It’s getting very near the end

We had to stop over at Charleville as it was the only place along the way where I could book a service for the vehicle – and I had to book that weeks in advance as well. As it happened, it proved to be an entertaining layover. The Van Park that we chose had signs up everywhere about a “Stowaway Cat”, apparently an over-friendly feline who had the habit of being inadvertently packed up in vans only to be unpacked hundreds of kilometres down the road, behoving the disgruntled drivers to return said feline back to the Van Park. Sure enough the cat found us and made itself right at home. Very friendly cat and I guess secure within itself and around strangers. However, on the day of our departure I kept one very suspicious eye on that cat as it hovered around our camper. Three days in Charleville was enough – we were not coming back!

                         Charleville's stowaway cat, "Puddy" livin' it up in the camper

Mind you Charleville did hold some interest – they have a Cosmos Centre for stargazers, a Bilby Conservation Centre looking after an endangered species of cute little chocolate-covered marsupials, and a special treat for us in reuniting with my brother-in-law Grothy and my nephew Steve as they made their way out to the Birdsville Races. The races are an annual event but for Grothy it’s more a pilgrimage. Our rendezvous point was the Cattle Camp Hotel at 10am – coincidentally opening time for the pub – and sure enough, not withstanding a flat tyre to hold them up momentarily, the bus rocked up, spilling the prospective punters into the pub and up for the first drink of the day. We politely declined their kind offer to join them in an early tipple – and our gift of two fresh cream-buns for Grothy did look a trifle insipid, lined up against a wall of beers – however we had a great time catching up and eventually they all got back on the bus hoping to make Windorah in time for the Yabby Races, a warm up for the Birdsville Cup.

                                                            Find us in the mural...

After Charleville, we knew we had to head south but we were attracted to divert just a little bit to a town called Eulo (population 50) where there is a date farm making a date wine, plus it is within striking distance of the Yowah opal fields – home of the famous (that’s how it’s advertised) Yowah “nut”, a type of rock that, when sawn in half sometimes yields opals and/or other interesting effects that has earned them the title of picture rocks. On this leg of the highway we learned two things: one sip of date wine explains fully why grapes are the preferred medium for the wine-making process; and, finding a good opal in a public fossicking area like we did in Quilpie was a complete fluke, making prospecting in general an activity for the tourist that should be more for fun than for profit (dammit!).

                                                             Now that's a Bilby!

After Eulo we did head south, crossing the border into New South Wales on our way to Bourke. Henry Lawson wrote, “If you know Bourke, you know Australia” and I tend to think he was right. An old riverboat port on the Darling River miles from the sea – there’s just something about it, and just being at the “Back’a Bourke” makes it feel special.

                       Yowah "Picture Rock" - mighta picked up a couple of samples...

By the time we got to Cobar the wind was really picking up as a trough raced through inland NSW. For us it was a tailwind that actually assisted our fuel consumption (that bane of the Grey Nomad’s existence) but made it equally unpleasant when you had to stop driving and get out in it. So we kept on moving until we arrived in Hay and spent the night there. From there Victoria beckoned so we crossed the mighty Murray River at Echuca and stopped for the night at Castlemaine. It’s weird when you realise that you are spending your last night of an adventure that you started 7 months ago, and the next day you will be back in a city – in a suburb – in a house – doing everyday things again.

                                     Back to Melbourne and civilisation??? Local graffiti

We’ve gone from off-road to off the road, as we will be flying back to Perth at the end of the month and then flying back to Melbourne in December. There’s a grandchild due in January but maybe – if we can escape – we’ll resume on the returd highway again next year sometime. Maybe you’d like to join us...

A Flurry in Cloncurry

Caravan Parks are usually pretty quiet and staid affairs once the sun goes down but we were awoken from our slumbers around 4am by a rather loud (dare I say maniacal) dialogue from a woman in a tent just 20 metres from us. She was in her early 40s I guess from what we saw earlier in the day and the gist of the conversation was her questioning the conjugal rights of her partner, complaining that she badly needed a rest and wasn’t three times a week enough (to paraphrase and omit expletives)? After a short silence there was a chorus from the surrounding male grey nomads (with a hint of envy even) agreeing that she did have a fair point there, and there followed a chorus from the female grey nomads “Amen to that, dear!” The guy kept a low response at all times so we couldn’t hear him but whatever he said arced her up even more, and so it went on for about 20 minutes until either or both fell back to sleep, and the caravan park residents followed suit.

