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We spend the morning chatting with Charlie and end up leaving around lunchtime after filling up at Coen (no credit card machine so I have to use up the last of the cash we have) the journey starts agian. We are only a few kms out of Coen when we notice Tank feels funny. Oh no we got another puncture!
This time it is a little different though as there seem to be a lot more people around on their way up into the Cape, even though we don't actually need anyones help this time. Shenton gets the spare tyre (that has only just been fixed at the Tip) back on Tank and we are off again.
Shenton wants to find some fishing and we stop at the Archer River Roadhouse but we seem to have missed the place we were looking for so just keep on going to Laura. When we get about 70kms away from Laura the road gets really bad with corrugations and rocks all over it. We are only doing about 40km an hour most of the way and to be honest both of us are fed up of this by the time we reach
Laura.
We eat some of the passionfruit that Charlie has given us and go into the "shop" at Laura to get some water. This shop is like stepping back in time with higgaldy piggaldy timber shelves filled with whatever they like for sale.
We decide to push on and get to Lakeland tonight as if we make it there then we bascially have finished all the tracks and tomorrow the drive to Cairns wont be too bad.
When we reach Lakeland we are dusty, tired and really glad to be back on tarmac from now on. The owners of the campsite are really friendly and take pictures of us for their facebook page "Lakeland Caravan Park" as they like to put pictures up of all the people that make it back from the tip. We start to chat and tell them about my concert, so she asks if she can put this on facebook too.....so if you want to see my fabulous performance then check out her page as she said she may put it on.
After a night at Lakeland, which proved to be eventful. I woke up screaming scaring the hell out of Shenton
who went to punch through the window as I said there was a man wearing a hat staring into Tank. He only paused as he saw that I had my sleeping mask on and I had obviously dreamt it.This happened of course because he had me watch Wolf Creek, the psycho in the film wears a hat, plus Shenton screamed too :-), we start out on our journey back to Cairns and civilization. We feel that something is a bit odd with the Tank, as soon as we pull out of the park, and we realise we have got another puncture!!!! This time it is the tyre that had just been fixed. I guess he didnt do a very good job! everyone is very helpful and Shenton manages to get the other spare tyre (thank god we have two) on and we get the tyre fixed by Chris a Swiss guy who lives here and also has a farm set up. He is very nice and tells us that the person who fixed the tyre before did a very bad job which is why it burst again. He charges us $45 instead of the $100 we paid at the tip
and we are on our way again.
The rest of the journey is on normal roads and so apart from being very tired we make it back to Cairns without any more problems and as we arrive we realise just how dirty the car, us and everything we own is. We only really realise this when everything around us, buildings, roads, signs, lamposts, parks, people, small dogs, etc look so very clean, spick and span. We are at Palm Cove camp a few miles north of Cairns and here we rest. Shenton goes to fish off the jetty without cleaning up looking like a hobo and a local kid asks if he is hungry and will he eat what he catches. Shenton says 'yeah sure' and proceeds to catch a weird looking jellyfish type worm thing. This of course he didn't eat.
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Roka and Fred
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Like the fishing at Palm Cove
How are you guys going now-no more flat tyres we hope!!It is funny getting back to "civilisation" after all that dust and bumpy roads.Have enjoyed reading your stories and seeing your pics-well done-we hope to get up to see Charlie in about 3wks-will take our laptop so he can check out your blog too.Happy trucking,we wish you well.