Australia! - heading East (4/5)
This post is part 4 of the "au-2013" series:
- Australia! - South (1/5)
- Australia! - the 'classic' outback, up through the middle (2/5)
- Australia! - the 'top end' (Darwin area) (3/5)
- Australia! - heading East (4/5)
- Australia! - far north Queensland (5/5)
I spent nearly three weeks at the beginning of July in Australia. David & I flew into Melbourne (via Auckland on Air New Zealand), and rented a "Voyager" campervan from Britz, for a one way rental, with the intent of ending up in Cairnes. We planned to drive up through the middle of the country, to Darwin, then head roughly east to Cairnes. Overall, the trip was amazing, and exceeded our expectations. I'm going to break up the trip report into several posts, since combining three weeks of info into a single post would be a huge monstrosity. For the curious, the rough route that we drove is mapped here on Google Maps.
<p>
<center>
</center>
</p>
Saturday:
We got up early this morning, because GMaps claimed that I had 12 hours of driving. In reality it was about 8, plus time spent stopping for gas & lunch. The drive was fairly uneventful for the entire morning, as we drove south on the Stuart Highway (for the last time!) to the junction with the Carpenteria Highway, which cut east. In classic Australian highway fashion, they didn't post a sign advising of the next fuel until about half a km down the road. I was expecting a higher number, but not anywhere near as high as what it said. 295KM (nearly 200 miles) to the next fuel, which also happened to be the town where I was planning to stop for the night (Cape Crawford). 295KM scared me a lot, as I wasn't sure that the van could go that far on a full tank. Thankfully the junction had a gas station where I just filled up, but even with the full tank, I was really uncomfortable. I decided to turn back to the gas station and ask if the sign was accurate. They looked at me like i was crazy when I asked, and confirmed that it really was 295KM to the next fuel. I decided that I couldn't risk this again, and asked if they sold gas cans. Thankfully they did sell 25L cans, for \$65. That price seemed crazy, but I didn't really have a choice, and I assumed it would cost far more to be rescued if I was stranded again. I bought the can, filled it up, and started driving. As if the distance to the next town wasn't enough of an oddity, the road itself was weird. As in, it was only paved one car width, right down the middle, with the shoulders just gravel. I'm guessing it was done this way as an improvement over the road not being paved at all for a long time, and the fact
that it didn't get much traffic. Occasionally over the course of the 2.5 hours it took us to do the
drive, they would add a 2nd paved lane for a few kilometers every so often, but 90% was the same single
lane of pavement. A total of 14 vehicles passed in the opposite direction. Each time I saw one approaching, I slowed down from around 120kph to 60kph, and drove half on the pavement, half on the gravel.
I also caught up to and passed 3 RVs. Then, just 3 miles away from town, this RV literally pulled onto
the road, from the shoulder in front of me. This guy seemed to be a complete jerk, as he was driving
around 80kph, and even when the road straightened out enough for passing, he didn't move over. Thankfully I was close to town, so it wasn't a huge issue. Perversely, I somehow made it without running out of gas (or needing to use the gas can reserve). I was a hair below 1/4 full. I reached the "town" of Cape Crawford just before 3pm. However it wasn't really a town, just a roadhouse. Supposedly the next real town was another 110km further east. But we weren't going that way, because the road apparently wasn't paved at all at some point, and I wasn't in the mood to tempt fate and drive even further into nowhere on a rough road. The campground was decent, nothing fancy. It had free showers, potable water, and power. But no wifi. When I asked, they laughed and said they had "nothing". One other thing I noticed was a sign beside the road heading south (where I was going to drive tomorrow), advising that the next fuel was 375KM (250 miles). So as crazy as today's 295km was, tomorrow its even further. With the (still full) gas can, plus having filled up when I arrived at the campground, I should be fine. David has been in a fairly good mood. We've had some interesting conversations while driving. We talked for a while about learning how to drive. Also, he randomly asks me the meaning of words that he sees in books that he's been reading. I think he's re-read the same books like 4 times already. He has been rather frustrated by the lack of wifi (or the lack of unrestricted wifi, since he can't surf youtube, or do anything besides a quick email).
