The Great Inland Way

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Its ages since we sent out a blog and we are way behind with doing all this now! This entry is from 2006 and marks the start of our journey inland from Townsville-las JULY!

We headed on The Great Inland Way from Charters Towers towards the Gem Fields via the Belyando Crossing

Most of the coast roads we have experienced are well maintained with plenty of places to stop and take a break.

This journey was different: it was a hot, glorious day (BIG SKIES) and the road was extremely straight, only to be broken up with a few welcome undulations. We passed by endless hours of dry, barren, rural, uninhabited countryside. We wondered how far it must be to some of the homesteads, because we certainly couldn't see them along the long driveways that we passed. How do people survive this kind of isolation and where do children go to school? This is another side of Australia which is a far cry from Sydney and the coastal resort style living that obviously popular over here. We loved the experience of the drive but cetainly couldn’t live anywhere las remote at this.
This is truly farming country, we were heading towards the Belyando crossing where road trains carrying 2 to 3 truckloads of cattle regularly pass through- most of which are destined to the Philippines- poor creatures. Belyando Crossing is only a cafe and fuel stop with a few uninviting motel rooms.
A 40 kilometre stretch of the road was single dirt track- we were warned to be very careful of oncoming road trains- they will not, do not and cannot pull pull over, when you see the size of them you can see why. We did have to pass one, graciously hoping for a safe area to pull over- some of the road edges were very dodgy indeed and we did not want to tip the car over. We got plenty of warning; we couldn’t see the truck but the great plumes of rapidly approaching red dust signalled its imminent arrival! It had 3 carriages of cattle.

We arrived in Rubyvale safely to start another chapter of our travel adventure
NEXT BLOG- Meet the Fossickers

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