AROUND THE MASSIVE STONE, AND ON

We have finally made it around the massive stone, although the journey is far from over. Uluru, otherwise known, as Ayres Rock is so much better than what I expected, having only seen it in pictures taken from a distance which do not show any of the awesome textures of the rock, or the forms and patterns that make it the attraction that it is. We walked the 9.5 km track around the base and marvelled at the variety of scenes along the way. Sheer rock faces littered with holes and caves, ancient rock art, some sections around the base look like a huge wave frozen in time cut into the rock. Kata Tjuta, aka The Olgas, is 50 km west of the monolithic masterpiece. A series of dome topped mountains made up from small conglomerated rocks as if pieced together by a stonemason with a lot of time on his hands. We walked through a gorge where a green belt of rare fauna lived amongst the rocky ground. Massive faces of smoothish rock towering above us on both sides. We went on a little camel ride which the kids loved and passed a German guy riding around the country in a covered wagon pulled by two camels. His wife left him 12 years ago and he came to Australia and rode a bicycle around the place for a few years, then bought a paddleboat and explored the country’s river ways. He has been on the camel wagon for four years now, some interesting characters about. When we arrived at King’s Canyon, 200kms north of Uluru, we saw a guy ride in on his bike. I was fascinated by the thought of someone riding a bike around here, the harsh heat and huge distances would make it hard going. Albert from Bavaria is loving it. He arrived in Perth 7 weeks ago and has just clicked over his 4000th. Km. The plan is to head from here to Adelaide, then Melbourne, Tasmania, Sydney and then to Brisbane to meet up with his girlfriend and ride some more. He came out for a beer with us, a quiet sort of guy, wiry build, very strong willed, a wicked tan between white thighs and ankles, huge calves and similar appetite. We might catch up with him further south, (I gave him Kangaroobies address so hopefully we will see him there). Safe travels Albert!! I find it difficult enough driving a bus around the country….. King’s Canyon too was excellent, a harsh 6km walk started at daybreak, lots of steep climbs down, across and up a series of canyons, the kids have done very well on all these walks lately with the heat and rocky paths. I think we have had enough of the rocky, sandy places for a while. We seem to travel through areas and get sated with the type of land we are in; we have had our fill of theme parks, zoos, rainforest, desert, fossicking, caves, mines and more. After an overnight stop in Marla, (where the hell is Marla?) we ventured on a side trip to Mantabie, which is another small opal mining town 30kms. each way down a rocky dirt road. Fields of cars stripped of all their workings, mining equipment and a few dry looking shops, of course a pub and various temporary permanent styles of accommodation sat amongst small mountains of glaring white rock, all perched on a small rise in the middle of a rocky red desert. Back to the bus for a late start to the travelling day. As we approached Coober Pedy, the opal centre of the world, (providing 85% of the worlds opals) 240kms to the south the small volcano shaped domes of mining gravel of various shades from white to yellow, began lining the flats beside the road, sort of what the moon would feel like, I Imagine. It is also the town where half the population lives underground in houses cut into the earth, mainly to keep cool, a fairly constant 26 degrees year round A very multicultural place where many Europeans moved to after the first World War, meaning lots of nice eating places, the bakers this morning were Hungarian, which was good because I was Hungary. Coober Pedy is an adaptation of an Aboriginal term of similar sound meaning “white man in hole” or “white man’s hole”, depending on which brochure you read. There are certainly many white men’s holes around here, over 200,000 shafts that many signs warn of. Do not walk backwards on opal fields. Take care of children. Be careful! Water is very precious out here, the supply has been the biggest hurdle for many years. We have to pay for showers here and there is no supply for the campsites except a sink, you can buy water for the bus at a pump in the main street, 30 cents for 20 litres. There are no native trees in town, all have been planted by drilling holes through the rock and sandstone crust, and definitely no grass, so it is a dry and dusty place. Even the local footy field is just a layer of whitish grey gravel! The local speedway is on tomorrow night which I am looking forward to. They have a demolition derby and a burnout competition, should be interesting.

