Before the desert

Thanks to the best efforts of Google to prevent us accessing emails, blogs have by necessity been a bit delayed, and as we’re now in remote country and there’s no cell phone communication, they’re even further delayed.  We have a satellite phone and use it sparingly to report our position daily to our youngest son in the UK.  If we fail to check in, the idea is that he can work out approximately where we should be and alert the emergency services.  Fortunately, we’ve never had to resort to the emergency procedure.

Leaving Alice Springs we soon left the last bit of tarmac and hit dirt roads, or tracks really.  Some tracks are wide, with lots of space to recover if the vehicle slides on the loose surface stones, while in other places they are so narrow that two vehicles cannot pass.  I won’t go into the quality of the tracks.  They vary from good to awful, often with no warning of the change.

We saw perhaps, half a dozen vehicles on the way to the Maryvale Aboriginal settlement.  Once there, a few scrawny dogs lay around and a number of wrecked cars propped on rocks was about the sum total of life.  Of people, not one, so we carried on to a spot called Chamber’s Pillar.  This natural rock formation towers over the surround flat landscape, near to another known as Castle Rock, which looked to us a little like two faces, mouths open looking towards the sky in wonderment.

It’s impossible to put into words the magnificence of the sky at night from a place with no man-made light to obscure the view. The sky seems enormous, the stars clear and bright, and the Milky Way really does look milky.  We stood and stared until our necks hurt.

Arising before dawn, we watched the sun rise and cast its colour-enhancing morning light on Chamber’s Pillar.  A cold wind whipped up small whirlwinds of dust and we were happy to get back to Vin Rouge, put on the kettle for a warming cuppa.

More dirt tracks and our mid-day stop was at the Lamberts Centre, which is the geographical centre of Australia.  We realised that we were further away from the coast than we had ever been before.  Time for a few photographs and a bite of lunch and it was necessary to be on our way.  We still had a long way to go to reach Mount Dare before nightfall.

We did make it, with almost an hour of daylight left and something in excess of 350 jarring kilometres of rough track completed in the day.  Now Mount Dare is not a mountain but a roadhouse/pub.  Our tent was erected in record time and we adjourned to the bar for a cold beer or two to wash away the dust.  We decided to eat in the pub and I can honestly say that the fillet steak I enjoyed was one of the best.  Replete, we turned in for a (reasonably) early night and slept like logs.

A lazy start to the following day was a bit of a novelty but it was necessary to fill up with as much diesel as we could carry for the next filling station is over 600 kilometres away in Birdsville and we have more than a thousand sand dunes to negotiate before then.

A relatively short run of about 70 kilometres and we reached Dalhousie Springs.  There’s not much there, just a campsite and a billabong naturally warmed by fresh water from the artesian basin.  So we soaked away some aching muscles in 34 degrees watched by hundreds of corellas roosting in the trees.

Camp set up and we heard tales of vehicles breaking down in the desert and met one chap whose vehicle needed towing.  The tow truck had travelled over 400 kilometres to find him.  Fingers crossed we’ll be OK.  Tomorrow is the beginning of the Simpson Desert.

Not much tarmac

The road west from Boulia is variously called the Outback Way and the Plenty Highway.  It’s not clear exactly what’s plentiful on this track, unless it dust.  We found plenty of that.  Bulldust pits in the road, dust on the car, dust in the car, dust covering just about everything, including us.  We’ve experienced dust before of course but it never ceases to amaze me how the stuff manages to penetrate every tiny crack and crevice.  And of course, as the humidity is very low, static builds up and the red stuff sticks to every piece of plastic.

Setting out from Boulia we quickly ran out of tarmac.  It was to be about 400 kilometres of dirt road before we found it again. 

Then we ran out of Queensland.  It had taken five days but finally we reached the border, crossing into the Northern Territory.  Queensland is a very large State.

We came across small pods of cattle, a few sheep, various species of birds and that was about it.  A few other travellers and a couple of road trains could be identified early by their dust clouds but apart from that, we had the road to ourselves.

Breaks are necessary and we’re getting petty efficient with the coffee breaks.  The new cupboard makes use of some dead space above the cooker.  It seems to work well, even when it’s me making the brew.

There’s not a lot more to add.  The scenery changed little.  Scrubby eucalypts, spinifex grass, the occasional bush, a few cows, half a dozen sheep, a couple of birds and that was it.