On the way to the ‘Curry we were obliged by a road train driver throwing up a rock our way, giving a rather displeasing large chip mark on our windscreen. As we drove through Cloncurry we happened upon a windscreen repair business and asked if he could fix it tomorrow – he said no he’d be away tomorrow but “drive it through, I’ll fix it now!” As I got out of the vehicle I happened to notice a tangle of bare wires hanging out of the trailer where it should have been connected to the car. Somehow (and we suspect it happened outside of Lawn Hill) we had obliterated the connecting plug which was nowhere to be seen.  The windscreen guy said to try the bloke across the road, which I did and he obligingly wandered across and reconnected the electricals while the windscreen was being patched. Country towns are cool! Nothing seems to be any bother to these people.

                                              Maurs runs with Banjo the Dinosaur

From Cloncurry we drove back down to Winton, checked out another Dinosaur Centre but one where you see actual dinosaur bones rather than replicas (a rarity anywhere in the world), and through Longreach but then got off the beaten track a little by checking out the smaller towns of Stonehenge (the van park was full there – had two vans in it) and Jundah, where we camped for the night. We took a “tourist drive” along the Thomson River in the late afternoon (plenty of water still in these rivers) to check out the bird and animal life. That evening while we were having our showers we could hear a band playing at the local pub – a quality band! So off we set for a couple of drinks and enjoyed a two-piece group with a big sound called Mick Lindsay (Mick had a guitarist called Grant with him). As a muso he was arrogant in a friendly way – “any requests?” he asked casually – he could pretty well play anything but he specialised in Southern US country rock, and they gave their all for less than 20 people in the audience (so the whole of Jundah was there). Very enjoyable and unexpected night. He was on his way to play at the Birdsville Races. You can look him up at www.micklindsay.com – worth a look and a listen if you have a spare moment. Maurs had the added thrill of being hit on by the village idiot – he was fat, drunk, and cavorted in front of everyone like a barefoot John Belushi – but, as Maurs rightly pointed out, he was a lot younger than her and it was a male, unlike other occasions when she has been hit upon in pubs.

                                                   Real dinosaurs - real bones!

From Jundah it was on to Windorah – a metropolis by Jundah standards, where we had a morning coffee and moved on quickly to Quilpie.

                   Things move kinda slow at Windorah - of course, it was Sunday morning.
It’s about 200 km of single lane bitumen with high shoulders onto gravel so if you happen to meet someone coming the other way you have to gingerly get one set of wheels off the road and hope the other guy doesn’t cough up yet more gravel onto your windscreen. The road carnage along this stretch was appalling with loads of dead roos, emus, cattle, feral pigs, feral cats, and slow birds. Maurs had to stop outright for a wedge-tailed eagle who just eyed us off until he lumbered a few metres off to the side of the road to let us past. This was luckier than one hapless traveller whom we met in Quilpie – a wedge-tail had flown into his windscreen making a rather large mess of it and ruining his chances of making the Birdsville race meeting (I’m not sure that he was so willing to stop for it though).

                                                Don't mess with the wedge-tail....

Outside of Quilpie is a public fossicking area where people can have a dig and give rocks a whack with a hammer. Are you catching on to a theme here? Of course we went out for a fossick. The target this time? Opals. In an inspired piece of team cluelessness, Maurs asked me to bring a cloth over on which to rest our findings. I placed this cloth on the ground and picked up a random rock to keep the cloth from blowing away. She picked up the rock and saw a tiny glint of opal on one side of it. She whacked it to make it into a smaller rock to keep but when she did, it broke open to reveal more opal inside – to the extent that she got the opal guy in town to cut out a not-too-shabby piece of pure opal for jewellery plus he polished up the remainder of the rock for a nice conversation piece (yes we do intend to bore you about this when we see you again!) I fear our fossicking days are not ended yet either.

                                     Our opal find, all polished up! Not a bad morning's work.

I should mention bore water for those unfamiliar with it. Water in this part of the world is artesian and has varying concentrations of Hydrogen Sulphide. It’s good water – so soft you can hardly wash the soap off yourself, but it does carry the distinctive odour of rotten eggs that tempers any notions of long showers – particularly after one has had an egg for breakfast (particularly galling!) As everyone out here says, you get used to the smell – but crikey, I reckon it takes a while!

Mostly Lawn Hill

We travelled down from Karumba to the Burke and Wills Roadhouse and stayed the night before heading on to Lawn Hill. The roadhouse is a pretty lonely spot on the highway – there’s nothing for a hundred kilometres in any direction. I’m pretty sure Burke and Wills never stayed there on their journey, which is a pity as they would have got a hot shower and a cold beer before continuing on to their own personal oblivion. When we were there, there was a scattering of other caravaners including Merv and Brenda who inhabited a great big old motor home with, not surprisingly, “Merv and Brenda” emblazoned on the front. They may have been there a while as periodically big Merv would try to turn over the big diesel motor - to no avail. Still, hot showers, cold beer...no worries eh Merv.

