Birdsville to Fletcher Creek

We've had a very busy week since our last update - still having fluid problems, change of itinerary, interesting weather etc. We arrived in Birdsville on 11 June, stayed at the caravan park there. Birdsville was bigger than expected, had Curried Camel Pie at the bakery for lunch - excellent! Took a drive out to 'Big Red' with the group - on the way out one of the vehicles got bogged (not ours!) and had to be towed out, then we had a big river crossing which was heaps of fun. We got to the top in time for sunset with champagne. Brilliant views, and Trev can now say he's 'done Big Red'. Finished the evening off at Birdsville Pub, had a good steak there, then back to camp.

Headed to Boulia next day via Bedourie. Nice little town, very friendly, visited the 'Min Min Encounter' and the Stonehouse museum (fossils etc). Our last night with this group, as half of them were turning left for Alice Springs.

Trev & I headed to Winton via Cawnpore Lookout (amazing mesa formations) and stayed at Bladenburg NP. Heaps of roos and cattle, lovely sunset. Left for Hughenden next morning, stayed one night then on to Gilberton with Les, Gill & Elisa to meet up with Lorraine & Bill. Tried to find a campsite by the river to stay for the next week (for the gold prospecting part of our trip). However, we were 'greeted' by a lady on a quad bike (later known as 'the bitch on a quad') who insisted that we had to pay $10 pp pn to stay on the Gilberton Town Common. After a bit of not too friendly discussion, we decided not to take her up on her offer, turned around and ended up staying 1 night at the RFDS airstrip in the same area.

We left the next morning, only to find that our Rangie was having a bit of a problem with fuel - we had run the petrol dry and switched to gas, then when we tried to go back to petrol after refilling from jerry cans, it wouldn't run on petrol at all. We managed to get to a little place in the middle of nowhere called Greenvale, where the boys had a good look at the car, we had a mechanic from Greenvale have a look, and the decision was that our fuel pump was stuffed! I told you, Trev's been having lots of trouble with his fluids! We chased around trying to find where we could get a replacement pump, and the people at Greenvale were wonderful - the man from the caravan park (where we ended up staying 3 nights) happened to be in Townsville, so Trev contacted him, and he brought it back to Greenvale with him the same night - excellent service. And no-one in Greenvale charged us anything for having a look at the car, phone calls, internet etc. Sooooo.... the next morning all three men were under the Rangie taking out the fuel tank, removing the faulty pump and installing the new one. And yes, it is working ... yaaaay!

We are now having a couple of days on the banks of Fletcher Creek just before Charters Towers, then we're heading to Townsville. We also have had problems with the fridge inside the camper, but Trev & Bill have just sorted that out today - very resourceful men we have with us. Should be back in phone contact from tomorrow onwards.