Daily Waters Outback Pub

We are now travelling in the "hot zone" with temperatures over 30C. The journey from Tennant Creek to Daily waters was HOT and long. We stayed entertained by listening to Bryce Courtney's Tandia along the way. Lots of road trains and plenty of them carrying cattle along the way. The road is straight and monotonous so you need something to focus on. 
The abundant rain this year has turned the barren land into a flowering meadow in many places, and it is green and very beautiful. 
The turn off to Daily Waters looked very insignificant and arriving at this vibrant place in the middle of nowhere was a pleasant surprise. This is a meeting place for people from all walks of life and the workers in the Pub were mainly Irish back packers. 
We spent two nights here and went for early morning walks and met a lot of nice people, played pool, and did our best to stay cool in the swimming pool.
Today is the first day since Graeme and I met that we have been able to do nothing for a whole day and boy it was so nice!!.
 (38C today).


Let us intoduce one of the nice people we met. Kylie, from a farm in Qld, is now working as a teacher in Alice Springs. She travelled by herself in her Toyota Hilux and sleeps in her swag on the tray of her vehicle. It takes some courage and determination to do what she does and we were quite impressed with her. One of the highlights of travelling like this is meeting and learning about other people's lives and gaining a deeper understanding about contemporary life in Australia 2010. You get a very different perspective on things when you see and hear things first hand.  

We are moving on towards Katherine tomorrow. Some clouds on the horizon but and have been blessed with sunshine most of the time so far.

Footprints in the sand on our morning walk

Back on the road Darwin Bound 22/09/2010

What a busy time we had in Sydney and  Melbourne but it was so nice to catch up with everyone  and  to come away with a new Grandson and my Australian citizenship (after 29 years ) .
 We left Alice Springs saying good by to Daniel Theresa and  the kids who had made us so welcome, around 9 am and  headed for Tennant  Creek. The weather was great, unlike when we arrived, and we made short work of the 550 km arriving early afternoon.
 Highlights of this trip were:






This ultra lite Plane landing for fuel at the Ti Tree Road house  (200 km north of Alice). He had come from Kununura near Darwin and was flying all the way to Wollongong (Sydney). Amazing and only 60 km from where we are Building in Razor Back.

We are enjoyed our stay in Tennant Creek but it is very sad to see the indigenous people with little hope as throwing money at them is not the answer. We met some nice people and joined them for a Church service, first in the morning for their multi cultural service and secondly for their Indigenous service at night .This was very interesting experience with some talented Aboriginals playing in the band and a very exited minister trying to get some of them off the booze.

 In the morning (Monday the 27th) we head for Mataranka hot springs and the heat is around 38 from now on with nights close to 30 and with ML having her hot flushes beside me, it should be very interesting.

Family times

We have been busy with family for the past couple of weeks.

We spent some family time with my son Daniel, Teressa and the grand children in Alice Springs before flying down to Melbourne to stay with my daughter Naomi and her husband husband Jason. They have been in Hong Kong for 3 years and in South America for the past 6 months.

They are expecting their first child in early March next year and it was great to catch up. We also visited Nicole and Marko and my godsons Sebastian and Elijah. The family are taking care of our German Shepherd Zoe whilst we are away and she is very settled with the family and their pets.

We flew up to Sydney for another important event and that was Graeme’s granddaughter Isabella’s first Birthday. The day was sunny and a lot of people gathered in Bicentenary Park in Camden to celebrate the event with the proud parents Jason and Lisa. 

On Friday the 17^th September Graeme’s daughter Michelle gave birth to a healthy little boy Jamerson, and Graeme became granddad for the third time.  Wayne is a proud father and Nathaniel a very happy big brother.

We also caught up with Graeme’s daughter Nichola and husband Steven who are taking care of our dogs Molly and Daisy and is doing a very good job of it.

We had our first opportunity to live in our temporary home at the block, a mobile house that is going to serve us well.

After visiting the new grandson on Tuesday and receiving Graeme’s citizenship certificate we are going back to Alice Springs to resume our trip and head for Darwin.

MOUNT ISA TO ALICE SPRINGS 1140 km Graeme

 

After refuelling in Camooweal we had lunch at the Barkly Homestead, a well deserved stop and a very friendly place. It is run by backpackers, as are most of the cafes we have visited on this trip. They work 12 days straight and get 2 days off. Most are on a 3 month contract.

After the 3 Ways we stayed the night in Tennant Creek, a town of 3 000 that lives on welfare and government initiated work projects. Our caravan park had a spa, pool, bar, restaurant and lots of grass sites. We appreciated this after having endured sandy sites on a few occasions in the past. There were several workers at the caravan park from all over Australia. They were hired to repair the indigenous population's houses;  something they do regularly. 

We headed off to Alice Springs where the Hog rally is to be held, and finally after 6000 km of sunshine we hit a storm that lasted for 100 km.