Where the road surface was good, and outback dirt roads can be very smooth, we made rapid progress, averaging about 75 kpm.  Bulldust pits dropped the speed to about 30kpm, and long stretches of rough meant we varied from slow to about 60kpm.  Concentration is required the whole time.  It’s very easy to become mesmerised and miss danger points.

Miles of road works slowed progress.  Sometimes, minor diversion tracks had been created by a grader while new bridges were built over what would be rivers in the wet season.  Sometimes the works went on and on and on, and we wondered why it was necessary to create upheaval on such a grand scale.

The Australian outback is a strange place.  Sometimes it seems as though it never changes, then all of a sudden, something quite different appears.  The land is ancient, hundreds of millions of years old.  Time has served to create weird and wondrous shapes.  Sometimes there’s a whole collection of natural formations, sometimes, quite incongruously, just a single shape, apparently there for no logical reason.

After something in excess of 400 kilometres we reached tarmac again.  The Stuart Highway which runs from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south.  We turned left and, in an hour, arrived in Alice Springs.

Kim wanted to stock up on provisions and as it was Sunday, we headed straight for the supermarket.  Upon returning to the vehicle I spotted an ominous puddle of black oil underneath.  “Oh dash bother” or words to that effect.  We have problems.  Closer inspection revealed that engine oil was being forced out under pressure from near the filter.  Tightening made no difference so it was evidently a workshop job.  With the greatest of luck and after a few false starts, we found a superb engineer who diagnosed a worn ‘O’ ring in the system.  We carry quite a collection of spare parts and as luck would have it, had one of the correct size.  A huge thank you to Ghan Road Mechanics (and a recommendation to use them if you ever find yourself in strife in the Alice). 

We spent an enjoyable day exploring Alice Springs and by mid evening we were once again ready for the road.  Just as well, we have of lot of remote travelling ahead.

A little less tarmac

Continuing westward, it was not long before we reached the town of Longreach.  We’ve been here before, some nine years ago and how the place has changed.  Before, it was a quiet town.  Sure it had the QANTAS museum, at which we spent an enjoyable and informative morning and the School of the air where we spent an educational afternoon.  The Stockman’s Hall of Fame we more or less missed out.  This visit we skipped the two former and spent the entire morning at the latter.  We were accompanied by busloads of grey nomads queuing for the gift shop and the toilets, but enjoyed the Stockman’s show.  Breaking horses, training horses and explaining how horses were used (and still are used) to round up cattle and sheep from the vast areas of the outback stations was informative, if perhaps presented as something of an entertainment. 

Instead of staying, as originally planned, we decided to move on from the tourists, instead heading on to Winton, setting up camp at the back of the North Gregory Hotel.  This is the place where the song ‘Waltzing Matilda’ was first performed by its lyricist, Banjo Patterson, in 1895.  We learned about the song, how it came to be written and why there are several mysteries associated with it, and of course joined in with the singing of Australia’s unofficial anthem.  All this presented by a chap whose name is Gregory North.  Another of those mysteries apparently.

Winton lays claim to the world’s largest deckchair.  No, don’t ask why, we have no idea!

One of the delights of travelling is meeting fellow travellers.  We met up lovely couple who grow hops in Queensland, the only people who have managed it.  Suffice to say that the evening was enjoyable, social and only gently alcoholic.

Onward and westward.  We’re getting a bit remote now, following the Kennedy Development Road.  Still on tarmac but less of it.  One way that it’s possible to lay a reasonable road at a reasonable cost is to lay a central strip of tarmac with wide strips of dirt road either side.  Normal travel is on the tarmac.  When another vehicle approaches, the idea is to slow down and move partially onto the dirt, resuming the tarmac after passing.  If it’s a road train approaching, then the smaller vehicle clears the tarmac entirely, allowing the road train to continue unhindered.  This has the advantage of not stirring up clouds of dust and stones that can easily shatter windscreens.

Surprisingly, for most of the almost 400 kilometres across the outback scrub, we had cell phone coverage and were surprised when I had a call from one of my Brisbane Seniors On-Line learners with a computer problem.  There’s a distinct danger that Australia is becoming civilised west of the Black Stump.

Parched throats tempted us to stop at Middleton, population 3, the last remaining outstation of Cobb and Co, which ran the fast horse-drawn coach services in the last quarter of the 1800s.  An old coach remains, quietly falling apart.  The pub’s not much better but the ginger beer was cold.

