Encyclopedia Britannica (Improve yourself)

This post has very little relevance to our road trip. At an unnamed and inconspicuous roadside rest stop we found a full collection of the Encyclopedia Britannica's 1991 Edition. Rendered obsolete by the Internet, and with some poor Mum and Dad probably still to make the 300th easy payment of $19.95, the volumes were languishing in four cardboard boxes in the bush, unloved and unwanted.

It seemed sacrilegious to leave the abandoned tomes to the White Ants, and with very little better to do with our day, we set about create a little oasis of knowledge for our fellow travelers. 

When Bruce got noisy, I had to remind him that he was in a library.

We left instructions for the next users of the Rest Stop - in a 'worst case' situation you could even use it for dunny roll.

The Antipodean Mariners

Turning point

Yesterday was a day of extreme contrasts as we left the open savannah and Brahman cattle and ended the day amongst sugar cane and banana palms.

We were packing up yesterday morning and found a little tree frog had taken up residence in a kit bag. We splashed him down with a few drops of water and released it back into the undergrowth near our campsite. 

The road climbed up to the Atherton Tablelands and with a lot of traffic heading back to the coast after the Easter Holiday. We were forced on to the shoulder by one road train and followed a lot of caravans and camper trailers. The tool kit came out for the first time this trip but not for our bikes. A Land Rover pulled up behind us in Mt Surprise, loaded up with a family and camping paraphernalia. They had blown a radiator hose and were going nowhere. We were able to make the hose pressure tight with self-binding silicon tape and cable ties, and we last saw them (still driving) in Atherton heading for home in Cairns.

The Atherton Tablelands were cool and lush - a temperature drop from 34C to 19C in a day's ride and even a few spots of rain. Atherton was the most northerly point of the road trip, and at 16:15 the point at which we started heading south back to Melbourne. 

We are following the coast to Townsville and then heading back Inland to Charters Towers. Heavy tropical rain this morning.

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Gulf and Savannah

Every day presents us with a new perspective of Australia, and yesterday's run through the Gulf of Carpentaria and Savannah country was truly breathtaking.

Karumba was a short 70km hop from Normanton, and as soon as we rode out of town the brackish water tributaries and wetlands were teeming with birds - cranes, egrets and other wading waterbirds. Looping back we followed the railway line which is still in use today by the Gulflander rail car. The line was unique for being laid on steel sleepers with no ballast, and which was capable of surviving the frequent floods which would have washed away conventionally built track. The Black Bull siding is maintained as a 'tea and cake' stop for the Gulflander.

A lot of the Savannah Way is sealed with a single centre lane with wide gravel shoulders. We were lucky with Easter that traffic was light, and there were no road trains, as they stick to the centreline and all other has to pull off onto the shoulder to pass. It made for a nice photo though sitting in the middle of the road.

We pulled of the Savannah Way, just outside of Georgetown, at site of the Cumberland Gold Mine and settlement. The mine was famous for extracting capital from it's London investors for ever diminishing gold for each ton of ore mined. Just the chimney for the boilers and lake remain as a reserve for birds (and a few cattle). A curious lizard came out of the undergrowth to check us out.

The pub's kitchen in Georgetown was closed for Easter and so we cooked up a storm in the campground, washed it down with a bottle of red and half a bottle of Johnny Walker around the mini-fireplace. Today's destination is Atherton Tablelands behind Cairns.

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Tropic heat

We have moved from Nevada-like desert dry to tropical wet in just two days. After a quick pack and the morning at the Mt Isa Experience, we didn't hit the highway until about 11:00 and made Cloncurry about 12:30. The local Woolies provided with us with a healthy lunch of Caesar salad, cabinosi and orange juice in the local park.

The temperatures on the road have been a steady 34C and we are taking water stops every hour or so to stretch. Heading north from Cloncurry, we had to keep a weather eye out for Brahman cattle, wallabies and the occasional lizard on the lightly trafficed Developmntal Road to Normanton.

