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.