July 1st is Territory Day and it is celebrated for many reasons, chiefly I believe by most people because this the ONLY day in the year you are able to purchase and ignite fireworks apart from Canberra anywhere in Australia. I am referring to the general public the you and me’s. They are available to buy for about 12 hours and only on July 1 itself. At around 1001 the “party” begins you can hear crackers exploding sporadically but by the end of the evening the noise builds to a thunderous almost nonstop sound of Boom! Bang! and everything in between. Like a war zone – seriously. It did not matter what you were doing or where you were going someone was letting off their fireworks. Along the Esplanade at the end of proceedings it seems ... read more

I poked my head out of our unit window early. Despite facing North and some pretty high hills to the East I was really hoping for a beautiful sunrise that would at least give me some colour on the water. It was about 0550 but alas no such joy nonetheless it is always nice to be up at dawn, it is a magical time of the day. I snapped a couple of shots and enjoyed the little colour there was in the sky change while I sat on one of the numerous seats dotted along the foreshore some of which were made of recycled plastic soft drink bottles, what a hugely clever concept. As I sat there I wondered to myself why people who had sat at that very same place and enjoyed the very same ... read more

It was tough but it was time to leave the Sunshine Coast as our holidays were drawing to a close and we had to head on back to the Northern Territory, where hopefully we would be in for a busy Dry Season so at 1000 we fired up the car and were northward bound. A decision had not been made as to our route home until about an hour before our departure. It is nice sometimes to not be too regimented and go with the flow however some careful considerations needed to be taken. I like to watch the weather when travelling fairly closely because particularly in the Tropics at this time of year many factors can influence your journey. Cyclones can still form at this time of year and in fact they are expecting one ... read more

We got up early and were on the road at 0540 in just another 500km we would be arriving at my two sisters (Marita and Madeleine) place in Cooroy where we were to spend a good part of the next few weeks. It is funny spending lots of time in remote or semi remote areas because you don’t have much traffic to contend with, I could not believe how “busy” the road from Roma was at that time of day. At Miles we stopped briefly to grab a bite to eat and then it was back to it, we were both real keen to get back “home” and catch up with everybody. Further down the road we chucked a lefty onto Wondai Road it was a great drive as I had not ever been along this ... read more

Our next planned stop was to be at Winton about 470 km down the road so there was no hurry to get away early so at 0740 we decided to head off. As previously mentioned Mt Isa is rather unique in many ways and it certainly has a way of farewelling visitors through no fault of its own though. Not more than 10 minutes out of town the stench of decaying road kill starts and continues noticeably on a regular basis for a period longer than my nostrils considered fair. It was unusual in the fact that often you could not see the poor critter involved but you sure could smell it, but overall along the entire journey to Winton I reckon there was more road kill on or beside the road than on any stretch ... read more