Central Coast Qld

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 Highway! We had a little difficulty finding the city but we had actually driven right through it and hadn’t recognised it as Gladstone. Thought it was a small suburban street with a couple of shops! We found an information centre and discovered our mistake. The info centre was at the Marina which was surrounded by parks and gardens and a nice foreshore walk. We both oohed and aahed over the boats from yachts to fishing boats to the huge twin hull cruiser that takes passengers to Heron Island.

Nice as the marina area was, you just can’t get away from the fact that this is a working industrial port. There were many ship on the horizon just waiting for their turn to fill up with aluminium, coal or cement. It had a similar feel to Newcastle or Burnie.

We had a bit of a relax this afternoon waiting for the tide to come in so I could go fishing. We headed down to the river, along a sandy beach area and sat in the sun or a while. You could hardly call it fishing as I didn’t even get one nibble. There was a family group near us and one of their kids caught a puffer fish. Or should I say jagged a fish. She was teasing the fish just on the shoreline and flung here rod out as soon as a fish came near. The hook caught the fish in it’s side. Not necessarily an orthodox catch, but hey the fish was out of the water. We stayed for about an hour enjoying the sunshine until it quickly started to disappear and headed back to the van for a cuppa where we are sitting outside enjoying the late afternoon bird chorus. (Brian is on alert to chase away the ducks and bush turkeys)

Tannum Sands, Qld

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

Emerald day 2

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.

Judy was even less impressed with the Lorikeets  that come right up to your feet and can easily be picked up, as long as you've got a crumb or two. I had the snapper handy so they had to settle for having their picture taken:

Rainbow Lorikeet, (Trichoglossus haematodus)

 

 

Did we mention that this van park is on the far side of Lake Maraboon, the dam of which we couldn't drive over yesterday? I just have to tell you that the Lake claims to be 3x SH's, so it's pretty big. Dirty brown mind you but supposed to be full of fish and something the are rabbitting on about called a 'red claw', a crab I guess.

Emerald, Qld

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 Knowledge we've seen, so just what is the significance of a TOK? In Barcaldine, we had parked a little way down the street and this big hideous box-like structure stood out halfway into the main road. When you get there its a huge timber structure built over this dead stump, which is more concrete that tree, and there's all these 4x4 (inches - 100mmx100mm) lumps of timber hanging from the glassed in roof. Lord only knows how many other trees had to die so that they could enshrine this stump that's, let's face it, only has a claim as having been witness to the goings on during the great shearer's strike. It's positively weird. Not to mention ugly, an eyesore and a blight upon the land.] It's supposedly where the first meeting of the ALP was held. Is it prophetic that it is as dead as a dodo! but they do have a clone growing as we speak at the Labor museum. Next stop a lovely little town called Alpha where we stopped for a pre lunch snack of a decadent pie and sausage roll. $3.50 and $2 respectively.

Anyway about to head back to the van park and snuggle down with the hope that it will be sunny on the morrow so we can see the Lake where we are staying.

Snap of the day 

Shrine to a dead tree. Barcaldine, Qld

Lovely longreach

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 Portuguese way before the English. There were interactive displays where you could listen in to real events eg Royal Flying Doctor Service phone calls between outback stations and the doctors helping them or watch short videos on different stock routes, mustering techniques or station life. It was all very comprehensive. The bottom level had larger displays like bullock drays, an old hawker caravan that used to travel between stations selling all kinds of bits and pieces, Furphy water carriers – isn’t there one of those everywhere – and wool presses. It was a very good museum but we really couldn’t find a lot specifically to the stockman. Lots of heritage paraphernalia though.

 We did manage to spend a good 4 hours or so there and then decided it was time to ‘do town’.  It certainly had a different feel than on the weekend, it was now alive and bustling. Headed through the shops and could have bought many things. The RM Williams shop was full of goodies, nice shirts and skirts, as was other shops in town. I could have bought a few pairs of shoes from one of the shops here. Why is it that country towns have great shoe shops? To Brian’s delight, I refrained this time.