<p>
<center>
</center>
</p>
Sunday:
Last night was a bit odd, as we learned what people do for fun in the outback on a Saturday night. The roadhouse where we stayed was having "Elvis Night". What this meant was that a (truly horrible) Elvis impersonator butchered Elvis songs, plus random other hits from the 50s-70s for 2 hours, then they switched into karaoke night. The audience/participants were this bizarre mixture of truckers, cowboys, seniors and families with kids (the latter two staying at the roadhouse). I guess this is a big draw, as the audience seemed very excited by it all. I guess when the nearest towns are 295KM to the west, 375KM to the south, or 110KM (unpaved) to the east, this was the hub of society. It was just so very strange.
Last night was also really nice sleeping weather. I actually closed the van windows during the night, and was able to sleep with just a sheet on me. We got up at 5AM this morning, both because I needed to compensate for the 30 minutes that we would end up losing when crossing into Queensland due to the timezone
change, and also because I really wanted to make it as far as possible to get wifi somewhere. Of course
getting up that early also meant that I was driving in the dark for over an hour. We were on the road by 5:30AM, driving south on the Barkly Highway. 375KM (250M) long, a single lane of pavement, with nothing the entire length, and the only gas at each end. I'm not going to lie, it was not easy driving in the
dark on that road. In addition to having to be careful to remain on the narrow strip of pavement, I had to be super vigilant for animals at that hour. And animals we saw. We saw more kangaroos on or beside the road today, than the rest of the trip combined. David said we saw 16, and I don't doubt him. Some of them were joey's too, which were kind cute. I also had to contend with numerous cows near or crossing the
road, all in the dark. Also, for a long stretch, the quality of the road degraded something horrible. It became very uneven & bumpy, making it impossible to drive much more than 80kph, or the van would have bounced off the road. Thankfully once the sun was up, everything was much easier. I could see the animals, and the road quality improved, such that I was able to average around 120kph. However, I also ended up catching up to a road train, and he was either unwilling or unable to move over just a bit off pavement to let me pass him. As a result, I was stuck following behind him at 95kph for nearly 30 minutes. Thankfully, we came to one of the only two "passing lanes" on the entire 375KM road, and I was finally able to pass all 3 trailers in the train. Its funny how they define a passing lane as basically just adding a 2nd lane to the single lane of road. The scenery along much of the road was bizarre. There were no trees or bushes, or really anything else growing beyond brown dead grasses, in all directions. The land was completely flat. We could see all the way to the flat, distant horizon in all directions, except for random clusters of cows in the distance. It was so strange. Somehow, I nearly drove the entire highway on a
single tank of gas. However, about 30KM from the end, the gas gauge was hovering just a hair above empty (the warning light had not yet come on though), and I decided to use the reserve from the gas can. Thankfully, that process went smoothly, and I was just a hair below half full with the extra 25L of fuel. Once we reached the end of the road, there was a roadhouse, where we refilled, and continued driving. Driving back on a 'normal' highway (2 lanes, rather than 1) felt like a luxury for the remainder of the day. We crossed from the Northern Territory (where we had been for the past 10 days) into Queensland just after noon, and got to Mount Isa, where we camped for the night before 3pm.
<p>
<center>
</center>
</p>
Monday:
Overall, our day was fine, and fairly uneventful. Last night was the coldest night we had since very early in the trip. I actually woke up in the middle of the night cold, and dug out a sleeping bag. After that I was fine. We got up early, and were on the road by 6AM. I wasn't sure what state the roads would be today, as they weren't the primary highway that ran east & west. Initially the road was 2 lines, but then it randomly kept switching between a single lane & 2 lanes. It was rather frustrating, as there was far more traffic than the previous days, so I was continuously having to slow down and get over. This pattern continued for much of the day, and by the afternoon, it worsened as we encountered the first significant road construction of the entire trip. Up until today, the worst we had was a few very short & brief sections of road work, with virtually no impact. However, today there was 60KM of construction where they were adding a 2nd lane to the highway, and I had to sit at different red lights or stop signs for several minutes at a time. Also the terrain has changed dramatically, with much more trees, and big hills everywhere. Even with all of that, we drove 250KM further than I was planning originally, and we ended up in Mount Surprise for the night. This is actually a fairly nice campground, which has trees & grass, free
showers, free wifi (albeit, glacially slow), and clean bathrooms. The weather has changed too. Its much cooler than its been. The high today was around 75F. It was mostly cloudy for much of the afternoon,
and it actually rained briefly while I was preparing dinner. In hindsight, today was fairly boring. We're about 325KM from Cairns, so roughly 3 hours driving (assuming no more construction or other issues).
All trip pictures are posted HERE.
This post is part 4 of the "au-2013" series: