Having another rough day

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DAY 267


Last night when we climbed in to our sleeping bag, the moon illuminated the inside of the trailer tent, it was a beautiful clear night, we had stood out side earlier when it was pitch black, and just gazed up at the night sky in all its glory.

We are trying to make ourselves familiar with the stars that adorn the sky and we can easily now pick out the South Cross with its pointers Rigil Kent and Hadar, plus some of the other stars such as Jupiter which is bright and low in the sky at the moment. There is absolutely no light pollution at all, and the evening is cool and clear.

Natures Anaesthetic worked its magic last night, the breeze wafted in and we were dead to the world, I can just remember being a little cold as I only sleep in my smalls unlike Caroline who goes to bed in more clothes than I wear in the day time.

We woke to the sun streaming in this morning it was, so beautiful waking up, without any human sounds, all we can hear are the birds tweeting and when I say tweeting this morning I mean tweeting there are no Little Corellas or Sulphur Crested Cockatoo’s squawking the dawn in.

This morning I said to Caroline that I was going to have a treat and staying bed a little longer as we have no one saying we have to leave by a certain time, admittedly, we had quite a run today and the sooner we hit the road the further we would get, but hey, another half an hour isn’t to much.

Whilst lying in bed we heard the thud, thud of a large Red Kangaroo go hopping by then as we looked through the window it disappear in to the undergrowth.

This little camp stop at Robinson River, Camps 5 ref 123 was absolutely perfect, so out of the way, was great, no toilets but it’s a pretty big bush to do all that is required.

We were all packed away and moving by 9.25, we descended the rocky track and within the first ¼ of a Kilometer had crossed our first river crossing, of the day, the Robinson River, we knew it would be ok as we crossed it twice last night while looking for our perfect camp spot.

The track was still fairly good and as the kilometres passed under our wheels the condition of the track started to worsen.

We came upon a land cruiser with the occupants standing around outside, all holding mugs of tea, we slow the truck down and pull over, Caroline drops her window and asks them if they are all OK, they said they have only stopped for morning tea, and chose this spot just after one of the water crossings as the vehicles would be going slower at this point and their would not be so much dust flying around. We chatted for about 10 minutes and then got back on the move again.

A couple of vehicles had passed us whilst we were chatting and as we had gone about 10k’s down the road, we came upon these 4x4’s pulled over as they were waiting for a articulated truck that was crossing the river and coming up the very steep bank with a couple of other 4x4’s behind him.

We think that this truck was the one last night that had passed our camp spot at Robinson River Crossing, as we watched its lights in the darkness go thundering down the track, across the river and up the other side then out of sight.

The 4x4’s in front of us now pull out, as the truck has gone past, the first one edges in the river, then the other one, I look to see where the water comes up to as a gauge, to make sure its not too deep as we don’t have a snorkel, as a precaution I put it in to 4 wheel drive.

We edge our way through the water it is deep but no deeper than our deepest crossing to date, this is roughly 800mm, there is a sign warning of crocodiles but we see none as we cross. It would be great to do a river crossing and see a crocodile swimming up. We are through in no time at all, up the steep slope on the other side and the two 4x4’s in front of us are mere specks of dust.

We motor on but before long we see something strange in a tree just on the edge of the track. I shouted at Andy “I’ve seen a Telephone!” Yes, there is a telephone hanging in the tree, of the payphone variety. We stopped the truck and take a walk back, to take a photo, but of course you can only make trunk calls from it, someone had written on it cards only.

We move on, the track is rough in places, but we see a variety of transport taking advantage of this road, we see a motorbike, rider and pillion loaded with camping gear, we see 4x4’s with camper trailers, without camper trailers, or maybe even a caravan or two (off road type!). The most amazing thing that we see today is a guy on a pushbike pulling a small trailer behind him.

We stop for a while and chat to Peter Hermans, he decided for fun to ride his bike from Airlie Beach on the East Coast up to Darwin, which is a very long way (roughly 3,000k’s), this is the third time he has done this trip, he has a son in Borroloola whom he will see on the way through (at the end of this dirt track) and then on to Darwin to see his Daughter.

We wish him well and we are both soon on our way. The track today has varied from rough to smooth to rough and very rough, but it is not anything unexpected. The corrugations are quite bad in places.

We stop for lunch just before Wollogorang and the Queensland Border. There is a nice flat piece of ground with some trees for shade, it looks as if other people have camped here in the past, and there are a few fire rings around.

We find out here that we have run out of gas (LPG), we think the problems that we have had with our cooker means that the gas is leaking out.

Wollogorang, is a station, it also used to have a roadhouse with a camping area, however when the old man retired the children could not find anyone to help run the roadhouse so it closed down.

We are through the Queensland Border, this is a milestone and a big achievement for Andy and I today, we started our journey in Queensland 9 months ago when we first arrived in Brisbane, we left Queensland in early January when we headed into New South Wales and on for our adventure. Today even though we are back in Queensland we still have a long way to go before reaching Brisbane. It signals the beginning of the closure of our circle around Australia, we have done all eight states now.

We drive on to Hells Gate Roadhouse, we stop and ask about LPG, they have none but tell us that Doomadgee wont have any, but possibly at the caravan park at Lawn Hill, they will have some at Burketown.

We both feel it is a little bit too early to stop for the night, we have made good progress today and are happy to push on a bit longer, the road goes from gravel to bitumen then back to gravel again, we are told it is like this all the way to Burketown now. On the way we see some bushfires in the distance, so we think that we need to be cautious with our overnight stop.

Although we have no LPG we decide we can rough it again tonight as we can use the camp oven and either heat beads or campfire to heat water and our dinner tonight.

We find that we are heading toward Kingfisher camp, we are told it is a beautiful spot, so it seems the obvious choice as we can get a shower there, we both feel like we need one. The first part of the track down here is not too bad but as we get closer it gets rougher, but soon we arrive and check in for the night.

It is a pretty place, this is a haven for birdwatchers and people who fish, but for us it is just a haven. We drive round and find a nice spot, we are soon parked up, the tent is opened and pegged, Andy has the heat beads and the billy can out for a cup of tea so I go off and shower.

A welcome shower it is, I feel much better, in this environment everything gets covered in red dust and your hair even feels like straw. The inside of the tent has red dust this time, it is quite bad so I have to clean it up so that we have a clean environment to go to bed in.

After the water boiled on the heat beads, we heat up our dinner, tonight we have leftovers, and they go down well. Andy is feeling quite exhausted after today’s journey. However I have to point out that it is not just a normal journey, in this terrain it takes every ounce of concentration and effort to miss the potholes, dodge the rocks, the ruts, the sand berms, river crossings and then get to camp and set up site. We have been driving all day today and have covered some 300 kilometres. This road has been particularly bad and heavily corrugated, the Patrol dances around on the top of the corrugations like a pig on roller skates.

We are now sitting down relaxing, or writing the blog more to the point, we are going to have a game of cards and it will be an early night tonight for the both of us, hopefully we go to Lawn Hill tomorrow, depends on how we feel when we get up in the morning.

I look above me, and I can see the moon in ¾ right above my head, the crickets are cricketing in the background and other things that I could not even tell you what the are, are also making their insect noises.

Until tomorrow bloggers

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