We got in just on sunset, and had a slow setup talking bikes with a fellow traveller who had ridden around South America over a year. Normanton has thousands of small (baby) cane toads clustered around any light source, all competing for a meal of the flying bugs.

They threw us out of the Purple Pub at 8pm closing, and we came back and had a swim in the dark - the perfect end to a long, hot day on the road. I had to throw the tent fly off in the middle of the night to get some breeze through and it was 29C at dawn this morning.

We'll skip through Karumba and then pick up the Savanah Way to Georgetown. Two weeks today since we rode out from Melbourne.

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Crossing over

Yesterday's run from Barkly Roadhouse to the Queensland border was the first time that I have used the term 'boring'.

The lush, high grass and trees of the Barkly Tableland abruptly stopped at the Soudan Well, giving way to kilometres of open, brown grasslands. A road sign proclaimed that this was the beginning of the catchment for Lake Eyre in SA, and it was hard to tell whether the country changed or whether this was as a result of the bush being cleared for cattle grazing.

It was hot - 34 to 35C most of the day - and we met a cyclist riding from Townsville to Perth at one of the roadside rest stops. He was looking for shelter for the night, and we gave him the bad news that there was not a tree in sight for next 100km. We were drenching down our tees and jeans wherever we could find a water tank, the evaporative cooling at 120km/h nice for about the 40 or so minutes it took to be completely dry again.

We crossed into Queenland just before 15:00 and took the obligatory border photo. Passing through Camooweal, the country got hilly and the roads got windy just out of Mt Isa, and we rolled into the mining town just before 17:00. Good Friday, and everywhere was shut. Took our first (unplanned) 'alchohol free' day and had to make do with two chicken curry and rice ration packs in the caravan park.

The weather is changing, with the cold, dry desert mornings giving way to milder and slightly more humid dawns. Today heading to Cloncurry and then north to Normanton and Karumba, a port town on the Gulf of Carpentaria. The burramundi are running, and the fishermen are flocking there to get up in to the mangrove tributaries.

We have been on the road for two weeks now - chronologically half way. Yesterday's run 450km, 4,936km behind us as we ride out for Cloncurry.

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Eastbound

Yesterday was another day of big kilometres and high speeds as we try to claw back some days after Uluru and Kings Canyon. We have made the decision to abandon the Tablelands Highway from Cape Crawford to Barky Station, and have instead turned right at Threeways NT and are eastbound for Queensland.

We stopped yesterday at the Rev. John Flynn Memorial at Threeways NT. John Flynn was the founder of the Inland Mission Service and the Royal Flying Doctor Service. John Flynn's life was biographically researched and published by my late father-in-law, Dr Scott McPheat, and Flynn's life was a big part of Ali's family's history as well.

We met a fascinating character at Barkly Roadhouse in Peter, an Aussie living in London and reconnecting with the land of his birth by circumnavigation of the continent on a Honda CB125. Starting in Perth and crossing the Nullabor, he is now heading north to Darwin at a steady 65 km/h and will ride through the Pilbara back to the start point. Proof that you can see a lot with very little in the way of equipment and possessions. 

The Roadhouse is an oasis of grass and shelter trees, and has been one of the best stops on the road trip. Today's target is Mt Isa, about 520 km.

The Antipodean Mariners

The view from my tent yesterday morning

Devils Marbles

Rev. John Flynn Memorial - founder of the Flying Doctor Service

Peter, riding a Honda CB125 around Australia

Aileron NT

Not much to blog today. We had a late start from Erldunda Roadhouse, and groceries to buy in Alice Springs before the larger towns dry up in the NT. Alice was well stocked and we were only stopped for about an hour. The roads are soooo straight that we resorted to slow slaloms along the centreline. Speed limit is 130km/h and we were overtaken a few times by even quicker locals.

We skipped lunch and the next road house at Aileron appeared on the horizon at 16:00 as the shadows were getting longer. Two other riders heading south were stopped for the night and told us that the next two towns north were pretty rough.

We have set up shop in a nice grassy spot, made a cuppa and set out for Tennant Creek for tomorrow.

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3,898km in