So on Monday night in Richmond was fairly uneventful. It is a tiny little town where it is obvious that life is pretty tough, but those who live there work really hard to make their town attractive and welcoming. We overnighted in the little caravan park, pulling into the very last spot around 7 pm – although it was so busy in terms of overnighters, it was obviously simply a stopover with no one staying on to see the sights of Richmond because the place was just about deserted by the time we got out of bed – these grey nomads sure can get up and get moving early! But then again, we are usually the last people to go to bed in these caravan parks – usually everyone is asleep by 8.30 pm.
We decided against fossicking for fossils, and the slave driver pushed us onwards from Richmond for another long drive – some of which was again through the flattest land I have EVER come across. These long drives certainly give you some perspective on the magnitude of Australia – I have a theory that this is one of the reasons why our tourists find Aussie so fascinating – with their huge populations in small spaces they must find it quite a marvel to witness all the space we enjoy.
Charters Towers was next on the agenda – a lovely old outback town, that again, has lovingly restored buildings from the gold rush days, but one gets the feeling that it is a small group of dedicated town fathers and mothers who make it all happen and that a lot of it comes down to government money designed to keep dying towns afloat. Cass and I did find a lovely little book exchange there – which was very fortuitous because we were running quite low on reading matter. We also discovered that the Australian Stock Exchange started in Charters Towers and the building where it was located is being carefully returned to its former gold rush days of glory.
Onwards, ever onwards, to the best free camp spot we have had so far on this journey of ours. We had seen it in our ‘free camp’ book and anyplace that has showers with no accompanying dollar sign has to have something going for it, and if it is on the banks of a river, then it is definitely worth a look – and it was worth the stop. It was situated at the confluence of the Fletcher and Burdekin Rivers (I love that word Burdekin) and there were at least 100 vans stretched out at various intervals along the treed two rivers – the water was flowing and had fish in it, with amazing bird life all around us. It was just beautiful and we had a lovely evening sitting at the edge of the river, toasting marshmallows and enjoying the ‘freeness’ of it all!
We timed our pack up that morning – twenty minutes in all, which isn’t bad really given that Cass has a whole huge tent to take down. Onwards and onwards – we worked out that we have now moved about 1 700 kilometres from Mataranka. The landscape has given way to what they call Tropical Savannah – in my opinion not quite tropical, but definitely green, lots of trees, winding roads through hilly country, the occasional bluff, lots of rocks – much more interesting. Our destination was Undara Volcanic National Park – a fairly remote (although there is tar road all the way there) National Park that is run by a private family (so they charge like a wounded bull). There are lava tubes to discover, various walks, evening activities, a lovely restaurant, a swimming pool, various types of accommodation (including a lovely caravan park that we are now ensconced in for TWO nights!) – we feel quite luxurious having power, water, showers (with cute little green frogs in them) and a bit of permanence! The temperatures are back to warmish – we had a bit of a cold spell for a few days with the temperature dipping down to only 25 and had to bring out a jumper or two and an extra blanket at night! (Hang in there you Victorians!)
Last night we enjoyed some free campfire entertainment and listened to a Bush Poet recite some poetry – unfortunately he was losing his voice so it kinda lost the impact, but tonight we have a bush songster performing complete with washboards (I will explain that tomorrow for the overseas readers – but remember Rolf Harris) so we are looking forward to that. We are booked into a lava tube tour (once again for an unconscionable amount of money – but again it was the cheapest thing we could find on their list of activities) so that should be interesting. Apparently these lava tubes go for 90 km north and another for 160 km north west.
Last night at dusk we did a lovely walk down through a swamp and saw a variety of things (wallabies, kangaroos, Tawny Frog Mouth (like an owl, but not)), the most outstanding of which was a hatchling of black butterflies on one tree – I have never seen butterflies ‘swarm’ and it was a wondrous sight!
Our little spider friend Fred continues to thrive on the roof of our van – this is that one that has been in our van since Kununurra – I am sure he has grown since he first joined us – and every evening we watch him as we prepare dinner – he moves down the van roof from his usual hangout towards the light (where the small insects are attracted) and quietly chooses his victim, then patiently waits, and finally … pounces! Cass managed to get a lovely photo of him – we didn’t realize until now what a lovely greeny colour he is.
1 comment:
Good to see you guys are still having fun in the warmer part of the country. Snow down here. Keep up the great words and pics. Roast beef, gravy and jacket potatoes at PC last weekend, courtesy PC President! Yummy.
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