Judy & Brian Tour Oz

Yaaaayyyy. The sun is shining and we are back in shorts and t-shirts. Brian found a walk of about 5km along the river. Unfortunately there is no view of the river as it’s all scrub and bush. Not my idea of a pleasant walk, so I stayed in bed. What a surprise. We went on a drive around the area of Tannum Sands and Boyne Island and it is obviously suburbs of Gladstone. If I had to work in Gladstone and a lot of people do- the alumina smelter employs 17500 people alone, I think these suburbs would be a pretty nice place to live. There are lots of parks along the foreshore and the council has just spent millions on the beautification of the esplanade where we are. It is fantastic. Lots of lawns, trees, playgrounds and BBQs right on the beach and river. It goes for about 2kms and is obviously popular with both locals and tourists alike. Seeing we were here, we thought we had better check out Gladstone itself. It’s about 25 kms away to the north with a very good road – not the Bruce High...

We'll make this short. We made it across to the coast via a zillion miles of road works and cars and trucks and wierdos on the CB.. Most interesting thing was the coal trains coming down from Blackwater, one we counted had 5x Engines and 98x coal carriages. We measured another one and it was at least 1.5km long Anyhow, our van park and indeed the town seems to be in a 'black hole' so internet and phones are going to be sketchy and probably only work when we go into Gladstone, about 20k away It's almost not raining and not even that cold, so we're looking forward to a bit of a relax on the beach and Judy says she wants to ride her bike and do some fishin' We'll see

When one hears the word, emerald, one conjures up visions of a bright green gemstone flashing brilliantly in the sun. Emerald in Qld can only disappoint by that standard, the fact that its drizzly rain and the town itself seems to be one giant muddy roadwork doesn't help. But - they do have the world's biggest artist's easel (where do they come up with this stuff?) and just in case you are in disbelief, here is a snap : Giant easel, Emerald, Qld We visited the brand new shopping centre boasting no fewer than 30 speciality shops, but left when we couldn't find a coffee shop, instead we reverted to the older mall that only has 22 speciality shops but a choice of 2x coffee shops. Yes, it's been a very slow day. Judy's labrynthitis is worse so we returned to the van and a cup of tea. Grr, this laptop s playing up with its video - might have something to do with it being dropped the other day and the piece of plastic that came out through the dvd drawer. ...

Ouch! After a full day on the road in the drizzly rain, including a 10k run with one wheel of the rig in the deep cloying Mitchell mud over the roadworks section followed by a 35k diversion to a dead end and then another 25k via the alternative route to the van park, not to mention only a light snack at 11 o'clock, I jammed my fingers trying to put one of the van legs down. Back into town and found a quack to drill holes in the nails and let the blood out, we have come to Maccas to use their internet as there is bad connectivity from the van park. Judy is in mourning - no TV! Rats!, as they say, Our outback odyssey is now finished, we ran out of outback back around Winton and are now in the bush of the Great Dividing Range, Queensland style. Anyhow, we are here for 2 nights and then back down to the coast. On our way here we stopped at Barcaldine in the rain to have a squizz at the tree of knowledge. [I must stick me two bob's worth in here - this is the third Tree of Kno...

We woke to another cold, windy day but this time it’s very overcast and looks like rain. We haven’t had so much as a drop so far so we’ll just wait and see. Feeling a bit better today, the head not spinning so much so we decided that the Stockman’s Hall of Fame was the place to be. When we arrived we chose to do the museum and outback show package. Luckily we were there in plenty of time as the huge signs say “Show 11am daily”. Apparently though daily means “sorry not on Monday” come back tomorrow. Rats, we’ll be gone tomorrow. Oh well just the museum then. The museum is chocka block full of information that needs to be read. Wall after wall after wall of it. For me it’s just a little too much. The first three levels are about the history of the area from aboriginal time through the different explorers that touched the Australian coastline from Western Australia, Tasmania (Van Dieman’s Land) and the East Coast. Australia really could have been settled by the Dutch, French or Portugue...

