4,000kms later

9 November 2000, Darwin, Northern Territory Australia

As you can see from the title we have travelled a little further! The reasons why will follow in a moment.

After Forster we spent a couple of days camping at a place called Kylies Beach in Crowdy Bay National Park. It was simply stunning. We practically had the long, golden sandy beach to ourselves – there were two fisherman we had to share with! The bush campsite was small and had more kangaroos than people. We managed to get a photo or two of Skippy with Joey in the pouch! The other highlight was a family of koala bears – the father sleeping, while the little baby clung on to the mother – it was such a lovely sight to see.

Getting a move on

It was here in Kylies that we met some Aussie truck drivers who recommended we get a move on towards the Northern Territory if we wanted to see anything of that area.

The wet season up here is from November to March, with the really heavy rain from December onwards making many roads impassable. When we last wrote we were travelling very slowly and not driving any more than 250 kms in a day. We were taking life very easy, and at that rate we would never make it to the Northern Territory, or Western Australia. The area that we both really want to see is the route from Darwin to Perth. So it was a case of putting the foot to the floor and moving onwards and upwards!

Four long days of driving

For those of you who are tracking our route on the map we drove from New South Wales into Queensland, then eventually into the Northern Territory on the following route between Saturday 28 Oct and Tuesday 31 Oct (the asterisk denotes an overnight stop):

Kylies Beach – Wauchope – Walcha- Tamworth – Gunnedah – Narrabi* – Moree – Goondiwindi – St. George – Mitchell – Augathella – Tambo* – Blackall – Barcaldine – Longreach – Winton – Kynuna – McKinlay – Cloncurry – Mt. Isa* – Camooweal – Barkly Homestead – Three Ways – Elliott

Many of these places may not be marked on the map, as all they were was a petrol station with the population listed as nominal!

It was about 4,000 kms in total and there were stages of the journey we did not meet another vehicle for two hours at a time, although we did see thousands of kangaroos. One unfortunate roo decided to run into the driver’s door as opposed to the roo bar on the front of Spot! We saw hundreds of emus, a few herd of cattle (we spoke to some cowboys moving their herd of 1,600 cattle to new pastures and they reckoned they would be there by Christmas), and a flock of sheep or two! Many of the places we went through lay claim to be the home of the Flying Doctor Service and the School of the Air offering medical and educational services to these very isolated communities. Winton and Longreach are where the airline Qantas began.

Luckily we had managed to buy a few classic cassette tapes at the start of our journey – John Denver, BB King, Hits from the 70’s and everyone’s favourite Country’s Classic Collection – anything to relieve the boredom of driving through areas with nothing to see!

We also amused ourselves with betting games, for example “I bet you the dishes tonight that the next vehicle will be a road train” (a cab with 3 containers hooked on the back and around 150 metres long) or “the next vehicle we see will be in 28 minutes” – we’re sure you get the idea!

Anyway we survived the drive and only shredded one tyre in the heat of the day and which Dave managed to change in record time – perhaps a career in Formula 1 awaits him!

The Northern Territory

We are now back on the taking it easy wavelength and it feels good. We spent a couple of nights camping in Katherine, then Edith Falls and then 4 days in Kakadu National Park (of Crocodile Dundee fame). Kakadu is a World Heritage site for both cultural and environmental reasons and it is just awesome, but needs some urgent visitor/people management before its natural beauty is destroyed. It is roughly the size of God’s own country (Ireland for those of you who didn’t know) and it is full of the most amazing plant, animal and bird life as well as home to many Aboriginal people. We cruised on the Yellow River wetlands to see the crocs and the bird life and took a 4-wheel drive tour to a couple of gorges and waterfalls as well as trying to walk early in the mornings to view the Aboriginal rock art. We would have stayed longer in Kakadu, but to see it at its best you need a 4-wheel drive as already many of the roads are turning to flood ways.

Hot and humid

It is now the build up to the wet season and the weather is very, very hot (we have had several days over 40 degrees) and very humid too, but there is no shortage of cold beer or swimming pools (without crocs) to cool off in. We have witnessed a couple of minor electrical storms, nothing major yet, but living in hope.

The flies and mosquitoes are very annoying (Dave currently has about 15 bites on one ankle and Shaz has had horrible reactions to some other insect bites), but we are putting up with them, just about!

While in Darwin we are staying in a hotel for 2 nights. Spot is having a quick service after his long haul getting us here, and it is just lovely to have baths, air conditioning, clean fluffy towels and crisp linen sheets.

Until the next time…