HOT, HOT, HOT

The heat up this way is quite remarkable, we are finally getting a bit used to it, but it is one of the reasons we have been heading south at such a pace. That and the fact that there is not a great deal to see out here. Hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres of uninhabitable country, red earth as far as the eye can see, the type of earth that gets into everything and is hard to get rid of. The land is not as flat as I imagined it would be, and the dry greenery that grows is more prolific than I thought the centre of Australia would be. I still wonder how people live around here, and we do regularly comment about the early explorers and how they managed to survive while exploring these deserted parts. Approaching Mt.Isa the huge chimney stack from the main mine could be seen from 30 kms. away, we were told it is 300 m tall. It is a huge erection. The kids had a great time at the library while I organised for the bus to have her head retensioned and temperature gauge checked. She is cruising along fairly well now, we are slowly ironing out a few of the teething problems, there always seems to be something else to do. The road temperatures are causing the engine to run quite hot so I am always keeping my eye on it and slow down when needs be. Most travelling days we leave early and are covering between 4-500 kms per day. Fuel supplies are about 250kms apart at different Roadhouses or Homesteads which consist of a restaurant, bar, petrol station and accommodation, camp sites or rooms with grossly inflated prices to cover their transport costs and the fact that you really don’t have any other options. Some are working stations and are a real melting pot of people. At Three Ways Roadhouse we met a couple who had rolled their 4wd and caravan on a dirt road 400kms from anywhere and were left with a written off vehicle and a squash top caravan, very lucky to survive. At Tennant Creek we spent the afternoon at the local swimming pool with the local indigenous population, full of energy and smiles, a welcome relief after a long day on the road. We passed the spot where the Peter Falconio mystery occurred and met Helen at the Barrow Creek Road house where Joanne Lees was taken by the truckies after the incident. She was a lovely lady who didn’t want to talk too much about it. After all she did to care for Joanne she seems very disappointed about the comments in various books and articles. Loads of journalists have been there to ask her about the whole affair and all they get is a “no comment”. Spoke to a couple of road train drivers on the UHF radio along the way, their 1.2km/litre fuel economy makes us feel better about our consumption. Their 3 trailers taking their length to 50 metres or so makes for interesting times when being overtaken, they seem to go on and on……..and on some more. We kept on passing the two trucks taking the big yellow mine carriages from Sydney to Karatha in W.A, about 80 tonnes of load between two of the furthest points in the country. We overtook them a couple of times, one was a wide load and the spotter car 1km ahead could give us the OK over the radio that it was safe to pass. The overtaking manoeuvre took at least a minute to get past them both. We finally made it to the fabulous Devil’s Marbles, arriving just after the sun set and spent a warm night with the many flies and other critters, accompanied by the howling of dingos and the awesome backdrop of the huge balls of stone, some precariously balanced on top of each other. Waking early for sunrise we watched as the light started to shine on this amazing landscape, made a fire and enjoyed some bacon and eggs for brekky before exploring through the red boulders. From there to “The Alice”. Alice Springs also not what was in my mind’s eye, Surrounded by rugged rocky hills, the MacDonnell Ranges which runs about 200kms east to west dominates the skyline. There are lots of indigenous people residing in Alice and they all seem to sit about the place under trees and just “be”. A huge dust storm blew up on our first night there and did not seem to bother the locals, we were all scurrying for cover while they remained in their shady spots. Caught up with Jonas and Maree, and their kids Angus and Merrick, we all get on so well and we are enjoying travelling with them again. We still do our own things but tend to see a lot of each other. We all went to Ellery Creek Big Hole, a lovely water hole situated in a gorge between two wicked rocky hills, an oasis in the desert. We floated on lilos and splashed about for the afternoon while dingos and ducks played around the rocky edges of this beautiful place. We need to watch our belongings at night as the dingos are quite fond of thongs, toys and grips on the handlebars of bicycles. They are a very interesting animal, very quiet and quick moving, an elegant beast. Jonas and Maree have air conditioning in their bus, something we are keen on installing while stopped in Vic over Christmas time. We have had some 42-45 degree days lately and it is quite uncomfortable in our metal house on wheels. The bloody ants keep popping up out of nowhere but I think we may finally be rid of them.