Lawn Hill is another special place. You have to eat about 90 kilometres of dust to finally get there and you have to share the track with huge three-bogie mining road-trains that cause localised blinding sandstorms as they drive past, but it is definitely worth the effort. We booked in for four nights. The owners do what they call a” Harry’s Hill Tour” at sunset. Basically they cart whoever wants to go on their little bus up this small hill to watch the sunset, hear a few Lawn Hill stories and have some wine and snacks. Wine and Snacks? There’s a species of Grey Nomad where that means “get as much as you can while it’s on offer” and we witnessed one fat boy with wine glass in one hand and a mitt full of cheese, pickled onions, olives, and cabana sausage in the other, slurping his way through the afternoon. No wine returned from Harry’s Hill that day I can tell you...it was a massacre. The sunset was nice though.

                                                        Camping in Adel's Grove

We booked our campsite at Lawn Hill via email and we received a confirmatory reply which included, “We assume that you do not have a generator or a dog and have allocated you a space in the Grove.” We wrote back, “You are correct. Our dog ran away with our generator and we haven’t seen either for months.” It seems like that if you have a dog or a generator you are relegated to a noisier and presumably smellier part of the camp. Imagine our surprise when we noticed the couple camped next to us in the Grove had...cats! People travelling the countryside with two fluffy pussycats defy our perception of well...fun. There’s a certain sense of dedication that goes into handling cats. They were probably aged in their late sixties. They had a special pen for the cats to lounge about in outside and they walked them on leashes. I asked was it difficult travelling with cats and they both said without hesitation, “It’s easier than travelling with children.” Well you can’t argue with that!

                                                   Crimson Finch strikes a pose

And I’d like to make a statement about Speedos while they are on my mind! I saw three gents of reasonably advanced years strutting back from the swimming hole in their Speedos. Now I reckon that you don’t look particularly great in Speedos in your prime and those things don’t improve with age. Not only that – guys tend to hold on to their Speedos for years and years and lycra does have a habit of decomposing with time – just add water and there is incredible sagging that only underlines the incredible sagging of the male form. To murder an old C&W song (and there’s been plenty of that happening out at Lawn Hills, believe me), “Mothers don’t let your babies grow up to wear Speedos”.

                                                   Indarri Falls at Lawn Hill National Park

Everybody does the canoe trip up Lawn Hill Gorge. A lot treat it as a race and paddle like fury to the first barrier, portage over the falls and speed up and back the next bit as well – then go and book into the local masseuse at the camp because they had used muscles they hadn’t used since 1982. We were more intent on spotting the wildlife so we took it rather slow. We came across a big fallen log with several cormorants and we snapped quite a few photos from different angles. We then continued our plod up the creek to the falls and when coming back we saw a couple taking photos at the same log. “There’s a crocodile over there,” they said. “That’s incredible” we said, “We were there earlier and it wasn’t around!” So over we went and took a few shots of this croc on the bank. As we paddled off Maurs said, “You don’t think it was there when we took the first lot of shots do you?” “Of course not,” I said. Oh yes it was! When we downloaded the photos later, there it was – the damn croc sitting happily in the background of EVERY shot! We had blithely missed the gorilla in the room! We seriously considered handing in our Naturalist badges but as we only got them off the back of a Weeties packet we didn’t bother.

                                                Never mind the croc - look at the birds!!!

So, the walks in the National Park were excellent, canoeing was grand, wildlife abundant, swimming in the spring-fed Lawn Hill Creek was so refreshing and there was a bar and restaurant on hand for us to relax at night (although we did have to listen to some fractured country music played by an old cowboy on a guitar while our drinks were going down). A small price to pay.

                                                                 Lawn Hill Creek

We were floating around in the big deep swimming hole on our last afternoon in Lawn Hill (I was in board shorts, not Speedos) and I said to Maurs, “Could we spend the rest of our lives like this?” It was a rhetorical question and the next morning we were back in the dust and corrugated ruts, bouncing our way back to Cloncurry.

North to Karumba

                           Gus having a beer with all his mates in the Cobbold Gorge bar

I should say something about the weather. Now being deep winter you might think that you’re cold and you’re probably right. We get cold too. Early morning the temperature dips down to around 5-10C but it’s Tee Shirt time by 9.30am and we’ve been picking up 28C most afternoons. No clouds, just blue sky and wafting little breezes. Dat’s de weather report (not quite in official Bureau language)! The northern Australian winter climate is just superb.

