After all the red dirt it was good to see some green, and I'm looking forward to hot showers and flushing toilets. We set up, then I paid for USAT wifi so I could upload my blog and post some photos. Carole had a shower and said it was good, so then I popped over for mine. Well, I picked the wrong one. The shower head was caked with calcium, so the water sprayed out every which way, except down to where I was standing! No matter which way I turned I got sprayed in the head, but very little on the body. I did manage to wash my hair, but it was a challenge. I'll try a different shower next time.
Our timing was good, as we arrived on the day of the final State of Origin game. We decided to go to the pub for happy hour, had a game of darts (which I won!), then Carole and John went back to their van to make dinner, while Trev and I ordered a meal from the restaurant. Trev had a chicken parmigiana, I had a reef and beef - they were huuuuge! And very tasty.
While we were having dinner the restaurant started filling up with travellers who came to watch the game. Well, the four of us were wearing blue, and yes, you guessed it, the rest of the spectators were on the other side. It made for a very interesting, fun evening, with us against the rest of Cape Crawford. It certainly wasn't our night, but there was some good-natured heckling going on from both sides and we all had a great time. I was so glad when we finally got our one and only try - we drowned out all those maroon people!
Next morning I went across to try another shower, and picked one that had barely warm water - well, it wasn't even 'barely warm', it was more like 'not quite cold'. When I returned from the shower I found Trev cleaning fruit bat guano from our van and car - not pleasant, but if you don't clean it off straight away it can damage the paint on the vehicles.
I'd managed to get in contact with our friends, Irene and Peter, who confirmed that they would be heading our way as we were heading north to King Ash Bay, so we would probably meet on the road. We got underway and about half an hour up the road I put a message out on UHF, and saw their vehicle coming towards us. We all stopped and had a chat for a while - it was good to catch up with them as we haven't seen Irene and Peter for about a year - our paths keep crossing and we keep missing each other. They gave us an idea of the condition of the roads we would be going on, then we continued on our way.
We got to Boroloola and stopped at the supermarket to get a few items - it was a very busy little town and had apparently grown quite a bit since Carole and John had been through a few years ago. We saw a lot of the schoolkids dressed in a bright purple uniform with aboriginal motifs painted on them - they looked fantastic. From there we drove through to King Ash Bay over a pretty corrugated 20km stretch of dirt road, which gave both vehicles a bit of a test. About half way along we stopped and let some air out of the tyres, and we definitely had a smoother ride after that.
We arrived at King Ash Bay and had a good look around at the campsites available. It was very busy, dusty and the sites weren't quite what we were looking for, so we continued on towards Batten Point where there were plenty of bush camping spots right on the river. We found a good spot with water views and set up for a couple of nights. Apparently there is a resident croc who patrols the river at night but we haven't seen him yet. There were heaps of eagles, little eagles, kites and a couple of sea eagles here, feeding on leftovers. We had a brilliant sunset over the river and a magic inky black star-filled night. The night skies out here are so fantastic - no city lights to cancel out the glow of the stars. On our second night we had a roast dinner cooked on the little brazier: roast beef (carne asada) with roast veggies and gravy - delicious.
We still didn't see the crocodiles, but we did see a couple of huuuge gropers that patrol this part of the river looking for scraps from the fishermen. I also got a couple of shots of SUNRISE over the river. While having a chat with neighbours (who go to Batten Point every year for several weeks to meet up with friends and go fishing) they suggested we stop in at a place called Tomato Island which is a National Parks camp with electricity, water, telstra coverage right on the river. I had a problem relaying this to my fellow campers, as I couldn't remember the name, and called it Red Turtle, or Big Red - but I did notice that they had a stubby holder with the name on it, so Trev and John did a bit of investigating and finally came back with the correct name - Tomato Island. So we'll probably check it out on the way. Next up, were heading for the Southern Lost City in Limmen National Park.
1 comment:
Great to catch up with you. We are now at Burketown, and will probably head towards Cloncurry - see you at home.
Post a Comment