Charters Towers

After a few electrical hassles with Thommo & Flan Man's Kimberlys, the decision was made to head towards Ballina to get things sorted out at the factory !

We had a good days travel after a wet pack-up at Atherton. Mostly light rain during the night, but a bit of a downpour around 5.30am meant that those of us camping packed up fairly wet. Dave spent the night inside with family for his Dad's 80th birthday at Milla Milla and Jill & Peter spent the night with friends in Atherton so they escaped with dry lodgings for the night.

There were plenty of roadworks on the way down today. We probably spent close to an hour all up sitting at roadwork traffic lights, but the finished bits are awesome. It will be a super-highway when it's all finished.

Jaynie & I scored a shattered rear driver side window courtesy of a road train (funnily enough on a fabulous two lane piece of road) which we haven't been able to find a replacement for yet.  Nikki & friend from Charters Towers Autoglass were brilliant - scouring the countryside for a replacement for us and eventually taping our shattered one up to (hopefully) get us further south before it gives way. Good, old fashioned country service is alive and well folks !! Between us all, the convoy scored plenty of chipped windscreens today - out with the U-Fix-It kits again !

Most of us washed our trucks and campers when we hit town tonight, just to avoid getting covered in sticky red mud every time we moved. In some ways it's a shame to not get them back into town in all their Cape grime and glory, but this-morning's combination of dust and rain (= M U D) was the final straw ! Clean cars to Canberra !!!

David is in high spirits tonight after the drubbing dished out by QLD in Origin 2 but the same can't be said for Thommo & Ian (who barracked for NSW but curiously - Ian wore a maroon jumper).

I rescued a miniscule gecko from Casa del Camprite tonight - no idea how long it had been there - but came across the tiny little fella when we set up camp tonight. After an extended play session on my wrist and arm, he (or she) was finally relocated to the shower block here. Hope it isn't too cold for the plucky little bugger.

Tomorrow we head south towards Emerald and the ever cooling temperatures !

15 June - Atherton

A few of us are wearing long pants and long sleeved shirts tonight for the first time in weeks !

Things have got positively chilly (by comparison) as we head south. Last night at Musgrave was the first time for a couple of weeks that I'd actually been under the sheet to sleep !

We have had a pretty quiet couple of days driving, with a large part of today back on the tar. It's amazing how quickly some of the dirt roads have deteriorated - we have noticed a big difference on the same road since we were heading north only a few short weeks ago.

We're not coming across much other traffic heading south, but there are HEAPS of vehicles heading the other way. We even came across a swimming pool being towed behind a "Wide Load" escort near Lakeland, along with quite a few road trains.

The campsites are getting fuller, and the tourist season really seems to be getting into full swing.

We're continuing southish tomorrow - but won't make a final decision as to where and what route until the morning. CHOICES - ain't they grand !!!

Heading South !

Greetings from Chilli Beach in the Iron Range National Park !

We're on our way south now and should be at Musgrave for an overnighter tomorrow night.
We've had a couple of good days driving, including some big adventures (thanks from all to David and his double diff-locks) on the Old Telegraph Track ! Some of the exits from creek crossings are heaps easier heading north, but they're a lot more fun going the other way - especially with a camper trailer !
Most of us had a superb seafood lunch at the Portlands Road Cafe today, and otherwise spent the (lay) day checking out the local area, walking the beach, doing some close up nature photography, reading books and flying kites. A good time to chill-out and recharge for the next few days travel ahead.
The vehicles and trailers are still (mostly) intact - no serious dramas and all is on schedule to be home in a couple of weeks.
Some more photos are online at Picasaweb!
See ya soon !!!

Punsand Bay

Apologies for the photo at the tip - I'm sure that there's a better one, but I'm sitting by the side of the road in Bamaga typing this and just wanted to put up a quick photo of the gang at the top of the country.
We've been up here for a few days now at the Punsand Bay Camping Resort, but don't get reception out there so no updates.
As you can see, we did the obligatory photos at the tip on our second day here and since then have done some excellent 4 wheel driving, been to Horn and Thursday Islands, swam, fished (nice Barra by Thommo) and generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.
Julie, Thommo, Jayne and Ian are out in the oceaqn somewhere on a fishing charter - the rest of us are relaxing at the campground.
More when we start the journey back to chilly Canberra !

We made it !!!

2010-06-01

2010-05-29

We're nearly there !

Hi all
coming to you tonight from sunny (and HOT) Weipa ! We've been here for a couple of days indulging in some serious R & R - lounging around, reading books (have I mentioned the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson yet), exploring the local area, swimming (but only in the pool at the camping ground to avoid the Crocs) and basically chilling out.
I haven't done a "proper" update yet and this is only a quick summary. Where to start ? ? ?  Our last post was from Mt Isa - nearly a week ago now. We've had to change our travel plans a couple of times during the last week because of either road closures or dodgy information about road closures.
We were originally heading up to Kingfisher Camp via Adels Grove, but Thommo got a call from an adjoining station to Kingfisher to say that that the road was closed. No probs - change the plan - stay an extra night at Mt Isa and spend another night at Adels, which was a welcome break from our tight schedule.
Thommo & Julie did an absolutely brilliant roast dinner for the whole crew at Adels. Jaynie made the gravy & David & I got into trouble for launching Dastardly Wabbit into space for some interesting night photography experiments.
Next morning, Adels to Burketown.  This is where we encountered our first Anderson plug problem - something had totally ripped out the plug and its associated wiring, which resulted in some creative thinking from Ian to get things going again in the absence of a 60 amp maxi-blade fuse.
Semi-sorted at Gregory Downs and we continued on to Normanton & Karumba.
Our original plan was to head from Karumba to Dunbar Station and then north, but with uncertainty about the roads and a day up our sleeves, we headed east across the base of the Cape to David's relo's place in the Atherton Tablelands.David's parents, Bob & Lorraine,  met up with us for a fabulous BBQ and a night in totally different climactic conditions from over in the west. The pics will show what I mean !!!
 Our journey up the Cape finally started from the east rather than the west.
Apologies because this has been something of a rushed update tonight - there's a lot more to show and tell - including Leichardt Falls and last night's dinner at the Weipa Bowling Club.
We leave in the morning to head north to the tip.
I finally sorted out Picassa web albums and have started to upload some pics.
Next update hopefully soon - . . . . stay with us ;-))
Some more pics that I'm progressively uploading, are at http://picasaweb.google.com/mickhines