It was so bad we had to lean into the wind and reduce the speed to 50 kph, though even at this speed we were still passing cars. 

The Alice Springs Hog Rally started on Friday the 3rd and we were there to participate in the rally and to catch up with Marie-Louise's son Daniel, his wife Theresa and four grandkids.

We enjoyed the Thunder Run on the Saturday but the highlight for both of us was riding the bike and trailer through the Bojangles Pub on the Sunday, along with 120 other Harleys.     The Bojangles pub is famous and broadcasts live around the world with over 5,000,000 hits last month. 

On Monday morning we woke the grandkids (Yoshi 7, Erika 11, Anne-Louise 13, and Stefan 15) at 4am to take a two day bus trip to Uluru, King's Canyon and the Olgas.

It was a return trip of 1000 km, with a 6.2 km walk around Kings Canyon over some huge hills and more than 10 km around Uluru. We were so proud of all the kids especially the youngest ones Yoshi and Erika who never once complained.

We enjoyed the camping and cooking and met some interesting people from all around the globe.

It was a great weekend, very tiring but camping with the grandkids in this wonderful country is something we will always treasure.

Alice Springs with its population of 28,000 surprised us.  The locals love it here.  It is an expensive town with house prices over 500k.  There are around 8000 aboriginals who need help badly.  Alcohol and the tribal way of 'what's yours is mine' is a huge problem. 
Also idle hands make idle minds as very few work and they rely on the  dole.

We are flying out in the morning for Sydney via Melbourne for Graeme's granddaughter Isabella's first birthday. We shall be back in Alice in about a week to head for Darwin .

OUTBACK AUSTRALIA

From here on you can drive at 130 km per hour

From Georgetown we travelled via Croydon, Normanton up to Karumba where we stayed the night. We experienced an incredible sunset and had a great dinner at the Sunset Tavern. The following day we travelled towards Cloncurry and Mt Isa.

This is really the outback of Australia and what you experience is: cattle, wildlife dead and alive along the road, birds and road trains, caravans and other travellers.

You stop and fuel up and eat at the road houses and they must be a gold mine to run.

The road sometimes has only got one lane and if you meet a road train here you have to get off the road. This was quite challenging and we prayed and hoped not to meet any at the most difficult passages. The road trains are huge and it takes them about 2 kms to stop safely. We had to get off the road once only and the other times we were at a two-lane stretch as it alternates between one and two lanes.

Some distances are long and boring as the roads are as straight as a ruler and we have downloaded some audio books from the net to keep us alert and entertained. We have listened to Clinton and Obama so far and are quite enlightened about the States domestic and foreign politics now.  

THE PLANNED TRIP

THE LAVA TUBES TO MT ISA

 

After a great couple of days in Undarra it's time to move on. 
Our first stop 200 km down the road was George Town, and it was here Marie-Louise gave birth to several healthy kittens -
or that is what it seemed like!!

  She used the ladies loo and laughed at the sign on the toilet system saying "Keep the lid closed to prevent green frogs." After flushing she looked in the bowl to see big green frogs half stuck in the rim of the toilet.  Her screams could be heard back in Undarra.

     From here we rode through Croydon to Normanton where there is a replica of the longest saltwater crock ever shot -- 8.46 metres -- (and the only interesting thing in town),  then on to Karumba which is an area rich in bird life.
     
     Here we had an awesome dinner, a rack of lamb with 10 vegetables (amazing that  1000 kms from the nearest city and they had such good food).
Karumba is famous for amazing sunsets and we were not disappointed.  The view from the Sunset Tavern where we ate was so romantic.  The seafood is the other thing to come to    Karumba for and Marie-Louise loved her prawns.
      
      In the morning a quick pack up  (now we know our jobs and we are getting away 2 hours earlier than when we first set out and no stress.)   Off to Mt Isa, a trip of 550 km . 
      The road was shocking with lots of gravel, road trains and single lanes 'till we reached the Burke and Wills Roadhouse.  
      Here we stopped for fuel, had some fun with our fellow travellers and moved on to a roadside stop for lunch where Marie-Louise did her screaming again, as a big yellow wasp chased her.

Soon after lunch we were hit by a swarm of locusts!!
      It was crazy, if you looked up the sky was full of them zooming past  (like stars in a star trek movie) and we had to lay low on the bike to avoid being hit for many minutes .
     The bike was smashed with them and Marie-Louise quickly got to washing them off when we stopped to fuel up. 


     We arrived in Mt Isa late afternoon after being held up by an 8 metre wide prime mover as it blocked the highway because it had broken down.
     We spent three nights here, Cookie and his brother Ron arrived the second night for a baked dinner of fillet of beef and kangaroo rump that we cooked in our turbo oven .
     
     2 days to go and 1250 km 'till Alice Springs with storms forecast. 
We are praying they don't eventuate .