                                                          Cobbold Gorge swimming area

Equally, Cobbold Gorge where we have just spent five days is superb. A resort built on a cattle station out in the middle of nowhere and done really well. We’ve toured the Gorge, walked the walks, swum the pool, canoed the dam, read the books and had sunset drinks at the bar. Very relaxing lifestyle.

Maurs is becoming very keen on fossicking and we went to a place called Agate Creek looking for...agates. It was the first time on the trip that I actually had to use 4WD as we bounced around searching for a prized agate. I don’t really know what a prized agate looks like so I looked for “rocks with character” – some of them may be agates, I don’t know. As the bloke who showed us around O’Brien’s Creek gem field told me, there are malachites, azurites, pyrites and leverites. The important one to recognise is the Leverite.  “Leverite where you found it, it’s a rock!”

                                                      Maurs - happy in a dry creek bed

Now heavily weighed down with Maureen’s gem findings we limped in to Croydon and spent a day and a night there.  Croydon is an old gold town, now almost defunct. However the locals have a great sense of history and have retained a lot of the old mining precinct as a really interesting display, including a lot about the Chinese community who stuck it out in quite harsh conditions, both physically and socially. And there are still traces of them within today’s community.

We went on through Normanton to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Normanton didn’t ring any of our chimes at all. We circled the joint three times but couldn’t even convince ourselves to buy a coffee there. In fairness it was a Sunday and so some places were not open, but what was open wasn’t flash. Karumba however had everything we needed and we stayed four nights, mostly relaxing, stalking the local wildlife and going for long walks. We did watch the sunset a few times at the local pub on the point, which is almost de rigor I believe.

                                                  Something wrong here? Not a thing!!
The place is full of Mexicans who every year throw their Toorak tractors into top gear and haul their massive caravans up here for months at a time. It’s tough to get a space at a van park because of all these aged itinerants. They were all forlorn when we got there as the winds were wrong, the tides were wrong and it was too cold so the fish weren’t on the bite at all. All they could do was clean their equipment and wait for “happy hour” every night. There were whingers and there were white trash trailer park snobs, but we met some really nice people too. I think I’ve got enough material for a lengthy discourse on people who inhabit caravan parks, but that will have to wait for the end of the journey. There are some cool stories.

                                              Home-made prawn rolls - now that's a lunch
We’re done in Karumba. Having said the fishing was crook, there was no shortage of prawns, crabs, barramundi and other fish for sale and Maurs and I took advantage and supped on seafood for the entire time. Now, we’re turning south west and heading for Lawn Hill where we will continue to be out of mobile range and possibly out of Internet range too, but we hear it is a spectacular place to see.

What to do around Mt Surprise

We took a drive out to Copperfield Gorge on Sunday. Off the highway it’s about 45 km of rough old country road with a few water hazards along the way. We also had to dodge around copious cattle (they big in North Queensland) and a couple of roos but it was well worthwhile – very pretty gorge with clear as crystal water. Just opposite stands the Einasleigh Pub, the most prominent building in Einasleigh, and an absolute oasis for the locals who work in this remote area.

                                                               Copperfield Gorge

Today we drove out to a fossicking site about 40 km north of Mt Surprise. We dug and sieved and ate dust all morning and for our trouble found about six pieces of Topaz and a bit of coloured quartz. It’s quite satisfying, finding your own bits of jewellery, but I just can’t imagine the life of the old miners who trawled through these areas on foot in search of their fortune, because here I am, back in camp, parked by a swimming pool under a cool shade, showered clean, nursing a cold soft drink, and typing on the Internet (not that this is a bad thing!)

                                 Retirement shouldn't involve going back to the salt mines!!

                                                     No Topaz escaped Maurs' scrutiny!

Tomorrow we leave for Cobbold Gorge, about 200 km away. We hear it is pretty nice there. We’ll let you know.

Getting back on the Highway

At the moment we are sitting in North Queensland in a little town called Mount Surprise and the biggest surprise is that there’s no mountain called Mount Surprise to support the town’s good name – just a small hillock that would make Nepalese tourists hysterical with laughter, if we ever had any Nepalese actually touring around here. The town is small – about 70 people – but a steady stream of tourists bulks up the numbers through the winter period. We came here to see the Undara Lava Tubes, which are a remarkable piece of natural engineering that I had heard about years ago but never got to. They are quite spectacular and it’s hard to do them justice but here are a couple of images that Maurs took on our tour.

                                                       Cave dwellers at Undara

                                             The Lava Tubes are quite spectacular

That’s a long way from Da Nang where I last blogged and no, I won’t try to link in the tunnel tours that you can do in Vietnam with the Lava Tubes – Undara is way more spacious – you could drive a tank down one of these babies. We came here via Melbourne where we didn’t do much at all except hang out with the family and catch up with the McBrides for a lunch at the Windsor Hotel on a bitterly cold Melbourne day.