Jarra and Andre On the reef The Iron Chefs, Adrian and Tal Sutya and Rennie, happy girls Ice cream boy

PSSSSHHHHHHHHHHTTTTT……WHAT A DAY......

We ended up knowing most of the folk at the Sunset Caravan Park in Karumba, a couple o f families turned up half way through our 4 day stay and all the kids got on well together, quite a community feel to the place. There was a lady down the back called Betty who is travelling with her husband in their caravan, they live in Kuranda, near Cairns and run a wildlife shelter there, as well as a home made ice cream business. They were already caring for two baby kangaroos they had rescued along the way when Dave and Sally arrived with a little Joey they had found on their way. Travelling at 90 clicks, towing a caravan, Dave noticed a couple of little legs moving from the pouch of his dead Mum in the middle of the road. Pulled up about 150 metres past and ran back and pulled the baby from the pouch. Lucky little thing. We left Karumba at 7.45 this morning, an early start for us but is what we are going to have to do for the next month or so to beat the stifling heat of the day. We drank about 20 litres of water between us all today, the water in our 400 litre tank got so hot, the fridge was working overtime to cool our bottles down. How do people live out here? It isn’t even summer yet… So we were cruising along the road to Cloncurry, a 400km long road made up of long straight sections joined together by a few curves and one place in the middle of it to break up the journey, the Burke and Wills Roadhouse where we eventually had lunch. Suddenly, about 120kms into our day, a mad hissing sound erupted from the engine compartment, we pulled over and found a junction in an air line had come apart and all our air pressure was escaping. We were right in the middle of nowhere, which is pretty much where we have been for the last week and where we will be for the coming few. I got a few things together and started to try and fix the problem while Helen juggled the kids, she is pretty good at juggling! The first car that came by stopped and Kevin offered his help, when we thought we had it fixed he left and then the sleeve we put on split. Along came Alan and Sandra. Alan and I worked out a way to bypass the problem and we got back on the road again. Good old bush mechanics. Out of the ten cars that went past us 9 of them stopped to see if we were ok, which really impressed us. Not long after, our army of hitchhikers, the bloody ants, made their first salvo of the day. After much spraying and whacking we got them under control and continued. They are a fair sized little beastie with a black head and abdomen, but luckily they do not seem to bite, they hang around in groups of about 100 and when agitated they go into a bit of a frenzy, they’re quick little buggers. They appeared down beside my feet a bit further on and then near Jarra’s seat, each time requiring us to stop the bus and start whacking, sweeping and spraying. What adventures we are having, eh??? Being cattle country we give most of the cows a toot hello on the way past, while commenting about the amount of roadkill, always fascinating conversation in our bus, Quite some variety around here though. Saw about 5 dead, black, hairy pigs, a few white, bloated cows, lying on their backs with their legs sticking up in the air, while dodging these huge road trains and trying to stay a bit cool, it was 43 degrees today. Still so much nothing, vast expanses of dusty, red earth, dotted with rocky outcrops and straggly trees, although in some parts some very green grass defied all logic, and grew in the face of the arid conditions. Areas full of termite mounds, subtley different from the previous types we have seen, not as smooth sided, their sizes and the way they were spaced reminded me of a graveyard. How is this for a name? A small hill on the LHS of the road was called Bang Bang Jump Up. We were looking forward to finding a sign to get a picture of, but unfortunately there wasn’t one. Stopped a pub at 4.30 for a break before the last leg. A lovely old pub with a couple of really rusted old pick ups out the front. Kerry, the lady who runs the place invited us to have a swim in their pool, which was so kind. We had a ridiculously pleasant time in the pool. It has been a day of people being very good to us. We finally made it to Wal’s Camp in Cloncurry, better late than never. Off to Mt. Isa in the morning to get the head retensioned and oil changed. By the way, our fishing charter was not as great as I thought it might be, the day before us and the one after they caught heaps, its always the way. I did catch a good grunter and a 70cm jewel fish which made it worthwhile. Along with the 2 kgs of prawns we bought our freezer is now chock a block with seafood. A badly spray painted sign on the way into Karumba said, “God Bless the Outback”. I wonder why???? We have had no access to the internet for ages now and no mobile reception, but the blog is back on track and we hope you continue to travel with us. We are heading for Victoria, and all going well, we might even make it back for Christmas.

