Waiting for a Train

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DAY 280


We are up as usual sometime around or just after 7.00, the tea was made, Andy had already wandered over to the Wallaby Wanderers caravan, it seems that Darryl and Sarah wanted to stay another night so that they could go on the Savannah Lander when it arrives this morning. However Sarah had already been down to reception to look into this but she was told it was fully booked, the train had spaces but the bus to bring people back didn’t.

So their departure date was held to fate (I can’t stop this rhyming thing, it must be time to leave Bedrock), if there were spaces, they would stay, if there weren’t then they would move on. Sadly for us there were no spaces so today they leave Bedrock Village at Mount Surprise to make their way West and head eventually into the Northern Territory, by one route or another. First they will head to Normanton and Karumba from where we came only a week or so ago.

We all had breakfast of tea and toast with a healthy dollop of marmite (for me that is), and a hive of activity packing up the caravan, winding down the roof, winding up the legs etc. and in no time at all they were ready to hit the road, a sad moment really.

Before Darryl and Sarah left, Sarah gave us a paper bag with “do not open until your anniversary” written on it, along with “keep in the fridge”, so we have placed the bag in the fridge to await the 18th August when we celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. The envelope I have put somewhere safe, it will be the only card that we will receive on our anniversary so a big THANK YOU to Darryl and Sarah for that it was incredibly thoughtful.

So, Wallaby Wanderers it’s been a blast!!
The fun we’ve had has gone so fast

Thanks for our mate, Marmite,
We’ll be sure to keep the jar lid tight

On the road we will soon go
We’ll meet again we just know

Long may this friendship last
So, Wallaby Wanderers it’s been a blast!!

If you happen to see the Wallaby Wanderers on the road somewhere round this vast country then you couldn’t bump into a nicer couple, well, apart from us two that is. Seriously though we have had great fun with these guys, we are surprised that we have not been thrown off the campsite for laughing so much, we hope we did not keep anyone up at night.

It is strange when you meet someone and you click so well, we are sad to see them go, but we have been lucky to spend some extra unplanned time with Darryl and Sarah. However the time has come to go our own ways again as it inevitably does with the people we meet, we all have our own plans and timescales to stick to not to mention we are travelling in opposite directions.

I wander down to reception to book in for another night here at Bedrock, we need to contact Undarra where we have planned to spend our anniversary next week, all we want to do is bring the camping date forward, we will leave our nights in the railway carriage as planned, this way we will get back into Cairns early and see Julie before she goes to England.

We decide to remove the sleeping bags and blankets for airing on the washing line, remove the mattress and sweep down the top of the trailer (the bit we sleep on) as we gathered a fair amount of dust when we were on the Savannah Way, so once it was swept out I went over it with a damp cloth to pick up any residue dust, we were soon clean, the mattress was brushed off and placed back.

While Andy cleaned the floor, we did this in Darwin, but it soon gets dirty again no matter how hard you try to keep it clean, I logged onto the internet to try and Skype Undara to change our campsite booking, but the answer phone kept coming up, I could not leave a message as we had no mobile phone reception so there is no way they could ring back.

Eventually I wandered down to Reception to see if they could help, they suggested that I send a fax from there so she gave me some paper to write what I needed. Andy and I sat and ate an ice cream in the cool café area while I wrote.

$1.00 later the fax was sent and all we had to do was wait for an answer.

The afternoon was spent tinkering around camping, a little bit of preperation for moving on, catching up on chores that we should have been doing in the last few days but didn’t because we were having too much fun, of course not to mention catching up on some blogging that we have been too busy to do! But hey, you know what its like, busy, busy, busy out here on the road.

Blogging done, I did some brain training, you have to watch that guy you know, he calculated my brain age and said it was 76 and then he laughed and said “sorry, only joking, its actually 41!” “Cheek, it really comes to something when a computer is cheeky to you!” I am pleased with the results it has dropped from 37 but then the last few days have been somewhat tiring.

I then ventured onto Sudoku, one game seems to be flooring me but I think I am out of practice, so I close it and pick another one, it is still intermediate but I have cracked it and soon the game is finished.

