Cairns to Darwin – Day 2

Breakfast on the go

Breakfast on the go

I woke, packed up the van and headed south to the first picnic spot I could find. Here I parked up again and prepared breakfast: sausage sandwiches and HP sauce. Yummy. It was stinking hot and not even 9am when I put all the food stuff away and headed south.

I’d have preferred to have continued west along the Developmental Road but as it’s unpaved in parts I wasn’t allowed. So south it was to Cloncurry and through Mt Isa again. Legend has it that once you cross the river in Mt Isa then you’re bound by supernatural laws to return to the city. Well, I crossed the river a few days ago and I was indeed back again! This time, though, my stay was barely an hour.

I filled up (twice), had a McFlurry so I could get some free wi-fi and bought some beers for later. The reason I filled up twice was due to a problem with the van. When it was hot (pretty much after it had been running for more than an hour) it would make any fuel squirted into it “froth” and spill back out. As such, filling it was a very slow and tedious process. At some times I was lucky to get 1l of diesel per minute into the tank. The first time I stopped, I thought I had filled it but when I got in I found I’d only made it to the 3/4 mark. Hence a second stop to put another 10l in.

Another border crossing

Another border crossing

West it was. I passed the border into the Northern Territory at around 6pm and duly put my watch back half an hour to cater for the time difference. As duck fell, the insects arrived in their droves and made little “tak” noises as they squirted their innards all over my windscreen (which now sported an impressive chip courtesy of a road train and a piece of gravel).

Some of these insects were the size of small birds, although the effect when they hit the windscreen were different. Birds made more of a “whump” sound before whipping over the top of the van and not leaving a mark.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t aim for birds. The opposite, I tried to swerve and slow to avoid them but the smaller ones in particular were just intent (it seemed) on bouncing off the van. Maybe it’s some weird avian version of “dare” but they’d fly into the path of the van, often flutter away and then cut back in again at the last second in a bid to make me duck pointlessly behind the steering wheel as they “whump”-ed harmlessly (for me) overhead.

Oh, I think I got a snake as well. Although it could have been a bit of old tyre rubber. I couldn’t avoid it as there was a car coming in the opposite lane at the same time so there was no swerve space.

Anyway, after driving through the dark for some time I made it off the westbound road and up onto the Stuart Highway which connects Adelaide with Darwin. I’d been up here before, but there was little other choice. I had toyed with the Tableland route, but the distance between roadhouses was too far.

Food, drink, expensive diesel

Food, drink, expensive diesel

I hit the 3-Ways roadhouse for some fuel and a leg-stretch, pushed north a bit and pulled into a picnic/rest area. Amazingly – and wonderfully – a lot of these are clearly marked as allowing 24-hour camping. So if you’re not bothered about showers or electricity then they make for a great place to pitch for the night. Many have toilets and barbequeues as well as seating areas and information posters. The one I stopped at already had about six vehicles parked up, the occupants – I assumed – already in the land of Nod.

After prepping the van so I’d not concuss myself should I roll over in bed, I joined them.

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Cairns to Darwin – Day 1

Pretty view

Pretty view

I walked up to Apollo’s office early doors to collect the camper van. After filling in a gazillion bits of paperwork and watching a DVD on its operation, I was handed the keys and sent on my way. There were various provisos: I couldn’t take it off unsealed road except to get to campsites and the like; I had 2950km allotted for free; $750 fuel allowance. This restricted the route I wanted to take slightly, but hey-ho. At $1 per day I wasn’t going to complain.

The van I was relocating turned out to be a 3l Toyota Hilux with a small house stapled to the back of it. The inside had basic furnishings and the roof was raised and lowered for camping to give more headroom. Nice enough. I checked everything was OK and set off into town.

First stop was Woolies to get some food, then I tried to find somewhere to get a cable to connect my MP3 player to the van stereo. A simple 2-ended stereo jack lead was going to cost me $20 in the places I found them so I decided not to bother and just listen with my headphones instead.

As I headed back to the van after my third stop, I suddenly realised my head was a day out. I thought it was Sunday and therefore free parking all over Cairns. But it wasn’t. It was Monday. And if I hadn’t paid, I risked a ticket. Oops. Fortunately, nothing awaited my return so I got away with it. I don’t think parking wardens care about “honest mistakes”.

Nothing to do with beans

Nothing to do with beans

And so the journey began. With the fridge and food box laden, I headed south as far as Ingham then tweaked west along one of the lesser-used roads. Rather than driving all the way south back to Townsville, I thought I’d go for variety.

My first rest stop was at Crawford’s Lookout, over the Johnstone River. I hopped out here to enjoy the view and decided to walk down the 1.7km trail to the next viewpoint. Around 100m in I encountered my first ever wild snake. Thankfully he/she wasn’t that wild, and slithered off into the undergrowth when I stomped nearby. I have no idea what kind of snake it was – just black and about a metre long.

The view from what turned out to be the emergency helicopter landing pad was quite impressive. I could have walked down to the river itself, but I didn’t feel that I had the time. Instead I walked back to the van and drove further down the road to a picnic spot where I used the free stove they provided to make myself some soup for lunch.

High up

High up

Following the windy road to Normanton – which I aimed to reach before sleeping – I passed an enormous amount of nice countryside. It was lush to start with but as I progressed west, the greenery gave way to scraggy dry bush. Windy Hill was the last green place I stopped – an area with 20 wind turbines which proclaims itself happy to serve the community. Rather than the usual case in the UK where these things are built and then ignored by everyone except the people who complain that they make too much noise and spoil the view. Deal with it – it’s clean energy and they’re better than burning coal. Oh, and they don’t make much noise. I was stood 20m from one and it was quieter than a ceiling fan.

Welcome!

Welcome!

I passed briefly through Ravenshoe – Queensland’s Highest Town at 920m above sea level – and them just ploughed on until I finally reached Normanton, the “Home of the Gulflander” (one of the main train routes in Oz). It was closed. The town, that is. All of it. I was hoping to find a bar where I could share a drink with the locals before sleeping, but it wasn’t going to happen.

Instead, I parked up on a verge, extended my roof and went to sleep. No point in paying for a caravan park even though there was at least one nearby.

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