 You
know you have been outback too long
when - fresh bread is a gourmet treat, when
you start missing termite mounds, when
caravan parks are way too crowded and
especially when you spend 30 minutes reading
a newspaper in a cafe before you realise it
is dated more than one month ago!
Oops.
So we have tried to re-civilise ourselves.
Caravan parks have not only been very
crowded, they usually have "no
vacancy" signs by afternoon. It is still
peak tourist time up here. So we have
continued to stay in wayside stops some of
the time. Queensland rest areas so far have
been a mixed bag. After driving too
late and arriving in late dusk half
light at Archer's Creek, we obeyed the small
paper signs saying not to park in the
open central area, and propped on one side.
We were woken pre dawn by a very officious
Lion's Club man moving us on because the
Sunday market needed to set up there. The
next night,  camped
off the road amongst banana and sugar cane
farms was much better, despite the B double
truck arriving at the gates at 3.30 am and
the fleet of trucks coming and going by 7
am. Queensland national parks have
instituted an online booking system and we
have so far failed to crack it - sites are
all pre-booked or the computer site is
inaccessible. So we headed down the coast,
calling in at tiny seaside towns and braving
the midges.
Alas, apparently many RV overnight
stop places now use the same "need a permit
booked on line" to allow you to stay. At
least by the coast, there is usually
internet available even if we have yet to
manage to secure a booking.
On the plus side, some of these tiny seaside
villages are really very attractive, with
big river estuaries, miles of sandy beaches
and hidden away small fibro shacks
with boats. Cardwell has grown enormously
since we walked on Hinchinbrook, but we
managed to see three stingrays and a dugong
from the pier, which is more than last time.
We drove further south and dicovered
Townsville is a big city and it is
not much fun trying to navigate it without a
map at 9 am in the morning. We ended up
parked at McDonalds,  walked
to the info centre, got a map and some
advice, walked back to Maccas and ordered a
coffee to " pay" for our parking. The woman
there gave us our coffees for free as we
were obviously seniors. We did try and pay.
As I said, perhaps we have been outback too
long.
At any rate, we have driven inland again.
Good bye Bruce Highway with never ending
streams of cars and vans and trucks. Goodbye
wet tropics with glorious looking forest but
no roads in or out except to booked out
camping areas. Hello to Charters Towers,
where we have never been before. It is peak
season here too and the first caravan park
we tried was full but this one has
unpowered sites available. Yeaa.
Charters Towers still feels like an outback
town, a very prosperous, wealthy from the
gold rush type outback town, but still
outback. We are now discussing which route
to take south, cheerfully acknowledging we
will get faster and faster the closer we get
to home and happy to hear that all reports
of Victorian winter suggest that spring is
on it's way. It is still just under 3,000 km
to go, so time for more adventures. |