Andy and I reflect on the last few days, it has gone very quiet here, Darryl and Sarah’s site was re allocated by lunchtime, but the peaceful afternoon had gone when 4 caravans travelling together turned up, then there was the usual rush for the laundry and the showers! Believe me when I tell you it’s the survival of the fittest out here, the first one to the laundry, wins.

Darryl and Sarah had kindly parted company with two jars of marmite, that they had brought over from England, they said they had enough for their travels and as we have not found the real McCoy in Woolworths or Coles for ages they parted with some in return for us driving them around, it was a fair swap, I was having withdrawal symptoms.

I had gone for a shower, by the time I got back Andy was holding a piece of paper, Jo from reception had kindly brought a fax up to us from Undara, great they responded! The good news was that we had our booking changed at Undara and the bad news is that we leave Mount Surprise tomorrow. In a way quite a pity I was hoping that we had to stay another day and I could take Andy fossicking, which he loves so dearly, but in Andy’s eyes I think was glad to move on. If we stayed any longer I could envisage that you could ask us in 12 months time when are you going to leave Mount Surprise?

Andy spoke to his Mum on Skype and sent a few messages to people, then had a game of Mahjong, while I played Sudoku.

We had a quiet evening, a light tea of cheese and biscuits, the last few nights, and days I should say, we seemed to be constantly eating especially with the great meals we cook in the camp oven, a light tea will not do us any harm.

Funnily enough who should we see on Skype, but the Wallaby Wanderers, it is not long before we start messaging, the competitive spirit still there, we compete over what we have seen in the wildlife stakes today, as they were unlucky and have not seen any Cassowaries on their trip, we tell them that we have seen loads since they left, but I don’t think they believe us. They still seem to think they hammered us at cards, but I will let it go for now, just wait until we meet again!

We find out that Darryl and Sarah did not make Normanton today, they only got as far as the lovely little town of Croydon, an interesting place steeped in gold rush history and where we found the very best tourist information, so who could blame them really a great place to stop.

Messages on the blog tonight are great, we have had a message from Sarah’s Mum telling us that they enjoyed the poems but thought Darryl and Sarah’s was better than ours, but of course adding that she is a little Biased (thanks Sarah’s Mum) and a message from another unknown, thrilled that we met up with the Wallaby Wanderers, Jane has been reading our blogs with interest and realised we would be on a collision course was going to suggest that we met as we had so much in common and its true we did hit it off, there was no need for introductions when we first met it was as if we had known each other for years.

It was about 9.15 when Andy announced he was off to bed, so I decided to tuck in as well, but how sad am I, I took the Nintendo and carried on playing Sudoku.

Until tomorrow when we finally move on to Undara, home of the Lava Tubes.

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Photos

The Wallaby Wanderers
Darryl and Sarah Howells, packedup and ready to hit the road

Inside
I so wanted a peek inside, I justhad to step in

This grass Thing
I just love the grass in between the tracks

Tools from years gone by
The Museum was excellent, I now know what a dog and a pigs foot is.

Welcome to Mount Suprise
Total Population 65

Comments

[Jane]

Armchair traveller
Jane back. I would love to do the Savannalander trip, one day! One day hmmm, but not all of us are free spirit and is why we like to read blogs of those who are. I have done a lot of travelling but the finances have caught up so just have to wait and see if another trip is in the wings. I will say that I never wrote a blog and regret it so much. I have some great memories and cannot even remember what country it was! I will be honest and say a Jane blog would read Day 1: Boring: Day 2: Boring Day 3: saw a man with a funny hat: then Day 4 would be the day I write 17 pages because it is the day I travel for. When it all comes together, that elusive experience that perhaps nobody can understand except yourself. Of course those days would be boring to all to read.!! You have done very well with your blogs, both teams! gives us armchairs a chance to travel vicariously, the thrills and the routine. The way it is. Cheers and happy anniversary!

[Darryl and Sarah]

THE train!
Ok, so it did look as good in the flesh as it did in the brochure!! We can just about make out the Cassowary driver and the guard at the back!! We've had a good day today, we're camped in Karumba and we've talked about you guys a few times in fact if we were staying for the camp fire sing-a-round tomorrow we were going to give them some good old bush poetry....yours!!! Missing you already, hope Undara is good. Speak to you soon Wallaby Wanderers aka Darryl and Sarah x x x x