DIESEL FITTER

Diesel mechanics are pretty rare around these parts. We met a guy today who was a diesel fitter and I told him about the guy who used to be a diesel fitter at a ladies underwear factory. His job was to sit next to a conveyor belt that carried the underwear along past him and he had to hold each pair up and say, “Yeah, diesel fitter”………………..!!

ACROSS THE TOP

The road west is lined with termite mounds of various sizes and colours, from six inches high to many feet tall, pale brown to deep red, they are all shaped very similarly, like jagged witches hats. It is quite surreal seeing them for miles upon miles, like some sort of fairy community. Brahmin cows with their big lumps behind their neck, the same colour as the landscape, graze beside the unfenced road, blending in with the surroundings with us hoping like hell that they stay where they are at the side of the road and do not step out in front of us. Road trains up to 50 metres long barrelling towards us on roads the same width as the bus, having to move right over with our left side wheels into the red dirt on the shoulders, beyond which the long white grasses interspersed with scattered trees give this part of the country its savannah name. The many bits of roadkill, mainly kangaroos and wallabies are feasted upon by large birds of prey which leave it till the last seconds to make their getaway, their large wings slowly and grudgingly lifting them away to safety. Others with their bones picked clean, lie there waiting for their skeletons to blend into the earth. The narrow roads are long, straight and hot, undulating and with the temperature right up there our new engine is running hot, way too hot for my liking. We are going to make a few calls on Monday to our Cairns mechanics to try and sort it out. I pulled the thermostat out this morning to check if it was operating correctly and a couple of other things, but to no avail. Crikey it is hot out this way, and as dry as dust, just thinking about moving gets the sweat running and the insects, beetles, flies and cane toads just love it. We have seen more ants around these parts than anywhere else and they have recently moved into the bus with us. Doesn’t look like the locals feel the heat though, we went into the pub yesterday, commented about the heat and the locals there laughed and said, “What’s wrong? It is still winter!!” The golf course is quite a sight too, dry fairways with greens made of sand, you need to mark your ball and get a roller to roll the line from your ball to the hole. They can’t grow grassy greens because the roos dig them up and eat the roots. We had lunch at Georgetown on the way across to Karumba, a journey of about 450kms, our longest day so far, passing through Croydon and Normanton. There is a whole lot of nothing out there, the harshness of the land preventing even the hardiest folk from trying to live, and those that do reside in these parts are a breed of their own. So we are in Karumba, by the sea on the Gulf of Carpentaria, it is not really on the main tourist route so we feel quite lucky to be here. We enjoyed a spectacular sunset this evening while having a counter meal right on the beach, I tried the salt and chilli crocodile which was very nice. Glad I was eating it and not the other way around. The beaches around here are not very human friendly. Sharks, crocs, jellyfish and other nasties prevent us from entering the tempting bluey green waters, we have to make do with the swimming pool at the caravan park which is a welcome relief from the harsh temperatures. Tal and I went down for a bit of fishing this morning, spoke to a bloke who had just arrived back in his boat and asked him how he went. He had an esky full of fish and offered us a couple of fairly big grunters, great name for a fish I reckon. He passed us one each, I should have gotten him to throw them to us and then we could have said we caught them………… We did catch a few small ones but not big enough to keep. One small one was dead when we threw it back, a few minutes later a large bird of prey swooped down and plucked it out of the water and flew off for a feed. We saw some dolphins swimming too, I thought they might have been sharks. Tal and I are going on a fishing charter tomorrow morning so stay tuned and hopefully we will have some stories to tell.

UNDARA LAVA TUBES

We stopped at the Undara Volcanic National Park on the Savannah Way near Mt. Surprise to visit the amazing lava tubes, created about 190,000 years ago when the Undara Volcano erupted violently. Its molten lava flowed quickly through the low points in the landscape, that being the valleys and river beds. As the top outer layer cooled and formed a crust, the fiery magma below drained outwards leaving a series of long, dark, hollow tubes, the ones we visited were about 30 metres round. Parts of the tops of these tubes collapsed over time and created fertile pockets where now rainforest thrives, it is quite an amazing place. Unfortunately it is a closed National Park and therefore we had to pay quite a lot of money for an organised tour. Our tour guide had the personality of a brick, continually using food analogies like; “See the layers on the walls there where the lava was flowing? Imagine a bowl of pumpkin soup or a pint of Guinness. When you are finished the soup, the side of the bowl shows you evidence of where the soup once was”. Fair Dinkum Sherlock?? Or; “Think of the lava tubes as a bar of chocolate with soft caramel inside, the centre staying runny while the outside is hard”. Mate, if it was a bar of chocolate wouldn’t the lava melt the outer casing??

OOPS…….AGAIN

Ravenshoe is the highest town in Queensland, which meant a lot of slow climbing up the narrow, windy roads for Bessie, she handled it all well. We were on our way to visit a friend who has built a lovely house high up on a hill just outside Ravenshoe where she lives with her partner and their five dogs on the road to Tully Falls and Lake Koombooloomba. Pam’s gravel covered dirt driveway is steep, very steep, but I thought we could make it up instead of us staying down the bottom of the hill. Dropped off the trailer and started to make our way up, on the first attempt I made it halfway but was too close to the timber gate on LHS, so had to ease her all the way back down, front wheels slipping a bit and Helen looking quite worried. On the second attempt I made it up and through the narrow gateway but unfortunately did some damage to the LHS, quite a nasty scrape down the side, I will have to make another piece of artwork to cover it up. Was a bit hairy going down the driveway again the next morning, but we made it out OK and on the road again. Another lesson learnt…..the hard way…..

OIL WELL

It looks like our bus is now leak free and ready to roll. Roy the mechanic fixed the leaky crank seal today, he was a very nice guy who knows his stuff and he reckons that the motor will loosen up a bit after the first 1000kms and will be good for us. The original mechanics in Cairns are paying for it. While Helen spent the afternoon op shopping and grocery gathering I took the kids back to Lake Eacham and we had a nice walk around it. The path is 3 kms around through lovely rainforest, some huge, amazing trees and plenty of cyclone damage. Trees just snapped in half, then falling on other trees, some seeming to be floating in mid air as they propped themselves on other trees on their way down. Vines climbing and twisting around each other, up into the canopy, knotted and wrapped as they wind their way about. Tarzan would love this place….. It was a bit late to get to our next destination, Ravenshoe, which is pronounced like a black bird’s gardening implement and not the same bird’s foot protection, so we headed back to what we knew at Yungaburra and are parked up here again. We are going to visit Pam Dillon, a friend from Lord Somers Camp who has recently moved to the Tablelands from Palm Island. We had some donuts after dinner and it was quite ironic that a few local hoons came down to the field we were camped on that night and did some donuts of their own.

DIPSTICK!!

There are a couple of different meanings of the word “dipstick”. 1- a long thin metal strip that enables the inspection of oil in the sump of a motor. 2- a derogatory term indicating simple mindedness. While our engine was being rebuilt I took the opportunity to have our dipstick replaced, as the old one had snapped and a long piece of wire was instead employed, which worked fine, but I was keen to have a more precise indication of our oil levels. When we got the bus back I had a look for it and could not see it anywhere, eventually locating the replacement deep down in the bowels of the engine compartment, impossible to reach without crawling under the bus and feeding it up to Helen, and guiding it back into the sleeve again. They had replaced it with one half the length of the old one……… Which leads to the other meaning of the word. Whilst under the bus checking the oil I am always reminded of the mechanic who performed this extremely unintelligent job…….what a DIPSTICK!!

Mt.Isa - the search continues!

Here at the library again with seven blogs to put up and there is no socket for the Shuffle. Aaaarrrggghhh!! I will keep trying!!! H

Bloody Technology!!

We are in Karumba. Right up on the gulf of Carpentaria. I am at the local library and I have finally got internet access, but alas the Shuffle (memory stick) will not fit into the USB socket and I can't put on the latest blogs! Will endeavour to get them on in Mt Isa. H