sharing stories… sharing lessons… shoring up the future
It’s a short journey to Somerset Dam the next day. Reinforced by 2 x IGA roast chickens, we plan a Sunday lunch by the water. Or, rather, I plan for Guy to cook it and surprisingly it works! We pause at Watt’s Bridge Memorial airfield as there’s an aerobatic practice weekend going on. A Pitts…
Children. We’ve missed children on this trip (apart from the nine year-olds in the Junior Dorm, of course.) But the Esk Show is all about children and things to delight them. It suits us very well and they’re all over the Esk Caravan Park campground, where we have set up for the next two nights.…
We’ve been on the road for five and a bit weeks now, and have only days to do. The plan is that we will visit the Aboriginal community at Cherbourg and then the Esk show, before finally heading back to Brisbane, and a bed for the first time in six weeks. After Miles we head…
Out of the outback, the road to Sapphire is at least different, if not sometimes bizarre. There’s been a trend in recent years for some people to dress up the many anthills – termite mounds – that sprout along the roadside and well beyond. It’s attracted the attention of both local council and the ABC.…
Camping in the rain is boring. We go east, following it. The patchy weather system, which seems intent on making this the wettest winter Queensland has seen in a generation, intermittently sprinkles us at inopportune times. We arrive in Longreach and go straight to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, where we are inside and dry.…
Soon after leaving Tobermory the next morning we cross the Queensland Border. The Donoghue Highway has been closed due to flooding until recently. The repair contractors seem to be still working, but the road is in good condition; some tarmac and some well-graded dirt. We up the tyre pressures to 40 and 45 psi, front…
The next morning its cold, keeping the flies in bed for an extra half hour. We can eat breakfast in the open for a change. After breakfast, a solitary, thirsty-looking dingo crosses our path shortly after the start, unimpressed, as nobody had taught it to use the tap (which didn’t work anyway) at Dingo Well.…
Old Crocks’ Camp 2. The next morning they’re back again. I dress inside my swag and crawl out, hairnet on. There are a number of things you can’t do through a fly veil. We’ve covered ‘eat a banana’. Add ‘clean your teeth’ and ‘blow your nose’ and you have a very messy net. Rotate it…
By the time we get going the next morning, the flies are back. This is now serious dune country. We reduce tyre pressures still further to around the recommended settings; front 22, rear 27 psi. Down now from 40 and 45 that we’ve been using on the roads. We visit the actual Madigan Camp 5,…
After a night at Erldunda, we’re off to Mount Dare and the start of the Madigan Line – Dr Cecil Madigan’s epic crossing of 1939. (The first vehicle crossing was only in 1975. That’s in our lifetime for the younger readers!) At Kulgera, after an early mornos under its bar of bras, we turn off…