                           John and Trish trying to look warm at the old Windsor Hotel

We then flew to Townsville where we didn’t do much at all except catch up with friends, walk along the Ross River and get our camping gear back together for the resumption of our next adventure. However I should thank Jetstar for hosting possibly the most annoying child on our flight back there. This kid cried and whinged for the entire flight with a constancy you rarely encounter. I well know that if continual whingeing was an Olympic event that the Poms would wrap up the gold but gee, this kid would have certainly made the Aussie team.

          Cousin Laurie and Gary being kind to the turtles by giving them bread

We’ve been trying to get a new spare tyre after we discovered our spare was a “get you home” only variety that limits you to 80 km/h and disintegrates if exposed to prolonged sunlight. We finally got one last Friday but it necessitated at 450 km trip from Mount Surprise back to Townsville and then back again the next day. Just for variety we travelled a bit north into the Atherton Tableland and then down the coast from about Innisfail to Townsville. Heading that way we saw the effects of what Cyclone Yasi had on the vegetation, even 18 months or so after the event. It was a good one!

We spent the night with my cousin Laurie. He must live in the most sociable street in the world. The neighbours regularly stoke up a bonfire in one of their front yards and sit around for drinks and a chat of an evening. We went down to such a gathering and it was all going wonderfully until the guy’s sprinkler system engaged and doused us all in jets of cold water. There were wet people running everywhere for a while there, including people in dressing gowns and fathers trying to shield their pram-bound babies from the deluge. He said “I activated it today but I wasn’t sure what time it was set for.” Well let me tell you Len, it’s set for 7.13 pm! That’s when my watch stopped working.

                                   Neighbourhood lawn gathering - does your street do this?

We're going back to Mt Surprise where the neighbours ain't quite so "sociable"....

Da Nang Me, Da Nang Me...

The flight to Singapore was uneventful, apart from noting that there is always one person (usually a guy) who demands their full economy-class real estate entitlement and flings back their seat to the max immediately the seatbelt sign goes off, remaining in that prone position until instructed to straighten up for meals and landing. Maurs had one such individual in front of her and consequently had difficulty even seeing the TV screen she was at such close quarters with it. There was a bit of retaliation though on this occasion and a few whacks in the back of the seat might have alerted him to go a bit easy as he was dealing with no ordinary woman – this was the Maursinator!! One stern look from her and he could end up just another pile of crumpled bones in her fossil collection. “Oh that! That’s Pax Extendbackerii Toofarus. They became extinct because they couldn’t adjust to reasonable social behaviour. They’re related to Thoughtless Bastardus that died out around the same time.”

We over-nighted in Singapore, taking taxis to a couple of big shopping Malls and discovering that the only bargains to be had were for the “Petite” sizes among us, of which there were none. Getting back to the hotel became interesting – on Friday night in Singapore at around 9.30pm the taxi supply tends to dry up as demand goes through the roof. We queued for 15 minutes and considered ourselves lucky - Donna and Craig had a 45 minute wait for their ride home.

We flew Silkair to Da Nang with an unexpected stop at Siem Reap in Cambodia (well it wouldn’t have been unexpected if one of us had read the ticket more closely). Donna had requested “Gluten Free” meals and both Singapore Air and Silkair interpreted this to mean thick rice cakes with no topping for snacks. She had enough rice cakes to build a scale model of the Ankar Wat temple by the time she got to Da Nang, as rice cakes wrapped in gladwrap look about as appetising as a house brick.

By the time we resolved our Visas and got out of the airport it was early evening and we chugged through the streets of Da Nang watching people making their way out for a good Saturday night – lots of big open-air cafes along the beachfront – and lots of motor scooters. “Are there many traffic accidents here?” Justin asked our driver Lah. “Lots” he replied. Apparently there are 28,000 road fatalities per year in Vietnam, mostly scooter drivers. There are few rules and many opportunities.

         The Resort's Long Bar on the beach (well, part thereof...it's a really loooong bar)

Our hotel - the Intercontinental Resort -was about 45 minutes from the airport and it is just in another world altogether. It is sheer opulence with a wow factor as you walk from reception to the fishing boat-shaped funicular railway (the Nam Tram) that ferries you up and down the hill that the resort sprawls over. The rooms are luxurious almost to the point that you half expect someone to tap you on the shoulder and say “We’re on to you sunshine, now hop it.” It’s an unfinished work though and in another 12 months it will be sensational. The beach is beautiful and clean although the sand itself presented us with problems. It holds in the summer heat. It got me first as I slopped down for a swim – hot – very hot – but as I increased my speed it only meant that a stream of molten sand started to flip up my bum and back as my thongs dug in deeper. I know there weren’t clouds of steam coming off my feet as I hit the water – but there should have been.

                      The Nam Tram...a little resort surprise when getting around

                              The resort from the other end of the little bay that it nestles in

It then got very slap-stick when Craig lost one thong in the sand during his journey to the water. He couldn’t retrieve it because the heat of the sand afforded no linger-time so Donna and then Maurs tried to help. They looked like a bunch of failed Fijian firewalkers hot-footing it over the sand until Craig eventually located the buried thong. We now treat the sand with respect.

                                              Da Nang sand - looks fine...burns mercilessly

The currency of course is the Vietnamese Dong and you get about 20 thousand of them to the Aussie dollar, making some of the bills eye-openers for us. Our first dinner saw me signing off for a cool 5.5 million Dong. I may have a touch of the vapours when I get the final hotel account.

                                     A private beach BBQ for six...that also cost a few mill!!!

                                                         Donna and Renee beachside

We took a day-trip to Hoi An, which is a delightful little town south of Da Nang.  It has a much more sedate feel than other Asian towns, not so many cars and bikes, quaint buildings, nice cafes and a reputation for tailors. Justin and Maurs took advantage of that and had some outfits made up. Pretty well same day service although I imagine suits could take a day and a half!

                                                        The Japanese Bridge at Hoi An

A final note about the climate and the people. July is mid-summer and it’s HOT! The odd storm floats around the ridges but overall provides no relief from the heat and humidity. The Vietnamese compensate by keeping in the shade and having ice-cold coffee drinks that are heavenly - and the local beer (Larue) helps. The people are just beautiful – smiling and polite, lots trying to master English and make a better life. Just like Americans (...the bit about trying to master English anyway).

Townsville - the Ancestral Home

Maurs and I had spent seven good years in Townsville in the 1970s so driving into the place should have held no surprises. We pulled over for lunch at a little roadhouse just outside of Charters Towers with the unlikely name of the Burdekin Duck – good tucker too – and down the range into Townsville – and onto the Motorway to my cousin’s place. Motorway? That wasn’t here the last time we looked. Actually everything about Townsville seemed to have changed – and for the better. The old place has turned into a very liveable little city, with an array of parks, a rejuvenated Strand, and a restaurant strip over in my ancestral area of South Townsville that is just excellent.

                                                 The Water Playground on The Strand

                                     Moments later...it was tempting but we remained dry

It was just great to catch up with my cousin Laurie. He’s quite mature now, at eighty-something, but still as sharp as a whip and possessing an attitude to life that is inspirational (for me at least). He was quietly nervous about his house passing muster from Maurs and Mal, but he stopped short of laying out two pairs of white cotton gloves to assist with their inspection. We spent a brilliant couple of days with him and even caught up with my dad’s brother Keith who, at 90, remains one of the funniest guys you will ever meet. It’s hard to catch up with him though, because he’s well known as the stud of his retirement village and so has “commitments” apparently. We had to book.

                                 Keith the Stud, photographed during a break from "duty"

Laurence expressed some interest in getting one of them new fangled iPads and so we went to a busy shopping mall to check them out. I drove, Laurence gave directions. Apparently in Laurie’s octogenarian world it is perfectly allowable to go up one-way streets the wrong way and particularly recommended in shopping plaza car parks – and admittedly we did survive and we got prime parking. We found a counter full of iPads and we were poking away at the screen (as you do with iPads) when suddenly Mal burst into very loud song right next to us. She had found some music on one of the iPads – Soul Sister to be precise, by Train – and she cued it up and started belting out the lyrics at the top of her voice. The sound that she produced was like she was singing with really tight headphones on, where you can’t correct for the flat notes of which there were numerous. The effect that she achieved was remarkable – stopped everybody within 30 metres in their tracks. We were stunned. She looked up at us and said “What? I sing this with my granddaughters!” It was a proud performance – a monument to the free spirit – but if she does it again Laurie and I intend to be at least 30 metres distant the next time.

                                          Laurence and Maurs dining in South Townsville

The upshot of all this is that we re-evaluated our original plan to drive down to Melbourne, opting for more time in the Queensland sunshine, so we left the camper and vehicle in Townsville, caught a cheapie Jetstar flight to Melbourne (not counting the overweight baggage bill!), and spent a week with Donna and Renee before taking off to Singapore with all in tow (six pax in total). You see we wanted to check out what the Returd Highway looks like inside Vietnam!