Yesterday's blog today I'm afraid. Sadly, the shorts are gone, the flip-flop retired. Swimmers are a distant memory of warmer climes. Break out the jeans and the woolly jumpers. That wind is COLD. Not as cold as home mind you, but enough to chill one to the bone on ones morning walk. Judy slept in for a bit yesterday and I paddled about with pictures and computers and such, even made a backup. On a Sunday, the only shop open, and then only for a few hours, was the Foodbarn, where I went and mixed it with the locals in their Sunday best, moleskins, white shirt, polished boots and best Akubra. It's only a tiny shop, similar to IGA at Chapman, but they had six check-out persons going flat-out. After lunch we went back to QANTAS museum and looked over the museum proper, some great displays and stories, the highlights are the film about the restoration of the 707 and its flight 'back home' and the six little aeroplanes they have circling the whole museum hall on an...

Cruised over to Longreach, only 190k Thought we'd do the QANTAS museum to start with and turned up right on time for the tour of the 747 and the 707. My head was reelling over the idea that someone could give a museum a 747, must be worth millions.Until you come to terms with the fact that it was built in 1979.30+ years ago. When you start looking a bit more closely you can see its 70s origins in its decor and layout. The official word is that QANTAS rule is that 20,000 'cycles', that's take of and landings, is the limit for their planes and this old bus had reached its use-by date, so they gave to their own museum. Really interesting to technophobes as you discover what all the bits and pieces hanging off the body do and how it works. I thought it fascinating. Judy thought it was 'a nice aeroplane'.We walked all through it, up into the cockpit, fiddled with the knobs and dials and clambered up the spiral staircase to the 1st class lounge - egad! Its Economy c...

Well, we woke this morning all a-tremble at the thought of the wonders awaiting us. But first,let me tell you that we broke that not-going-to-any-entertainers rule again. This time we went into Banjo's Shed where the crowd was being regaled with tall tales and a passing association to the truth by two bush poets come yarn-spinners, Mel and Sue. Now these grils are good and kept us entertained for an hour or two. We were even let in on the secret that one of them was Elvis' love child from a lightning visit he made to Qld after the war. Would they lie? They gave us a rendition of 'A sunburnt country' and asked if anyone knew the first verse, the second being the one we think we know. Miss Smart Pants immediately started reciting something I've never heard of, and even though it was the 3rd verse, they gave here their latest CD. I couldn't thank them enough. Some other grey hared fart then jumped in and recited the correct verse, it only takes a freebie on offer t...

Left dreary Mt Isa behind and headed out over the plains to Winton via Cloncurry with a stop at Kynuna for lunch. This is the most barren place we've come across so far, dead flat plains stretching in every direction with tufts of spinifex grass and the odd stunted tree. I may have said this before, but it's a very big country! Winton's claim to fame s that it was the first landing strip for the newly formed Qantas and the place where Banjo Patterson's little ditty, "Waltzing Matilda" was first performed after he had penned it not far away. Strolled the main street of this neat, clean, lovely country town, drank a coffee at the bakery and stopped to get some bread from a servo turned grocery shop. Right next to our car was a line of old FJ Holdens just begging to be snapped, so I obliged Checked out the "Musical Fence" and the less said the better, it's even more less inspiring than the large rock next to it with a plaque that states that the...

OK you stay-at-home-slugoids, here's a little quiz. Q. What do Darwin, Kakadu, Mt Isa, Katherine, Mary Kathleen, Alice Springs and South Alligator have in common? No I'm sorry, you'll have to read to the very end to find out, I'm such a dag. This morning first thing I went on the Hard Times mine tour, Bit of a joke compared to the Broken Hill Mine tour Merv and I went on in 2002 as it was only 23m under ground and was the Training centre for would be miners. None the less, we got kitted up in overalls, hard hat, gumboots and helmet lamp and descended the pretend shaft in a pretend miners cage. The guide was great and showed us all the equipment, both old and fairly recent, we played with the rock drills, did the obligatory 'absolute darkness' thing and sat in the crib listening to a recorded blast of the rock face going off. The usual dumb question from an even dumber tourist, "was that real?" provoked the immediate response that no it wasn't...

