Roon and Family around Oz

T+153       Burke and Wills, Roadtrains and Roadhouses Due south from Normanton to Three Ways - around 200 km and an overnight stay at the iconic Burks and Wills Roadhouse.  There's some serious Aussie folklore round these parts most of which is to do with the achievements and sad end of these legendary explorers. They set off from Melbourne in 1860.  The aim was to find a route to the Gulf of Carpenteria for a Telergaph Line.  They give it a real go and despite numerous well documented setbacks and intrigues very nearly made it. Beaten by the mangroves they were, just a few miles from the Gulf.. The return journey was beset with yet more horrendous challenges and to cut a very long story short their remains were found at the Dig Tree where Queensland meets South Australia, a long way from Melbourne sadly. Died from beriberi so they say. Not sure they would have liked the roadhouse. Reckon they preferred a quiet swag by a billabong to the noisy, ...

T+ 147   Savannah Way Part 2 - Mount Surprise to Karumba Croydon is a tidy little goldrush town, so tidy and clean that I had this sudden urge to have a shower and give the Beast a thorough wash and manicure.  Even Toby gave himself a quick lick, after all, you don't want to let the side down do you? It has rows of fine heritage buildings which to the untrained eye all look identical., Post Office, Court House, Council Chambers, Police Station. There's gold in them there hills but sadly not any more and we saw only 4 local people in our overnight stay and one of those was from Dublin.  They'd opened up the free camping at the Rodeo Ground for us which was very kind and we had a peaceful evening, just us and the entire insect population  of the outback. The next morning we visited Lake Belmore, 4kms out of town, which was even tidier than the town and has the cleanest most gleaming toilet facilities this side of Zurich. Feeling clean and tidy we heade...

T+142     The Savannah Way Jane and I have now lived in Australia longer than we lived in England.  We're Aussie citizens, 99.4 is a magic number, I like AFL and Jane has a penchant for Vegemite. Dinky Di cobber or what?  Yet we still haven't a clue how the Australian preferential voting system works, can't stand on a surfboard and have never been to the Outback, save a brief sojourn when Adam was a lad. Therefore, we are not true blue and cannot in all good faith wear an Akubra or boil a billy. As such, given that the first two noted above are not and never will be within our competencies, the only chance of redemption and broader peer acceptance is a long and meaningful trip to the Outback. As such, on June we filled up with fuel and sardines for Toby, said farewell to the coastal fringe, turned right at Ravenshoe and headed due east along the fabled Savannah Way aiming to emerge in two weeks or so at the Gulf of Carpenteria. We made it 40 kms before s...

T+138    Atherton Tablelands Prior to heading to the Outback we thought a few relaxing days would be in order so headed up the escarpment from Tully to the Atherton Tablelands. Within an hours drive and 1000m gained the temperature plumetted from 25℃ to what felt like 5℃. And it rained and rained and rained. For the next 5 days it rained. Not heavy rain, but a steady, drenching, chilling Manchester drizzle. So, repleat with raincoats and looking like an ad for Kathmandu, we trudged from waterfall to waterfall, pretty little village to even prettier little village. They say theres no such thing as bad weather, only soft people. No comment. Day by day as we became more demoralised we consoled ourselves with the folowing day's forecast of 50% chance of 1mm or less. Wrong. There were a few brief breaks in the weather and we did enjoy Milla Milla Falls and Yungaburra.  There's a great little walk from Yungaburra along Petersen Creek with guarantee...

T+134.   Tully & Mission Beach If you like sugar you'll like Tully. If you like rain you'll like Tully. If you like sugar and rain - well you'll be in heaven. Tully is wet, extremely wet. The wettest place in Australia even. 4000mm a year. Impressive and I'm from Manchester.  It's not called the Wet Tropics for nothing. It also boasts a great big and very successful sugar factory. It has a mouthwatering smell and the best IGA we've ever seen. It also has mozzies on a tundra -like scale. Big buggers with a taste for Poms. However, even if soggy sugar is not your scene you cannot help but admire Tully for its sense of humour. Have a look at this photo below; The Golden Gumboot of Tully Yep, where other towns and cities have a boring statue or worthy memorial in their centre, Tully has opted for a giant welly. Not only is it a glorious shade of garish green/yellow but it's wow factor is undoubtedly enhanced by the careful placement of an enormous t...

T +  130  Townsville and Magnetic Island What a setting for a city this is. Absolute Coral Sea frontage, sparkling marinas, a river running through the town centre, views to live for out to Magnetic and Palm Islands, the Strand, which is a walking and bike path that runs for 5kms alongside the ocean, a massive man-made lagoon built for irikandji free-swimming, gym-stations every few hundred metres, relaxing alfresco cafes, a backdrop of the dramatic Castle Hill - and yet - somehow the city doesn't (imo) quite live up to its setting and potential. Castle Hill Now, of course there's the small matter of a global pandemic robbing the place of the undoubted vibrant atmosphere that the mix of young chilled out travellers, energetic and attractive grey nomads and laid back locals would normally bring. Maybe it's the way above average crime-rate and the constant night-time soundtrack of real life Gran Turismo closely followed by reality TV police sirens. The day after we l...

T+ 120 Whitsundays Talking of roads, did you know that the Bruce Highway features in the worlds Top 20 dangerous, major roads? I rambled on about how dreadful it is in my last post but its so bad I can't let it go that easily.. There's a fantastic roadside hoarding which I tried to find a picture of but failed. It compares the Bruce unfavourably to the Blanytre - Lilongwe road in Malawi, one of the worlds poorest countries and a road which I've actually travelled and agree wholeheartedly with the comparison. Now, to be fair Malawi is a large recipient of foreign aid, most notably these days from China so the obvious conclusion to draw is that Ms Palazsczuk should don face mask forthwith and make a flying visit to Beijing\and join the Silk Road project or something.. Worth a try. Still talking of toads, sorry roads ( a guaranteed cane toad per square metre\in Qld) in the late 1980's when living in Bulgaria we used to regularly drive the Zagreb to Belgrade ro...