I tawt I taw a puddy cat.

I know I said we were going dark, but it turns out Telsta coverage is very good in some of these areas. I won’t bother issuing a warning next time, just know if the blog goes quiet we are somewhere with no coverage.

It seems I have accidentally done something that a few people like, especially our parents, and now feel obliged to see it to the end. I thank those that have said nice things about the blog, but feel I need to add a disclaimer: Being British means compliments don’t sit well; sure they are nice to hear and I’m glad people are enjoying this, but now I feel a weight of expectation dragging me down. We British don’t do well under these conditions; just look at all of our sports teams. So now the blog will take me longer to write and is likely get worse… so thanks a lot.

Goodbye Lovely Lagoon

We packed up quickly and, with a heavy heart, left the lagoon for downtown Normanton. We had several things to do in Normanton, and with a population of 1500 it’s the largest town we’re going to be in until Katherine.

The bad boy of Normanton

After filling up the drinking water, taking some photos of a Kite, driving around the town looking for the best fuel prices in the four places that sold petrol, doing some grocery shopping, stopping at the bakery for a flat white (my first in weeks) and some bread, stopping 10mins later for an emergency bowel movement caused by the flat white, checking if the butcher sold chicken, deciding against chicken as the flat white had scared me and the risks with chicken is too high, deciding on a place to get fuel and filling up and finally lunch at the local pub, it was almost 1pm.

Termite Tokyo

The drive to the Burke & Wills Roadhouse was OK, through some nice outback savannah and some fields full of termite mounds. As we approached the Burke & Wills Roadhouse, at the right turn (the first turn since leaving Normanton), we saw some Black-necked Storks on a patch of grass. We tried to stop to take pictures, but I got a little too close, a little too quickly and spooked them. As they flew away, Becky got a few rough shots but was annoyed that I’d approached them too clumsily in our 3 ton, 4.5litre car. As we were about to top up the fuel and get a hot dog, the last customer walks out and informs us the eftpost was down.

Fleeing the paparazzi.

As we don’t have much cash, this ruined my hot dog plan and in a huff we sped out of Burke & Wills Roadhouse towards Gregory Downs.

For those who have never driven in the outback, take it from a seasoned pro with several hours of experience, driving west after 4pm is a bit of a hazard. Not only are you driving into the setting sun, but the animals also start to get a little more mobile. The biggest danger are the kangaroos, who are cute, dumb fucks that sit by the side of the road then dart out in front of the car at the last minute. Next are the raptors that feed on the dead kangaroos, and the risk with them is the slow take off. Both these are reasonable easy to deal with, as long as you see them and slow down on approach. It turns out the worst are the budgerigars. They sit in large flocks on the embankment, unseen, swarming up in front of the car as it passes. How does this help with predator avoidance? It certainly doesn’t help when the predator is a Landcrusier traveling at 90km/hr. I have no confirmed kill numbers, but drove through several flocks. At first I thought we weren’t hitting any, as you could hear no thuds, but then Becky spotted a puff of feathers from the bull bar after driving through one flock and we realised they make no noise on impact, their small bodies no match for the bull bar. We felt terrible and the whole 1.5hr drive to Gregory Downs was heart breaking… however not enough for me to slow down, as I was tired and just wanted to get there.

Gregory Downs is a small town with a population of 40 according to Wikipedia. There is a motel on one side of the street, and a general store on the other. We’d read that there was free camping behind the general store, and a quick enquiry found the owner just let people camp in his backyard and he even had a toilet and shower block… what a super nice fellow. Although his cockerel did start crowing back and forth with the neighbour’s from about 3am…

We have moved inland a bit, and the temperature now drops dramatically at night.  It reached ~11-12 degrees and was a good reminder that the zero degree night temperatures around Alice Springs at this time will not make for a happy camp, and we’d be better waiting until late spring and coming up from the south, even if that means battling 40-50 degree heat.

A real Cock

We awoke after a pretty cold and cockerel disturbed sleep, packed the tent away without drama and topped up the fuel, with 150km of dusty, unsealed roads between Boodjumulla NP and us. We decided to take a detour via Riversleigh fossil site D. It is a World Heritage listed area, and the brochure said similar to Naracoote Caves in South Australia, a highlight of our road trip south in 2011.

And the winner of Worst World Heritage site in Australia goes to....

The information centre at the site the had a list of all Australia’s World Heritage sites, and it turned out that after this we only have Uluru and Kakadu left to get the full set of mainland Australia sites (there are a few islands I doubt we’ll ever visit). What I can say is I have definitely visited the worst Australian World Heritage site. I know that it has scientific value, and you can see that the important fossils have been taken away for that very purpose. All that’s left is a flashy info centre and the fossil dregs that the researchers couldn’t be fucked to dig up…

That looks nothing like a fucking bird, more like bird shit

 I don’t mind this, but the brochure made it sound awesome. Seriously, just tell the truth; “An important scientific site, but fuck all to see and not worth the 50km detour unless you are trying to visit all of Australia’s World Heritage sites/Australia's worst World Heritage site”.

Hahahahahaha, what great fun the info centre was.

