Well we have been killing them that is for sure – 900 yesterday and nearly 700 today – that man is SUCH a slave driver! We did have a change of plan though, and this is where the grey nomads do prove very useful. When we got to Mount Isa, Rich got into conversation with a lovely old chap and basically he told us that we would never get to Kurumba in the daylight hours we had left, as it was a ‘development road’ (this means one strip of tar and you get off the road for the road trains – i.e. very slow going) and was probably also not really worth the 700 kilometers to get there – especially for only two days. Then when we phoned ahead to book a spot we found out that there was ONE powered site in THREE caravan parks, we kinda lost heart and decided instead to head straight to the east coast instead of going via the Gulf of Carpenteria – so tonight we find ourselves in Richmond (Queensland – a whole lot of nothing – open arid plains, but a full camp ground with people in transit to somewhere).
Anyway, he didn’t sleep that well as a result and so he had us up literally before the sun rose – no breakfast, just straight into the car and into the sunrise, which was absolutely stunning. The land was so flat that you could look in a complete circle around you and see horizon wherever you went in a vast circle – the road stretched ahead in a long grey ribbon. The sky was huge with lots of beautiful clouds catching the pinks and oranges and there were several moments when I looked up and felt tiny (like a minute little ant) crawling along under an almost overwhelming sky. It was an ‘aha’ moment.
Whilst it was so lovely in the early morning, a few hours later, this incredibly flat grassland had become so boring we were all scratching for something to keep ourselves occupied. Rich was actually trying to read the signs for the travellers going the other way – just for something to do! So driving into Mount Isa yet a few more hours later was particularly exciting because there were rocky hills, green trees and shrubs, with the road diving around corners and leaping up inclines and spilling down hills. Not at all what we expected! Somehow we had expected a flat, hot place, with mine dumps all around, and rearing up machinery growling through the piles of red sand. While I can’t say that a mining town is high on my list of ‘must sees’ - it was pleasant to be in Mount Isa – maybe it was just the free camp the night before – I always come away from those feeling a little deprived (okay, I know I am a princess) but seriously, I was still technically in my jammies by the time we got there, and had not even put a comb through my hair or a toothbrush to my mouth - so it was lovely to stock up on the groceries, stop for lunch, sit on a real toilet and read a newspaper that wasn’t a week old! (I only did all this after I had brushed my hair and teeth of course – I don’t think the striped jammy bottoms were that noticeable!).
Some observations from the day … we admire the farmers of Australia – heck they have a hard job. If it isn’t drought, it is fire, or maybe flood, and if not flood, then the odd cyclone. Their cattle are hard to keep behind fences and get hit on the highways by road trains. There are rabbits, cane toads, mice plagues and swarming locusts. One only has to be out in the farmland (and we have passed through quite a bit) to realise how large the land and the challenge, and how small the humans who attempt to farm it – truly they are heroes the way they throw themselves again and again at the elements that to be honest, only seem to work against them.
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