Brian was yawning and decided a rest was in order as he had had an early morning and a 5km walk before I got out of bed so we headed back to the van. We rested up before the park entertainment that was due at 4.30. Bush poetry, damper and billy tea was on the agenda. Well, the entertainment was a gentleman that was just alive, the billy tea was so thick it jumped into the cup by itself, the damper was a no show and it was blowing a gale. We lasted about 15 minutes and headed back to the warm van for a glass of wine and nibblies.

Longeach day 2

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 overhead track.

Stayed on to watch a current Dash-8 arrive 1 1/2 hours late, load up and go again. What a place, there is no security at all, you can just walk in off the street. Big sign however says that came July 1, its fully screened and secure.

Back at the ranch, we wandered over to the on-site restaurant to see what was for dinner - roast or roast. Despite it only being six o'clock, we stayed and had roast beef and apple crumble before hiding back in our cave out of the wind for the evening.

Today, we're off to the Stockman's Hall of Fame. Yeeehaaa!

A snap, another plane 

I'm afraid

Longreach, Qld

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 class. Can you believe that? Some old chat about Paul Keating's depression we all had to have forcing them to replace 1st class with cattle...

Even more interesting was the Boeing 707 the first jet operated by Qantas, from 1957. This one is special, its one of only 20 odd made and of which only 3 are left: this one, John Travolta's and one owned by the Nigerian Government. It sat out in the open for 7 years neglected entirely by it then current owners BAE, and naturally, as soon as someone wanted the old hulk, everyone wanted it, including JT and Boeing. Anyhow, a team of the original engineers volunteered to go to England and fix it up and fly it back to Australia. Took them heaps of time but they succeeded and now here it is. It's currently fitted out as a flying harem for some Sheik or other, including gold fittings etc. Best of all, as the original 707 owned by QANTAS, it was called Canberra, Awwww.

Judy is feeling weird again, feeling very light headed and the sinus pain is giving her the irits. So, off to Longreach Hospital for a few hours and some pills for the sinus. Quack reckons she has labryntitus, which i've never heard of, and is a virus that will go away in a week or two.

Tonight's snaps are a bit techno-arty for which 

I don't apologise one bit!

Boing 707 VH-XBA 'Canberra'. Longreach, Qld

Winton, Day 2

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 to bring them al out. Mind you under questioning he admitted to having seen the show the night before and had looked it of on the interweb. Second prize was 2 CDs, so he got his just desserts.

What, you want to hear about Waltzing Matilda and Old Trucks? OK. So the Waltzing Matilda Centre is a multi-million dollar shrine to the Song (only one in the world) and inside you can read and hear all there is to know about this iconic ditty, even if half of it is hearsay. Good old Banjo flogged the song to Angus & Robertson in 1901 and they flogged it to Inglis, who changed the words around and used it to flog Billy Tea. It's been recorded 500 something times and translated into heaps of languages including French and Finnish. It's well done even if they do skirt around the political and social issues of the time that AB Patterson would have been well and truly involved in. As he was a noted political commentator and satirist, the suggestion that Waltzing Matilda is a metaphor depicting the struggle between the battlers and the silvertails and government narks was also a possibility. Oh well, we'll just go along with the official story that he was dallying with a nice young lass and it amused him to write some words for a tune she had heard somewhere.

Outside they have a biggish collection of old 'junk' as you normal find in a museum, rusty bits of metal, broken washing machines, an old telephone, half a merino's horn - you know the stuff. Except, this stuff is all clean and tidy and labelled and set out neatly. The sheds have spotless concrete floors and it's just really well done.

We had lunch at the Winton Hotel, a few blocks away from the glitz of the main street, down near the railway goods yards. It was lovely. We sat out in the sun and stuffed ourselves with Barra Burghers and chatted to mine host about the decline of the railways.

It couldn't be put of any longer, we had to take the $3 Opal story and Movie Museum tour, which, as our guide proudly told us, included the worlds largest deckchair. We went in in anticipative awe. We walked past the dusty displays of 17th rate opal and crumbling rock and let ourselves out into the open air movie theatre and there it was!!! The biggest deckchair you'll ever see. Wow, Judith had to sit down and catch her breath. Recovered we slipped into the movie museum, and out again.

Next was Arno's wall. Arno is the local crank that build his fence out of rocks and cement and junk (see photos), complimented it with more artwork things in his front yard and now it has a cult following.

Judith needed a rest, I was high on excitement and took myself to the Truck Museum, where they had, well, a bunch of old trucks. 'Old' being the operative word here as most were just rusty hulks out the back in the yard. They had a few restored ones inside and they were 'nice', but really it was mostly old junk. They also didn't understand why they would want to go and get the FJ Utes just up the road and add them, seeing as they had a few old Holdens and Fords and Vauxhalls as well. I thought a Ute would be just the thing. Oh well.

Tonight, however, we are doing dinner and a show, right here at the van park. Roast chicken and the two chooks. Should be a great combo.

Snap of the day, because i cant leave it to chance, I just have to share this

I wasn't game to take it full on, so a sidelong glance will have to do: THE WORLDS LARGEST DECKCHAIR

Winton, Qld

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 council voted QANTAS half the cost of establishing the landing strip, up to a total of £20! We are saving the Waltzing Matilda Centre and the Truck Museum for tomorrow, not to mention the $3 Opal and history tour boasting the "World's Largest Deckchair". I can't wait.

 Snap of the day - this one's for Uncle Paul's eyes only, Sue, you'd better tie him down! 

There's one, there's two, there's 3, there's 4! Final resting place for a brace old humpies, may they rust in peace.

Mary Kathleen, QLD

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 and if it was we'd all be locked up for breaking 27 statutory laws...

Anyhow, a pretty interesting 3 hours getting a taste of what miners actually do and the conditions,. enough to make sure you never wanted o rake it up as a career,

After lunch we took a little run out to a place called Mary Kathleen, which would be a ghost town except they sold everything in 1984 when the mine closed down forever. All that's left is the remains of the bitumen roads and the concrete slabs where the shops and houses used to be. Standing there looking over the terracotta tiled floor i was reminded of the ancient Roman ruins we saw through Europe and I wondered what someone will make of it in a few hundred years time when Isa and the other mines are all gone and the land reverted to its natural state. An interesting side trip that shows just how tenuous a hold we have on the land.

Snap of the day

Shop ruins, Mary Kathleen, Qld

Quiz? OK so here's the answer:

A. They are all towns and places mentioned in John Williamson's "Amazing Day"

Secondary question for bonus points:
Q. So what? Who cares? Have you lost it?

A. Well, it's my idea of a little amusement, they are all places we have been to and it brings a smile to my face when I hear it on the iPlod

The Isa

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, where they had a small café, that is really the one tourist attraction in town. It’s here that you find the underground mine tour (which Brian is doing in the morning), fossil centre and Discover Isa exhibition. We headed up to the town lookout which gives a panoramic view of the mines and surrounding hills. Heaven knows if the hills are safe from future mining as I couldn’t see the difference from the ones that are being mined and the ones not.

We did find a gem though, about 16 kms from town there is  man made Lake Moondarra. It was formed when they dammed the Leichhardt River for the supply of water to the town. Lovely green grassed picnic spots line the foreshore and just down the road a huge park with BBQ facilities. It is definitely the redeeming factor for the town.

Snap of the day

 

Escape to Queensland

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 the well being of road users. I wondered if the sign putter-uppers thought that they had better do something to claim that they were actually working that year... Anyhow, first stop is the roadhouse/tavern/restaurant/caravan park called Barkly Homestead. It's not the actual homestead, its just taken the name of the station upon whose 1,000,000 acres the road runs across. The roadhouse is a bit different to others in that it appears to be a modern, clean, presentable shop/cafe/restaurant/tavern/petrol station/caravan park. Judy was impressed that they had taken the trouble to advise their honoured customers that the high prices were justified by the fact that they use 500litres of diesel a day just running the generators to keep the lights on. We weren't complaining, just happy that they are there to supply the service, in our case a coffee and cake and a pleasant seat in the sun from which to relax and enjoy it.

Pushing on we stopped for lunch at Avon Downs, a free camp area, where again we are surprised to find people settled in with their generators and satellite dishes for the night or for weeks, by 1PM. Apart from the incongruous presence of a large Police Station opposite, there is absolutely nohting here and nothing for heaps of kms in any direction. Going east and up onto the tablelands proper, the vegetation gets even sparser and the view from my seat is one of a black strip pushing out dead straight into the distance where it meets the horizon, the demarcation between dark land and azure blue sky stretching out of sight in either direction. The road itself disappears into a permanent mirage of silver heat haze splitting the infinite, featureless horizon in two.

One can't help but stop at the border crossing into Queensland and take a snap, in my case four snaps, one in each direction to illustrate the country we've been cruising through. Just over the border is Cammoweal, still 189k from Mt Isa and our stop for the night which turned out to be a shaded, grassed powered site behind the BP Roadhouse.

Snaps of the day

East

North

West

South

Three Ways - yes that's the name of the place

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 generators already set up and running. Heaven knows what they do all day sitting right next to the Stuart Highway surrounded by scrub. As it got later and we passed more free camps that were almost full, it is amazing just how many people are willing to squeeze into a crowded, noisy spot with smelly drop toilets just to save $30. I’m afraid I’m of the mind if you can’t afford to do it comfortably, don’t go. BUT, I know that it’s horses for courses and everyone had their own idea of fun. We finally arrived at 3 Ways around 3:45 and settled into one of the last powered sites in the main area, there were more waaaay over on the back fence. It’s a very nice little spot with shady trees and grassy spots. Certainly one we would stay at again.

On the road again.... Mataranka, NT

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 Willie Nelson doesn't feature on our iPlod, but he should, and if he did, he'd be playing our favourite song....

On the road again -
Just can't wait to get on the road again.
...
Goin' places that I've never been.
Seein' things that I may never see again

 
well, you get the idea i'm sure.

What that means is that we picked up the car yesterday and did some tootling around Darwin to check it out a bit first, and all things looking OK, we hitched up and hauled out this morning.

Uneventful run down to Katherine where we filled up the tank and had some lunch before the final run down to Mataranka and after 400k I'm pretty happy its a goer.

Judy gets the diamonds, I'm just happy to have the car and be back on the road again.
Cheers all.

Darwin.... for the last time

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 when the new gearbox wears in a bit. We are very relieved that we have the car again and on the way back to the van park, we dropped back in to Josh and gave him a carton of beer for all his efforts.

We found that Lynnette (Ross’ sister) and Ray, who we had run into in Alice, were in our van park here in Darwin. We wandered around til we found them, had a quick chat and made plans to meet up again for a drink after we had a swim. Armed with a bottle of champagne and some nibbles, we headed down about 5pm to have a good catch up with what they had been doing since we had last seen them. We spent a companionable few hours drinking and chatting and catching up. It was a lovely way to end our time here in Darwin.

Darwin....again and again and again

Thursday 14June

We left by 8am for a straight drive through to Darwin. We were on a mission. Our plan was to settle into Howard Springs, I would stay behind and do the chores and Brian was off to do battle with TNT. Armed with the consignment note number and complaint number, he went first to check in with Josh the mechanic and then to TNT. He arrived to be told by the lady at the desk that the package was not in Darwin. Brian insisted that it was. Much toing and froing and she went off to look. Meanwhile a foreman of sorts arrived and asked what was happening. Brian told our sorry tale and “we’ll just have a look then mate” and magically in a matter of moments a forklift returned with our gearbox held proudly aloft. Brian wasted no time getting it into the back of the 4WD and quickly headed back to Josh the mechanic. It was getting late but there was no way Brian was leaving until the gearbox was back in the car. By 5pm (knock off time) it was back in but not quite totally complete. Only when Josh promised to finish it first thing tomorrow(7am) did Brian leave. He arrived back to the van about 5.30pm much relieved but still aware we haven’t finished yet. A trip to Mindil markets was needed for pizza and pancakes and coffee.

Snappa the day

Josh and me gearbox