 We arrived at Boodjamulla a short while later and “quickly” set up camp, with only a small fright from a hitchhiker we found when we unravelled the tarps.

You stay on your side, and I'll stay on mine.

The camp looked good in the end and this place seems great. I’ll save our adventures at Boodjamulla NP for the next post‼!

It feels good to mingle with this laid-back country folk, doesn’t it, Har? I like it a lot.

Choosing to move to the lagoon was a great decision! Seriously, I’m not being sarcastic. The place was fantastic and the birdlife was amazing! We set up our site by the lagoon and bedded in. We also saw some freshwater crocodiles while collecting firewood, so that’s another win.

Fresh, not salty like their bigger cousins.

The view over the lagoon was beautiful, and when signing in you are given a sheet of the different birdlife here. I decided to try birding again. I love a bit of nature, me, and can name some of the brighter, larger birds, but real birding has never really appealed. Sure, watching birds is fun, but trying to name them, especially the little ones, requires more patience than I possess. It’s the tiny differences between species that does me. We saw both Brolgas and Sarus Cranes here and the difference is a slightly redder neck… that was hard to see and they’re 1.5m tall. I decided I’d rather re-connect with the street and listened to a bit of grime!

Straight out of Normanton!

Later that evening I started an awesome fire to cook our veggies on, and got to use my welder’s gloves from Bunnings, they’re in Swedish colours and well worth $9 bucks… I can literally touch fire.

I am the god of hellfire and I bring you, FIRE

We watched the sunset, and ended the night eating burnt veggies; the fire was a little too hot. 

The sweet spot

This place is proper country, meaning there is wildlife everywhere; frogs congregate around the toilets. You have to make sure you close the toilet lid because no one wants to shit on a frog… except if the rumours are true, Miss Piggy.

Please don't pee on me

The next day we got about our business, which included lazing in our hammock, thanks Ric and Lorelle,

A little comfier than my office chair to nap in

and generally enjoying the 34˚C winter weather of NW QLD.

We bring the shade

We all know that everything comes at cost. I have mentioned the Grey Nomads in previous posts, and this is now the company we keep. We are the youngest people in the park by 15yrs and the only people still in a tent. In fact ~90% of the traffic we met coming here were pensioners towing their kids future happiness. The first day we arrived we were offered a great spot by the lagoon. After we had set up, we were informed this was a mistake, as every Tuesday they like to have a “shindig” (yep, the real term they used) by the communal campfire, and as this site is only 20 metres away they try and keep it free. We’d already set up, so told the caretaker not to worry and that we’d weather their OAP party, but probably not partake due to us being neither decrepit nor racist.

As 5:45pm approached the near-dead army started stumbling, camp chairs in hand, towards the communal campfire. The generator fired up (this place is off-grid), and the good-old country music started blaring at a rather reasonable level.

Sid later threatened to cut Trevor, as he kept flirting with his Baby Mama.

For the next 2hrs we listened from the safety of our site as a mixture of tunes, from UB40 to Cliff Richard and other numerous old-time country artists, filled the night with their warbling. Every so often they’d lower the volume and someone would stumble into the centre to tell an anecdote, read a poem or tell some pun-filled, but strangely non-racist, jokes. It was bizarrely fun to listen to, especially as an outsider and from the safety of the shadows.

By the end of the night, Becky and I were nodding our head along to the classics; including Tina Turner’s Simple the Best… maybe we are not as far behind them as I like to think, I mean there are a lot of immigrants and it is a problem ‘cos they just don’t understand our ways, see?

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we head towards Boodjamulla NP, stopping overnight at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse. After that we have Limmen NP in our sights.  All these areas are very low in coverage and don’t have much in the way of Internet, so the next blog entry might be a while. But don't stress, I'll be back!

Give me hope, Savannah, hope Savannah, give me hope Savannah till the morning come.

Our stay had been very enjoyable at Undara, but we decided to head towards Normanton and set off early (for us) along the Savannah Way. The drive was pleasant, but totally uneventful, except for a lunch stop outside Croydon (I assume named after the South London borough) and that’s hardly an event.

Tommy loves a sausage!

We arrived at Normanton a little after 4pm, at a nice little caravan park on the edge of town with some lovely birdlife.

What a lovely Red-Winged Parrot

The place was famous for a cheap Barramundi and chips meal deal, and we’d been looking forward to chowing down on that most of the day. It turns out we were shit out of luck and they don’t serve it on Sundays. We were tired after driving all day, so we headed into downtown Normanton to see what they had to offer… Nothing is the quick answer; Sunday opening hours hasn’t reached Normanton. That night we tucked into peanuts and raw carrots, washed down with a lovely glass of apple juice. The great sunset and chorus of bee-eaters made up for it.

Rainbow Bee-eaters watching us eat peanuts and carrots

As I mentioned, we were very tired and in our exhaustion thought it would be a good idea to set up near the toilets, for convenience, see? However, the convenience of being a whole five seconds closer was quickly outweighed by BEING A THROUGHWAY TO THE FUCKING TOILETS! That, plus overhearing the constant chatter of old men as they pass each other outside the shitter was pretty annoying.

The next morning we woke and began packing. Our site at the Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) NP campsite is booked for the 20th, and we were unable to get a site earlier than that. We had decided not to head to Burketown, so spent the next hour trying to think what to do next, pausing only for a mad ten-minute search for my misplaced keys (Becky found them in the car door). We settled on another campsite situated on a lagoon 20km outside Normanton, as neither of us could face another long drive, and I really didn’t want to spend another evening listening to Gerald complain about his piles.

These are the stresses of life on the road, but it sure beats working.

Land of the Grey Nomad

After stocking up on supplies we powered out of Cairns a little after midday, stopping only in Atherton to fuel up. We felt like we were heading outback, so filled up the 95-litre main tank, 50-litre sub tank and the 2x20-litre jerry cans. Sure, this sounds like a lot of fuel, but the car has been averaging 17litres/100km.

Heading west we started shifting from Backpacker territory into the land of the Grey Nomads*. Our first stop was Undara NP, famous for the lava tubes**, with park access is restricted to privately run tours. We decided to stay at the Undara Experience, a little pricy, but a well-kept and clean caravan park. We’d booked the “active tour” over the “archway tour”, not because we wanted to be active but because the other tour seemed to be aimed at the very young or the infirm. 

Easy access

 The tour started at 10:30am, so when we awoke at 7am we thought we had loads of time. However in the end, after eating breakfast, showering and trying to reorganise the car for the millionth time, we had to run to the office not to miss it… of course we did. The office had made a mistake and booked us on the easy tour. Becky tried multiple avenues of complaint, but each time we hit computer says no; the other tour full so it was the archway tour or nothing.

On our tour we had a number of elderly couples near death, two young Swedish families and a young English family. The drive to the cave was quite frustrating as the two youngest Swedish boys yapped the whole way, showing no interest in the guide’s description of the geology and history of the area. The guide was dropping knowledge gold and these four year olds were letting it slip through their fingers. This was a theme throughout the tour, the Swedish kids just showed no interest in the description of how the lava tubes formed or the flora and fauna of the area. The English four-year-old boy piped up when he saw a Brush Turkey, I told him “mate, there fucking everywhere”, but he wouldn’t listen.  There’s just no telling some people!

Lava hole, with a very interesting story about its formation

 The tour was nice, but it was a little overpriced at $58 per person. I mean the kids did have a point; they’re just fucking caves, so who gives a shit how they were formed.

That's a lot of lava

We had lunch after the tour finished and then headed to Kalkani Volcanic Crater. The brochure from the front office made it sound very cool. You take a short walk up to the craters edge then follow the 2km path around the rim. We arrived, a little disheartened by the 500m walk to the craters edge, but spurred on by the promise of the brochure we persisted.

It was SHIIIIIT. I mean, there was an OK view, but the crater was full of trees and could have been anything.

I got dressed for this?

We trudged round the “rim” getting sweaty and annoyed. We saw a kangaroo.

Oh, hello..

He seemed happy to see us:

Kangaroo lipstick

We also saw a wallaby baby and pale-headed rosella… Hardly worth the boob-sweat I had as a result of walking 2km.

I'm not good enough for you?

Who's a pretty boy

Of course, I’m being a little flippant. The whole area was lovely. After a final night, where we cooked up some delicious campsite curry, we packed up and prepared for the big drive to Normanton. Looking back, perhaps we hurried away from this site a little hastily. I think we are still finding an enjoyable pace for the whole journey. For us, the journey is the holiday and the destination unimportant… I’m off to meditate in the morning glow of the outback.

So far the trip has been very enjoyable, despite my constant moaning. Remember, I enjoy having a little complain and this is not a reflection on my happiness. I’d probably be less happy if I had nothing to complain about, and the blog a lot shorter.

*Pensioners who have spunked all their cash on huge motorhomes and caravans.

**Caves formed by lava spewed years ago

Backpackers, fasands of them…

Our stay in Cairns was pretty dull and it rained a lot, so this entry ain’t got much going for it. The motel we stayed in was pretty grubby, but for $80 we got what we paid for and I could finally take a shit without hearing an old man straining in the cubicle next door. There is a café in Cairns called Café Fika, which specialises in Swedish food, so of course we went there.

An Ikea substitute!

Cairns is an odd town, slightly run down and full of backpackers. We wandered round finishing our big town business while the car was serviced. The car was flagged with a few problems, but it all sounded a bit like they wanted a few jobs off us. The RACQ had already checked it over, so I decided he was full of shit… If we crash due to the rear brakes going, I’ll have to apologies to Kmart automotive in Cairns. I was glad there was nothing major needed on the car because, despite all the luxuries of flushing toilets, beds off the floor and wifi, I was itching to get back on the road again. 

Cairns beach at its finest...

The plan now is to follow the Savannah Way through to Katherine in the Northern Territory (NT). The first stop will be Undara NP, then onto Normanton, after which we’ll pass through Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) NP and then onto NT. The phone reception and internet will start to get choppy, so posts might be a little light, but hopefully there will be more to talk about than what happened in Cairns… I bored myself into a bad mood writing this.