Richmond Qld July 20, 2016

Richmond Qld July 20 2016

Early start again, bright clear sky, looks like its going to be a cracker of a day as we drive across to Richmond. Richmond, Queensland, not Sydney or Victoria or the other one in Queensland.We pulled out onto the road and before we had reached to edge of town (its a small town) we were sitting behind a Road Train! 

'Breaker Breaker Good Buddy!' That’s what they do in the movies, the rest of us just use the standard;  ‘Copy Eastbound road train’

‘Yeah, I got ya’, the disconnected voice replies.

‘Yeah, hi and good morning. We are sitting in behind you with a van. We’d like to come around when its clear’, we speak into the ether.

‘Yeah, sure, theres a straight bit just past these curves. I’ll let ya know’.

'OK thanks'

Now you just have to be patient and wait for the call. Eventually then radio crackles back into life, 

'Ok, good to go'.

We thank him and wish him safe travels and we put the pedal to the metal and wind up the rig to 115 kph to pas the 53m long monster.

Sounds corny, but a heap safer than going kamikaze fashion, as the truckies call it. Mind you, when we got stuck behind the mobile paddock yesterday we had to clean the windscreen before we could attempt a passing manoeuvre!

Breezed through the Isa, refuelled and grabbed a quick snack at the ‘Curry and scampered on toward Julia Creek. The road is not brilliant and there are thick black clouds from here to the east coast. There’s one big long stretch of roadworks where we all crawl through sloppy mud and broken tar under control of traffic lights, and then we were stuck behind another road train who was stuck behind a couple of motor homes out for a Sunday Stroll on the once magnificent Flinders highway. 

We had seen a few road signs suggesting that the road from Julia Creek to Richmond was ‘Caution’, as opposed to open or closed. The radio soon let us know from the chat between the truck drivers that the road just outside Richmond had been closed due to rain washing the roadworks away, but was now open again, but really soft and sloppy. As long as it doesn't rain again, but its starting to spit already. What can you do but push on? It’s a zillion miles to go back and around the other way to Townsville, not really an option.

We've now been on the road about 5 hours and as we drew closer to The Creek, we jumped on the radio again, 

‘Copy the inbound road train’.

‘Yair mate’, comes the quick answer over CH40.

‘Hi, mate. Are you stopping at the Creek or going straight through?’

‘Nah, I’m going straight on through to Townsville’ he replies.

‘OK’ we say, ‘we’ll pull up and have lunch then, cheers’. This seemed safer and easier than trying to pass him on this stretch of road.

‘Yair OK’, the definitive laconic answer.

We pulled up in the main (only?) street of Julia Creek only long enough for Judy to assemble a few sandwiches and then we were back out on the road. Fast food, eat and run.

The road varies between rough and terrible to not-so-bad and we drove on, mostly by ourselves, with only one more road train to negotiate before Richmond.

The by now famous Richmond Road Works finally came into view, being only about 3km out of the town itself. Sure enough, it was open and when we were flagged through I was happy to sit in behind yet-another-road train and use his tracks through the really soft gravel that had reputedly been dumped into the washout, and just hoped we could keep moving through the slippery slimy quasi mud for the next km or so. The rain has held off, in fact the clouds have completely dispersed and its now brilliant hot sunshine again.

Eventually we made it into town and slipped quietly into our reserved, and last spot left in the Lakeside Caravan Park, so named because it overlooks the man made lake Fred Tritton, created in 2003 on the edge of town as a recreational facility and named after the ex-Mayor of the place.

I went for a bit of a wander up the main street and back, and reflected on our trip of 600km in 7 and a bit hours and marvelled at our good fortune to live in such a place.

The van park is probably busier than normal because the HappyValley Caravan Club has taken up residence. They have even brought their own supply of plastic chairs emblazoned with their initials, so that they can all sit around and ignore the Country singer who they have congregated to see. The ignoring I can understand, he’s a pretty dreadful singer even by country standards, and his patter and inane jokes are worse. And the begging for donations and for CD sales, oh please, spare me. You feel like going up and giving them $50 to go away so you can enjoy the peace and quiet.

I'm reaching for another Strongbow!

A PS from JB who always proof reads and corrects/adds/deletes the blog. It has to be noted that Brian doesn't actually like any singers we come across, so those comments need to be taken with a grain of salt!!!