Maurs marauds among the Dinosaurs

Richmond Queensland touts itself as the epicentre of Australian dinosaur country and many people are drawn there to ogle at the town’s fossil collection and the life-sized models of what these creatures must have looked like. I don’t want to inflame the palaeontologists any more than I have but on what basis did they choose the skin colours?

The good folk at Richmond also offer a dig site just out of town where one can fossick for their own fossils and we duly went out there to dig – none more determined to do so than our Maurs. She was made to fossick! She has the necessary determination and the patience to sit and fiddle and prod and poke until the fossil eventually surrenders to her. The rest of us adopted the search policy of whacking a rock twice with a hammer and if a perfectly framed fossil didn’t appear, move on and whack another rock. As it turns out, Maurs’ tactics proved the most effective.

While the rest of us fossicked in the rocks that others before us must surely have rejected, Maurs spotted a pile of rocks that had just been bulldozed by workmen gathering road fill. She eventually found pay dirt (although we didn’t quite recognise what it was) but she had to withdraw when the workmen came back and started loading the trucks. They left but the dozer driver kept puttering around, preventing Maurs from pursuing her find. And that got her mad! That driver was lucky he didn’t get a screwdriver embedded in his back tyre. As it was, she woke up cursing him for two nights in a row after our expedition.

What Maurs had found was sections of the jaw of an Ichthyosaurus (according to the people at the fossil centre) plus a couple of vertebrae. If she had have been able to get back to that pile of rocks she might have extracted the entire saurus. That driver doesn’t know how lucky he was!

                                                      "Hey, gimme my jawbone back!"

The rest of us did not come away empty handed. My sister Mal showed me a promising rock she had collected. I said, “That just needs to be cleared away a bit,” at which point she started bashing it with her hammer. “NOT WITH A HAMMER!” I said, “With a small brush!” “Well, if you’re going to get cranky,” she said, and walked off.

The Grothy Entertainment Machinerolls on - Roy relocating the washing at night

We then travelled through some pretty ordinary countryside to arrive at Charters Towers – a town that holds a lot of significance for our family. Charlies Trousers (as it is known) was the birthplace of our mum. Our grandfather Herbert Forsdike was the ambulance superintendant there but died of a disease that he contracted in 1919, leaving his wife Sophie with four kids and no income (our mother was nine months old). That was the start of a rather harsh episode for Sophie. Herbert was buried in an unmarked grave, which we managed to find along with another baby Forsdike who only lived 16 days – we didn’t even know about him. At the old ambulance centre, we found his last hand-written entry in the station’s daily log in April 1919 and then a rather poignant entry in May indicating that the staff had taken time off to attend Superintendant Forsdike’s funeral. Mal has been right into compiling the family history so she came away with a lot more material. We both came away a little bit closer to our maternal grandfather, whom we never had the chance to meet.

                                                      Exploring Charlies Trousers

Next stop – the Foley kids birthplace – Townsville.

Dinosaurs and Minerals

My bro-in-law Roy suggested we stay with his mate Mick when we got to Winton and it turned out that this was a good move as Mick and his wife Tammy ran a nice little van park complete with night-time entertainment in the form of bush poets and roast dinners– all good fun. He also took us out in his minivan to see the famous footprints of the dinosaur stampede that occurred 90 million years ago out there. Now getting there involved going over a fair bit of rough road and dodging the fauna on the way. There was a lot of road-kill out there and unfortunately Mick added to it slightly when a small lamb dressed in camouflage gear (fleece was coated in the local dirt and so difficult to see) made a vain dash across the road...unsuccessfully. The gay banter inside the van dried up precisely as the “bump” was felt and for the next ten minutes there was no talk at all. Thomas received a bruise to his upper arm in the shape of five fingertips as Marg witnessed the impact. This was nothing of course, compared with what the lamb felt.

                        Mick settling himself after the "Silence of the Lambs"

Actually the road noise from the van and the rough track made any talk inside the van quite difficult, to the extent that any interesting information that Mick uttered had to be relayed to the back of the van seat by seat. As we passed a road intersection Mick told me that up that road was a “jump-up” (mesa) where they filmed the French version of the “Survivor” TV show last year and that it was in the summer when it was up to 48 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately my sister Mal in the back seat got the message that last summer there was a car accident up that road and they found a French survivor in 48 degree heat wearing a jumper.

As for the fossil museum at the end of the road, it was really interesting, even intriguing, how a bunch of dinosaur tracks can be captured in time like that. The palaeontologists have concocted a theory about it all happening in a short space of time as a herd of little dinosaurs were stampeded by a big predator on the muddy bank of a water-hole – but my question is, what happened the next day that the footprints weren’t over-ridden by other dinosaurs coming down for a drink? Or the day after that? Oh well, I was never cut out to be a palaeontologist (I can only spell it thanks to Bill Gates).