Absolutely nothing between Cammoweal and Mt Isa, luckily we were only travelling 190 kms today and Isa was the destination. It’s amazing the difference in the scenery. Yesterday we were travelling along a dead straight flat road when we pulled in for the night but today not far down the road, it became more windy, more hilly and with much more flora. About 50 kms from Isa, mountains started rearing their heads and it wasn’t long before we could see the scars from the mining and the open cut mines themselves. We even spied one of those huge trucks driving down the mine road. Coming into Mt Isa itself was a bit of an eye opener. Not exactly what I was expecting. Does this sound familiar! I was expecting a fairly prosperous busy little town, but to tell the truth, it looks exactly what it is, a mining town. We tried to find a café for lunch but the two we went to were both closed up, as are a lot of businesses in town. Eventually we had to go to the thinly disguised information centre, ...

Three Ways is at the 'T' intersection of the Stuart Highway (north - south) and the Barkly Highway (East). Almost regretfully we pulled out of the Three Ways Roadhouse and turned left onto the Barkly. This is our first new road for awhile and it feels like the adventure has begun again. The land is flat and featureless but getting flatter by the minute. The vegetation is stunted mallee, grey strawlike grass and the occasional coolabah tree. Apart from the road signs declaring the distance in decrements of 10k and the odd warning about headwinds and wearing seatbelts, the scenery is disturbed by two only road signs in the first 180k run across to Barkly Homestead. The first is 'Crest' at 85k and seeing as it's a slight hump in an otherwise flat track, seems a little ridiculous. The second is a left curve sign at 127K and i suppose might grab your attention if you were nodding off and in disbelief that there is an actual curve, otherwise it is totally superfluous to t...

We really are on the road. We did over 550 kms today, our destination 3 Ways Roadhouse which is on the major intersection to the east. We had our first stop at Daly Waters Roadhouse for a cuppa and a break and it is amazing that you don’t see another car near you in the same direction but as soon as you stop, within seconds, cars, vans and trucks just roll on in. Mind you going in the opposite direction (north) the traffic was nonstop caravans and motorhomes. If it wasn’t for grey nomads and backpackers, I’m sure the NT would come to a complete standstill and their economy would crash. Off again with the countryside changing from tropical to drier vegetation and redder soil the further south we went. We stopped at Newcastle Waters to make our lunch. This stop is a rest area and free camp and as early as lunch time – it was around 1230 – it was filling up with people settling in for the night. I don’t know how long some of them had been there but they had their satellite dishes and...

Happy Anniversary, Shirl & Merv! Speaking of anniversaries, we celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary today, aw shucks, and for a big night out we've booked a table at the van parks restaurant. Not that there's a heap of choice in beautiful downtown Matranka, famous for being near where Elsey Station was, itself made famous in the book We of the never never . There are two springs, Bitter Springs and Rainbow springs, which feature in the book but only as a supply of precious water. Still its nice enough and the warm to hot water helps sooth the road tension away. Here's a snap a little trinket Judy picked up in Kununrra the other day. You know what they say, if you cant tour the diamond mine, you can at least get some samples to carry about! Cat with cream. Something for the kids to fight over one day... That's a champagne (naturally for the Baroness of Bubbles) diamond surrounded by 1/2 a dozen ordinary ones  But wait, there's more - Good old ...

Friday 15 June Well today was the day, will the car be ready or not? After breakfast, we headed straight to the mechanic’s workshop to see how things were. Josh was working on the doorhandle which looked promising as he couldn’t do that unless the gearbox was installed. YEA…. The gearbox was installed and he assured us we could pick the car up in about an hour or so. We left him to finish and headed to the shops to fill in time. I had to force myself of course! We filled in an hour or so and headed back to check the car. I stayed in the hire car while Brian went in to see how things were going, next thing, he’s back with our car key. This could only mean one thing, WOO HOO, our car was finally ready. Obviously the first thing to do was to return the hire car ASAP and take ours for a decent run to make sure all was ok before heading off tomorrow. A run along the coast and except for the odd hard change between first and second gear, all was fine. We assume that that will soften wh...