Karumba, Qld
Normanton is 198km north of the roadhouse and we were on good road still, our first excitement was a 'roo that nearly took its last hop, and that was before we hit the outskirts of town. And then there was the emu, which we hadn’t seen for months. This one was on the other side of the road looking away out into the bush. We slowed and then slowed some more. True to form, at the last possible second it turned and took two skitterish emu steps right in front of us. Note: Two tonnes of caravan pulled by two tonnes of metal doesn’t actual stop all that quick even from 40kph. We missed the damn thing luckily but it’s a bit unnerving. At the 50km mark we hit our first taste of developmental road, just on the approach to a crest. Oh joy, no road and no view of oncoming traffic. The moment passed and we got used to the game and the new rules, which in practice are more like a game of chicken: last on on the road holds the tar. Unless the oncoming is a road-train, in which case you get...