Day 23: Cloncurry - Townsville

We left Cloncurry at 6AM and stopped for breakfast at 9AM in Richmond.

Our journey was pretty uneventful. Oly and I were pretty tired and relieved to be away from that Homestead. We really thought we were going to be stuck there for a long long time.

When we passed an over turned truck Steve decided to tell us that if you veer even a little bit on the side of the road there is a sort of whip effect and the end trailer can turn over taking the whole train with it. We later overtook another huge road train which was pretty tense from where I was sitting!

We arrived in Townsville around 3PM and Steve took us to a mechanic who wasn't able to help us as he was not familiar with VW's, plus he was very busy for the next two weeks. We made a few calls and decided to sort things out tomorrow.

We hired a car and checked into Bayview apartments which are right on The Strand overlooking the sea. I think we were lucky to find somewhere as most of the places we called were fully booked. We presume it has something to do with the funeral tomorrow of the Black Hawk pilot that crashed off Fiji.

Oly and I walked along the seafront. It was amazing how many people were exercising; joggers, rollerbladers, basketball and soccer players. They even had balancing beams. The Strand esplanade is beautiful, it is lined with palm trees and lawn. Everything is very well kept and clean and it has a real holiday feel.

As a treat we had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the sea. I had barramundi in beer batter and it was delicious. Walking back we visited the Cold Rock Ice Creamery where they crushed your choice of sweets into your choice of ice-cream flavour and then present it to you in your choice of tub or cone.

It's like Henry never existed ;)

Em

Miles: 790km
Time: 9 hours
Location: Click Me!
Temp: 31c

Day 22: Barkly Homestead - Cloncurry

We have been saved!

Oly got up at 5:30AM to catch the early morning trucks that would be outside Barkly Homestead waiting for it to open for breakfast.

When I woke up I tidied up Henry and spent an hour plucking up the courage to go into the ablutions where a dozen hornets were waiting to ambush me. Good job I googled hornets and it said if you kill one close to the nest the whole clan comes out to defend it. I had emptied a can of Raid into the crack of the door (my fire fighting training wasn't for nothing!) prior to the googling, but I don't think any died. When they started to come towards me instead of flying away in fear I knew I was not going to shower that day.

Finally around 11:30AM a road train pulled in going in the right direction with room for Henry. Plus the driver, Steve, said he could take us too. Townsville here we come!

I quickly showered in the hornet free gents. Even I didn't want to travel 100's of kilometres with me in a close confined space.

Henry was forklifted onto a trailer, we climbed up into the cab and didn't try to hide our excitement being in a road train. There were only two seats so I perched on the bed behind them.

Road trains are pretty cool. They have high ceilings so they are really roomy. It was a surprisingly bumpy ride, however even at 90 km/h you feel like you are only going at 50.

We are staying in Cloncurry tonight and tomorrow we will arrive in Townville. Hopefully we will be able to sort Henry out.

Em

Miles: 600km
Time: 8 hours
Location: Click Me!
Temp: 35c