Just text, photos won’t upload with this dodgy connection.

Sorry about the long delay in posting — I had a post ready to go, then we lost service before I hit send. There has been only patchy and slow phone and internet service ever since.

I had a great run at Hughenden, 15km out along the Muttaburra Road. It is closed at the other end from flooding, but Al drove around the barrier at the Hughenden end to accompany me as waterboy and security detail. The only traffic was a few locals, no massive road-trains which nearly blow me off the road.

Griffo’s family made us very welcome as usual, including a long and noisy session on the rum on Saturday night. His nephew who lives about 500m away could recite the whole playlist, starting with “Tusk” from Fleetwood Mac.

We met up with Dave and Miranda at Julia Creek, to buy last supplies of bread, milk and fresh veges. For a town of 350 people, they have a good supermarket and I even bought a Wrangler top at the western shop. It’s a great caravan park, well set-up, and we attended the local fund-raiser for Blaze Aid, a support organisation for people struck by natural disasters. The local branch provides help for struggling farmers and graziers whose income has been cut to nil by the drought. They encourage grey nomads to spend a week or so on a property, doing whatever is needed to help, including looking after small children, or supervising older ones on School of the Air to allow the mother to run the property while the father is off working on the roads or something to earn some cash money. Tourism is the lifeblood of the shire during the drought (currently 4 years).

Along the road we needed a pit stop, so took advantage of the racecourse at Sedan Dip. Literally in the middle of nowhere, it is used once a year for a bush race meeting, maybe a rodeo?? but not sure about that. It is a bit spooky, wind whistling through tin sheds and doors banging, and unfortunately we discovered after we used the toilets that the water was not turned on either. Last time Al and I stopped there, the water was gravity fed from high tanks, so no problem.

The road through Three Ways was good, excellent burgers at Burke and Wills Roadhouse. At the Gregory River, we found Bram’s secret campsite without any trouble and set up in the most gorgeous spot. The river runs quite fast here, with rapids just upstream making a constant background burble. Pretty-face Wallabies come down to drink on the other side every morning and night, joeys in their mothers’ pouches and the big daddies keeping a watch over all. The bigger joeys play-fight and tumble around, all seemingly oblivious to the spectators on the other bank.

A couple of caravans set up camp just upstream and out of sight, while Miranda and I were paddling along the bank nearby. They came down to tell us they were naturists, and hoped that would not offend us. Of course we said no, but it has caused huge hilarity in our camp when we are sitting in the water and watching them swimming. They are all even older than us, so nothing worth watching — sorry guys!

Al goes into Gregory Downs each day to use the toilet – his knees are not so good at squatting over a hole in the bush as we are. It’s over 20km on dirt road, but better than the alternative. I am happy to stay in camp and chill out – I am typing this right at the water’s edge, under the shade of the pandanus trees, with a gentle breeze on my back. Each day the temperature is around 30+ deg, and probably 20 deg at night, just perfect.

Miranda and Dave have a Coleman hot water pump, which with the unlimited crystal clear river water provides a lovely hot shower each day. We have plenty of drinking water in our trailer tanks, but really the river water would be perfectly safe to drink. All our batteries, solar panels and generators are working perfectly, so we have refrigeration and gas cookers. At night we sit back around the campfire with glass in hand and track satellites across the sky between the blaze of stars.

I have done some medium distance runs, 10km and 16km, along the road to Camooweal, and Miranda has now run 4km, 2km of that without stopping.

STARTING AGAIN FROM KARUMBA

Internet and phone service has been almost non-existent, although Miranda and Al have managed to post on Facebook. Miranda even uploads hundreds of photos, Facebook must have some secret squirrel way of minimising data. It could have something to do with the fact that she is patient enough to sit on the verandah up at the kiosk at Adel’s Grove until she gets them sent. Not me!

Chad joined us at the Gregory, and then on to Adel’s Grove. His guitar entertainment around the campfire was most welcome (not to mention his scintillating company!) The road from Gregory to Adel’s Grove has been partly sealed (not very well, heaps of potholes probably caused during heavy rainfall in the Wet) and the rest very well graded. What a pleasant surprise – last time the 80km took us 3 hours to travel. Our journey did not start well though – just out of camp, we broke a back window on the Nissan. Stones are flung up from the back wheels and strike the trailer, rebounding up to smash the window. The annoying part is that we KNOW that, and decided not to tape the windows from some strange reason. Anyway, one of the silver sun protectors came in handy, duct-taped over the gap, and later reinforced with another layer and much criss-crossing. It works, just a bit of highway noise but no dust thank goodness, and we have organised a new window to be installed in Townsville (thanks Bryan!)

Adel’s Grove was even more beautiful that we remembered – the trees in the campsite outside the Grove (where we could use our generator, and there was enough sun for the solar panels) have grown much taller, and they have improved the facilities. The showers still run off a donkey system, but it’s obviously someone’s job to keep the fire going because there was always hot water. Only a trickle, but enough to get wet if you stood there long enough. It was a lesson in how little water is necessary to get clean! The river is pouring past a hundred metres away, but maybe it’s the power for the pumps that limits the water. They do filter the water to the taps near the campsites, but it’s not treated. Still fine for drinking though.

The Grove itself is very shady and lovely, but for a longish stay does not provide any way to top up batteries mainly for refrigeration. There are also no shops within hundreds of kilometres, so it’s quite important to keep things cold. Rice and baked beans would get quite boring.

We did the canoe trip up Lawn Hill Gorge, just the most gorgeous relaxing way to see the stunning scenery. Chad had a kayak to himself, the rest of us in double canoes. That suited Miranda and me because the men got to do most of the paddling. In the hot afternoons we spent ages sitting in the rapids in the river near our camp, just before Happy Hour.

Because it is a fauna reserve, quite a lot of snakes are spotted so we had to use a torch to walk around at night. Green frogs like to lurk in the amenities block which attracts snakes to eat them, so notices advise putting down the toilet lid and keeping the door closed.

Miranda did a PB – 4km without stopping, and I did a few longer runs. The roads were all gravel, some nice and smooth and some very bumpy to run on. No shade out there either, so we always ran just on dawn.

I will try to upload this post now, leaving the Burketown/Normanton/Karumba bit for later just in case it stops working.