Road Trippin'

Alex & I have completed our journey from Cairn to Darwin (more than 3,300km and thirty plus driving hours), after six nights and seven days straight on the road in a tiny, pop-top diesel, SUV, and it was quite a trip.  The first day our drive from Cairns to Ayr was uneventful and we made good time but we were only able to drive six hours because we had to stop in order to dive the Yongala the next morning.  The dive was absolutely amazing but I’ll fill you in more about that in another post. 

 

After the Yongala dive, we got on the road a little past 4pm and the real adventure began.  From Ayr we headed west, through Charters Towers, towards Hughenden.  The roads weren’t great and it was quickly approaching sundown but we needed to press on in order to get within 200km of Winton, where we wanted to stop the next day to see the dinosaur fossils.  It was plainly stated (see below) not to drive at night and we'd been warned that there are all kinds of animals that make their way onto the roads after dark but did we listen…   

 

 

No, of course not.  It was going perfectly fine until this massive steer ran out from behind a tree and right in front of the SUV while we were going about 110km/hr.  Alex braked quickly and managed only to whack the front passenger side of the vehicle against the left rear flank of the beast at about 40km/hr.  Amazingly, we drove away with just a few tufts of fur on the brush guard but no worse for the wear but we were both traumatized by the experience and vowed no more night driving!  (Yes, the cow probably lived but it was definitely sore for a few days).

 

We arrived in Hughenden too late to check into any caravan parks so we ended up parked along the side of the road for the night (the sign as we entered the town said it was an ‘RV friendly town’ so we assumed it was a safe bet and it was, except we were kept up all night by road trains roaring into town at all hours).  Unphased by our ghetto arrangement, the next morning we got up, pulled out our chairs and enjoyed an early roadside breakfast. 

 

 

The third day of the trip was, for a myriad of reasons, the hardest of them all.  Our trip to Winton was 220km of the most rural driving Alex has ever seen.  It was seriously worse than driving through Nebraska or Oklahoma or any flat, empty wasteland back home. 

 

 

And it went on foreeeevvvvveeeerrr.

 

 

Then, finally some scenery in the distance…

 

 

That was as good as it got that day.  A highlight of that leg was seeing several wild emus along the road.  I would have stopped for pics but the emu had babies so we both agreed that it probably wasn’t the greatest idea.  We arrived in Winton, already a 200km out of the way drive, only to discover that the muttabuttasaurus (yep, that’s the name of the local dinosaur) fossils were another 115km out of town on unsealed roads.  Neither of us wanted to drive another two hours when we still had a five hour drive ahead of us and we weren’t technically allowed to drive on unsealed roads in our campertruck so we drove all that way for nothing.  EPIC FAIL! 

 

We were both pretty annoyed and disappointed so we took solace in the ‘sights of Winton’, the piece de resistance being Arno’s Wall.  A self-described ‘modern wonder of art and architecture’, the wall is Arno’s way of displaying all the junk he culled from the town dump over the year.  No I’m not making this up, here’s the plaque commemorating this local gem.

 

 

And here is the aforementioned 'modern wonder'…

 

 

From there it was on to Mount Isa, another 372km of boring driving (a good hour or more of which I slept through).  Home to one of the largest mines in Queensland, Mount Isa is a mine with a town, not the other way around.   

 

 

Along the way, we stopped to take a photo of this famous Australian landmark.  Can you name the film that featured this roadhouse?  (if not, the answer is at the end of the post)

 

 

Once we’d crept through town, we checked into a nearby RV park and were directed to the ‘shady tourist area’.  Alex & I agreed ‘shaded tourist area’ was probably a better choice of words but their way made us laugh and Alex took a photo with the sign, proud to be a shady tourist for a day.

 

 

The next morning we had a big drive ahead of us; we were leaving Queensland and entering the Northern Territory for the second half of our trip.  We were SO sick of listening to the same songs on my iPod over and over again, because there were no radio stations once we got 50kms west of Townsville, that we stopped and bought a CD set of 101 Number One Songs.  You can see the joy it brought Alex…

 

The desolate drive began with a 30km stretch of road construction that took us off-roading for the first time.

 

Then Alex launched into warp speed…

 

Finally there were some hills to break up the monotony.

 

Then we had to stop for a pee break.

 

The trip had a few stinky moments.

 

I even drove for a little bit (which was a team effort since it was manual and on the ‘wrong side’ of the car while driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road).

 

Finally we called it a day, 950kms later, and stopped at the Dunmarra Roadhouse for the night. 

 

Maybe you thought yesterday was ridiculous?  Well, Day Five Alex finally cracked.  He’d been at the helm for days as we crossed kilometer after kilometer of nothingness and he was over it.

 

We hadn’t even driven 100kms before he composed the first of several muttabuttasaurus haikus.  One went like this ‘I think I love you.  Muttabuttasaurus. You are a giant.’  Yep, that tells you the state of mind in the car and we still had two days left to go.

Our first stop was in Mataranka to visit the hot springs we’d heard about on our travels.  The Bitter Springs were lush and temperate and, surprisingly, not home to any crocs or other ferocious predators so you could actually enjoy them.

 

I was creeped out by this little snake though…

 

It was only a brief stop to see the springs and we were back on the road.  The roads themselves were nearly empty (as you can see from all the exciting travel shots I took so you guys could see the boredom for yourselves) except for huge semis called ‘road trains’.  These semis could range from three to five trailers long and in excess of 50m long and barreled down the road creating huge gusts of wind in their wake.  We had been warned to be careful of passing them but we didn’t think they were so bad; it was actually nice to see another vehicle every once in a while.

 

The only other constant on our journey was the unending number of termite mounds.  They were everywhere; on nearly every stretch of road between Charters Towers and Darwin, every five feet or so, going back as far as the eye could see.  Some were bigger then others and some were down right huge and there were so many.  We stopped to take a photo in a field so you can see for yourself.

 

This one, which I deemed the Taj Mahal of termite mounds, was bigger than some of the nearby trees! (fun fact: the mounds are built in a north south configuration in order to minimize sun exposure and keep the mound temperate).

 

We stopped at Litchfield National Park, 100km south of Darwin, for the night and it was a rough one.  Bugs were everywhere and it was HOT.  We were in our camper with the lights off around 8, sweating and miserable, to escape the unrelenting pests.  The upside to our bad night was the glorious morning that followed.  We were up before sunrise and, no surprise, also before everyone else camping nearby. 

 

We had the place to ourselves and walked down to the nearby Florence Falls for a dip to wake up.  It was a gorgeous morning and the water felt great.  We played around in the water for a half hour-ish and swam out to the waterfall; it was a wonderful way to start the day.    

 

 

 

 

 

Then we were back on the road for the final push to Darwin.  We’d heard good things about the Sunset Markets on Sundays so we were eager to check them out once in town and they didn’t disappoint.  There was a guy playing the digeridoo and lots of delicious food to enjoy as well as the usual market fare. 

 

Now that we’ve gotten to the end of our road trip, we’ve returned the camper and are enjoying the high life at the Darwin YHA for the next few days.  We are savoring the hot, non-communal, showers and a toilet adjacent to our room because in two days we’re off on The Ghan to Alice Springs where another campertruck and five day journey through the Outback awaits us.  Cue the Indian Jones theme song…

PS.  The Walkabout Creek Hotel is the Outback pub in Crocodile Dundee, only like the best Aussie movie EVER.  Did anyone really not know that?!