The Sun has come out to play!

26th July 2010

Looking back over the last week, one main word comes to mind; driving. We have done plenty of it as we made our way up into the gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland to a sleepy town full of fish, old people and crocodiles.

Wednesday, we left our Poo spot just out side of Alice, we drove and drove and drove some more! Then excitement slapped us in the face as we were sucked into Australia’s Centre for UFO’s at Wycliffe Well. Well that was pretty much all it was, a roadhouse full of newspaper articles and painting of aliens! Brett was attacked but luckily not abducted.

Brett being attacked.

Meegan reminding herself about checking the oil.

Sunset at Soudan


Then onto Devils Marbles for what was supposed to be a quick look but turned into an overnight stop. This was the place to be seen if you owned a caravan or motor home, and as you know these strange creatures with grey hair, carrying their homes around on their backs are of course our favourite prey. We tried to look quite casual, reverse parking right into the centre of them all, ParkUp.com.au Stickers facing all angles as we tried to suck them in, and suck them in we did! Mobs upon mobs of them threw themselves at us asking for brochures and begging to sign up on the spot, there were cat fights and punch ups as each grey nomad tried to get closer to us!

After the brawl was over there was only one couple left. Parked next to us two friendly Victorian Caravaners who also happened to be heavily involved in a Caravan and Camping Club which has over 1000 members, so even though the mobs all slowly died around us after the brawl, we did manage to palm off some brochures and get some good photos and photos tips!

Thursday was spent driving! Through tenant creek, which we thought wasn’t a bad little town, not much going on but plenty of trees which generally makes a big difference. More driving until we came to a little spot a few 100’ks away called Soudan and that night Brett cooked the gnocchi to end all other gnocchi’s!

Well guess what happened on Friday?.......Go on have a guess……. We drove some more, all the way to Mt Isa. We did bump into another Victorian who for some crazy reason was cycling around this massive country. He hadn’t had any fresh fruit for a while so we gave him as much as he could carry and took off to cross the border into Queensland.

After camping just outside of Mt Isa for then night we awoke and set ourselves the task of reaching Karumba, as we were hankering for some warm weather and looking forward to being on the coast again. This meant another big 500k day of driving. When you’re only driving at 80k hour 500km takes a fair while.

Low and behold just over 100k down the road we saw the sign for the Quamby Rodeo, since we had reached cattle country we had both been very keen to experience the outback Aussie’s real nature. No where is this more prominent than at the local Rodeo. So we headed to Quamby which consisted of a Pub, nothing else, no shops no fuel just a pub in the middle of the bush.

Whatever stereo type of a cowboy you have in your head, Quambyins fit the bill. Cow boys, cowgirls, cow kids, all equipped with boots, jeans a chequered shirt, big belt buckles and of course the akubra hat. No guns but plenty of utes loaded up with swags, XXXX Gold and Bundy the Queensland equivalent of alcohol.

By 11.30am we were ringside, XXXX in hand watching the action which had been well underway for the last hour. First up was the bareback horse, although they are not as big or menacing as the bulls, they were more interesting to watch as the horses leap higher and bounce bigger. Next was the cow riding then the little tykes on the calves (some as young as 7). After all sorts of other horse/cow related events came the “Greased Pig”. Where anyone can enter, all you have to do is catch the greasy pig to win yourself $100 and the pig if you wanted it.

Later in the arvo as the beers kept on flowing, came the bull riding. (Many of the competitors were starting to give the bar a bit of a flogging, Beer and Bulls?)
Anyway, most of these crew knew what they where doing, (remember they start competing when they are 7). The bull riding was interesting to watch. Although personally the horses where much more entertaining. The whole show is a photographers dream, we don’t really know what we are doing with the camera but we still managed to pull a few special shots.

Yesterday was yet another big drive to Karumba since we didn’t make it the day before. A few stops in the first hour as some of our cowboy mates kept stopping on the highway and pulling us over to try and get us to skull yet one more XXXX at 10am. They eventually turned off and drove off to their station and we covered a few more 100’ks to Normanton. Finally we felt like we were actually away on holiday as we slowly cruised down the streets sweating in the humity and loving the sunshine! (Even the converter powering the computer is overheating as I type this, and keeps needing to turn its little cooler fan on to cool itself down). Other than a giant crocodile replica Normanton didn’t have much to offer so we jumped back in Bob to finish off the last 70k’s to Karumba.

We nearly made it to Karumba! Then BANG the driver’s side back tyre exploded! The same tyre we lost only 2 weeks ago and only replaced 2 days ago! This time it happened much, much quicker, one minute it was nice and sunny, Karumba was getting closer, the ocean was calling our names then Bam the whole right hand side of the car dropped to the road, driving on the rim of the wheel Brett luckily slowed down and steered us to safety!

It was hot and humid and the sun was baking down hard on us and on the bitumen in the late afternoon. The jack wouldn’t fit because the car was too low to the ground, luckily another car pulled up so we used his jack and ours and finally got the new wheel into place and headed off down the road to sunny 34 degrees Karumba!


A quick dip into the pool then a walk down to the ‘beach’ ( 800m of sand) to watch the amazing sun set into the ocean (which everyone finds amazing, but we are luckily to watch every night back in WA). Our second night without our massive doona and electric blanket was very much appreciated by the two of us!

After making dinner one night, the left over tomato juices decided to remind us of what country we are travelling around!

A friendly grasshopper.

Karumba was a very sleepy town but an awesome way to enjoy the heat as there was really nothing else to do other than sit back, relax and warm up. Actually we did feed a Barramundi and the Barramundi discovery centre and took a few more laps of the pool, Brett went for a run and flexed his muscled with some push-ups, but that was pretty much about it!