Blogs from Hughenden, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Today is the last day of the Australian Winter- 250 miles West of Townsville in the start of the outback is Hughenden, Pop. of maybe 1,000 not including wind farm and solar farm workers. The ride out was surprisingly similar to the last hour up from Rockhampton to Townsville. Lots of cattle and horses. I started seeing the a huge number of ant and termite mounds all shapes colors and sizes and stretching out as far as the eye can see. I stopped and took pictures of White Mt. National Park. which was about half way out to Hughenden. I learned by experience that Kangaroo's aren't the biggest threat to a biker during a daytime ride... its the Kangaroo's corpses from the night before that are the big threat. The Carrion birds that gather in groups ... read more

Stayed in a caravan park at Hughenden. No one wanted to cook so we decide to go out for dinner. We got ready hopped in the car and drove around town expecting to find a pub that served meals or something. What we found is most of the cafes were closed, even the corner pub. We did find the only restaurant in town which was Chinese. Not feeling so confident Mick when to have a look. Well… it was a cute restaurant with candy pink walls and more statues ho chi minh, dragons and Chinese candles than we could count. We decided to give it ago and was pleasantly surprised, the food was great. Even Ned got a treat for waiting in the car like a good puppy. The second day we took the boys to ... read more

Day 51 There is nothing here for us, no parts shop. Nothing. Damn, and no one has spare parts for a Mitsu.. just like every other town. (note - in the outback its Toyota, holden or ford) we relax and make our plan for parts, Mt Isa, a mere 550km away. With the plan in motion we spend the day relaxing and go for a swim at the public pool, which in the outback we are finding that most are free to use, you just have to ask for a key. Awesome. We sit in the sun and read the light away. Sean and I are reading a lot more. I had already read Davinci Code in 3 days and was now onto Angels and Demons and plowed my way through that in 3 days, great ... read more

Stayed on here and went for a drive to Porcupine Gorge National Park and then up Mount Walker to the lookouts which give superb views of the town and surrounding areas. --- ... read more

The Australia Tour begins ...slowly! After spending three weeks with the Family, we started looking for a CamperVan. Our original plan was to drive around the whole perimeter of Ozz, but after much debate we decided that we didn't have long enough, we would have to drive every day - which would be extremely exhausting!! So the plan is to extensively travel througout the Northern Territory and East coast!! If we come back to Ozz with a working Visa we can start in Perth, then do Western and Southern Ozz!! So we searched all the local papers & commuted to/from Cairns to search the Hostal catalogues, etc...We saw a few that looked good, and in fact went to see a Toyota Hi-Ace that three English lads had basically ranted up the coast, it had rust ALL ... read more