasant, although we wonder if he nodded off on his post.
We stop at Musgrave Roadhouse and grab a cold drink from the fridge, we sit under the shade of a large tree for a while, once rested we drive on through familiar scenery except this time it is all from a different perspective.
We don’t stop for lunch as we had a late breakfast and were still full from that, so early afternoon we stopped to make a cup of tea washed down with a biscuit. Again once rested we move on.
Today is our intention to get as far as Lakeland, Charlie recommended the caravan park here and it is about the right distance that we want to travel today.
The dirt road stretches get shorter and the bitumen stretches get longer until eventually the dirt gives way entirely to bitumen, which should now be all the way for us back towards Cairns.
We arrive at Lakeland, find the Caravan Park and I head into reception, they are very friendly welcoming people here. I tell Fred behind the desk that Charlie sent us, he was very pleased, I also passed on the message that Charlie would be down to visit soon!
I am shown our site, we have a choice, but I choose the one in the shade, it is still only mid afternoon so the shade will be beneficial and once again the tent is soon erected, our bed for the night is ready.
We sit in the shade and relax from our hard dusty journey, the drink we had in the freezer is a bit like a slush puppy and very refreshing to drink.
We both shower and change trying to eradicate as much of the dust as possible, but looking at the colour of the tent and the contents of the trailer, not to mention the colour of the Patrol I think
it will be a while before we rid ourselves of the dust. The dashboard even has a thick layer of red dust, it is no wonder that you can taste the dust in your mouth.
Andy makes a great pasta dinner, he reads while I type up the blog, I think again it will be an early night. The air has cooled to something a little bit on the chilly side, the campsite is not very busy but has a lot of backpackers here picking Melons and Bananas which means they will need to start work at 5.30 in the morning so we are sure there wont be any late nights around us.
Another day, Another place tomorrow.
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Mum and Dad
non-member comment
More red dust
Hi there. We have had another fall of red dust.....we haven't heard from whence it came The fish pond is covered with a film and red bubbles appear where the fish are flipping. The rain water in the barrels is red. Love mum and dad xxxxLove you and miss you millions xx