                                The Great Dinosaur Stampede of Minus 90 Million Years

From Winton we drove on to Cloncurry and Mount Isa. We spent three days at the Isa to take in the sights. The highlight was the mine tour where our host Bill showed us what it was like in the early days of mining silver, lead and zinc – the hard way! Bill was a tough old bloke with an absolute passion for mining and a great sense of humour to boot. And, you got to dress up like a miner too. As we were issued our gear Mal put the boots on and asked Bill, “Excuse me, are these shoes supposed to be heavy?” Bill almost had apoplexy. I’m sure that sort of question wasn’t asked when Bill first started out in the mining game.

                                                        Gee those boots are heavy!

We did strike gold at the Isa – in the Buffalo Club. Roy suggested we play Keno while we dined and blow me if we didn’t pick up $80 in prize money. Buoyed with success, we tried it again the next night as we dined at the Irish Club and yep, another $80 came our way. That’s where the rich vein ran out as no further attempts at the game have resulted in any of our numbers coming up. So ends my career as a high roller.

That was our last night together as a group. Tom and Marg are heading for Lawn Hill in the Gulf country – he’s been trying to get there for three years but circumstances have yet to be kind. The rest of us are heading for Richmond...Queensland!

                                                  Frozen solid by the Mt Isa winter winds
Footnote: If you got this far through the blog, you're entitled to a surprise. Maurs and I are going to be grandparents. We just found out that Renee and Justin are expecting - bub is due in January. We're pretty thrilled and it looks like the Returd Highway may need to pass through Melbourne around that time.
Ciao

The Ride of the Bakeries

Barcaldine is known as “Barky” to all and sundry, I suspect because no one can agree on where to place the emphasis (Bar-CALL-dine or BAR-calldine) and is home to the “Tree of Knowledge”; a kind of shrine for trade unionists and comrades alike, dating back to the Great Shearers’ Strikes of the 1890s. Some genius killed the tree off a few years back, unknowingly strengthening the legend and the degree of reverence.

                                                      Tree of Knowledge, Barcaldine

There is also a museum in the town that highlights the efforts of trade unions, particularly those working in the Queensland Civil Service. A photo of my great-grandfather Thomas Foley appears there as a union official and he later became a MLA in the Queensland Parliament (guess for which party). I hadn’t seen many photos of him but he was only the lead-up act to the main event - for in the display of the Golden Casket (State-run Lottery Agency) there is a large photograph of a group of staff who entertained the office at a social function – the men dressed as ballerinas and the women dressed as male dancers – and there – in the middle of it all – is my father – replete in ballerina costume – captured in time. Pappy rose in the ranks to be second in charge of the Casket by the end of his career, but while portraits of the old managers are displayed somewhat drearily around the board, they have to assume second place to my dad, front and centre of it all, dressed in drag.

                      My Dad's big night out as Prima Donna of the Casket Office

While Wagner may have composed “The Ride of the Valkyries”, I’ve been considering christening this leg of the tour “The Ride of the Bakeries”. Every town we go to ends up with a visit to the local baker's shop, courtesy of my brother-in-law Roy, who is especially partial to a cream-bun – and I must say there are some class bakers out in these little country towns. I savoured the sausage rolls at Cloncurry – only to be bettered by a little shop in Hughenden.

                                                       Roy - "Cream buns are num-num!"

Now Roy is like a complete entertainment system in his own right. I can watch him for hours and be thoroughly entertained. In Longreach for instance, my sister Mal was drying the dishes and dropped a knife, unbeknownst to her, into one of Roy’s sandals. Roy then emerged from the motor-home and put his sandals on, unbeknownst to him with the knife sticking out the side. He then proceeded to walk around the camp, much like Ben Hur’s chariot at the Colosseum. He’s lucky he didn’t slash a few caravan tyres in his travels. When finally discovered he exclaimed, “I thought my foot felt a bit funny!”

At Longreach we did the tourist things, visiting the QANTAS museum and the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. It is a bit disconcerting driving into town and being confronted with the sight of a Jumbo Jet sitting there on the tarmac. We did a tour of a B-707 – I had never flown in one. It was decked out as an executive jet on the inside which was disappointing in one way but interesting in another.

                                              On board the QANTAS B-707 - luxury class

We also had a ride in an old Cobb & Co coach pulled by four greys and culminating in a gallop home in the Cobb & Co tradition. All good fun. Maurs rode on the top at the back, brother Tom along-side the driver and the rest of us buffeted around inside the coach. Reminded me of the old joke ...”Who’s wobbing this stage coach, dwiver? You or Mister Kelly?”