A few cattle, some sheep, various eagles, brolgas (a large crane), two emus and a lone budgerigar with suicidal tendencies were the only wild life to be seen.  Vegetation was sparse, apart from clumps of gums near to the dried-up water courses.  The road was straight and after four and three-quarter hours we pulled into the small town of Boulia.

Kim tackled her ‘outback kitchen’ on the back door of the Land Rover and we enjoyed our evening repast of lamb steaks and veggies, preceded by a G&T with real ice.  Yes, life is definitely getting civilised in the outback.

On the Tarmac

Australia is in the grip of its worst drought in many years so typically, a few hours after bolting the tent onto the roof rack it poured with rain.  However, apart from slowing up the packing, it cleared the air and our (reasonably) early start was greeted with a fine morning and clear views of the distant mountains as we left the urban conurbation of Brisbane and set out west.  Heavy traffic meant slow progress for the first hour after which, as we cleared the city we made better progress.  I anticipated that the long slow climb onto the Great Dividing Range towards Toowoomba would have us grinding along in second gear, but Vin Rouge decided that it was time to get cracking and we roared up, passing truck after truck.  Coffee at Picnic Point is something of a ritual for us, but we didn’t stay too long, despite the attractions of the scenic vista.  As we made progress the traffic thinned until we were passing only road trains carting cattle towards the east and four wheel drives from the various mining and gas drilling plants.  There were a lot of road trains, and a lot of prime steaks on the move.

Soon we were pretty much on our own.  Despite the seemingly never-ending roadworks the k’s mounted up as the scenery became less green and the land less undulating.  We did see a great many kangaroo carcases, victims of altercations with trucks.  By late afternoon, as the sun was making its inevitably journey towards the horizon, we pulled up at the small town of Mitchell, checked into the caravan park, set up camp – surprisingly quickly as it’s been a few years since we last did it – walked over the bridge and immersed ourselves in the naturally warm waters of the artesian spa.  Glorious.  The aches of travelling washed away courtesy of the Great Artesian Basin.

It took a little while to get used to sleeping in the rooftop tent.  Was that because we were unused to it or because the temperature dropped like a stone to freezing?  Either way it was not the best night’s sleep we’ve ever had.  But morning dawned bright and crisp, and it was not long before the sun’s warming rays restored us, along with hot tea and porridge.  Then it was time to hit the tarmac.

We’re told that Tambo is famous for its teddy bears.  Now I confess that I’ve not previously heard of Tambo, let alone their teddies, but stop we did to check them out.  They are rather special, made of pure sheepskin in a variety of colours that sheep were never meant to be.

On again and as we made further progress west the road trains became longer and the other traffic less.  Blackall is reckoned to be the place where the outback begins, marked by a tree stump that was used as a survey point 150 years ago and so I guess we can say that we are now in the Outback proper.  Augathella we somehow missed.  Barcaldine passed under our wheels with little to notice it.  A near altercation with a large kangaroo was averted by application of the air horns, quite a few wedge-tailed eagles flew languidly away from their carrion at our approach and eventually we arrived at Ilfracombe.  Now Ilfracombe cannot the described as the hub of the universe, but the Wellshot Hotel serves magnificent lamb shanks (two of ‘em) plus veggies.

So here we are at the end of day two, well over a thousand kilometres from Brisbane and we’re not even out of Queensland.  Australia is a big country.

Preparations are under way

It’s been three years since our old Land Rover, Vin Rouge, had a good long trip.  OK, we’ve done a bit of travelling in the meantime but not in the outback of Australia. 

In previous years we’ve visited all eight Australian States, completed the circumnavigation, travelled many of the noted tracks (Birdsville, Oodnadatta, Strzelecki, Gibb River Road, Cape York, etc.).  We’ve driven the interminable length of the Nullarbor (with a head wind all the way!)  experienced the majesty of the Kimberleys and the wide open spaces of Western Australia, climbed to the top of Mount Kosciuszko and ridden the horizontal falls.  We’ve spent time with some amazing people, met up with quite a lot of other Land Rovers, had a couple of interesting breakdowns and generally lived up to the maxim of growing old disgracefully.  At least Mike has, Kim is far too young.

So what’s left?  For some time we’ve had a hankering to cross the Simpson Desert.  It’s the world’s largest sand dune desert with something in excess of a thousand dunes to tackle.  When we were last in Birdsville we drove out and motored steadily to the top of Big Red, reputed to be one of the highest dunes – that’s it behind us in the picture – without much difficulty.  How we’ll feel meeting it again with so many other dunes behind us, we’ll have to wait and see.

There’s two ways to cross the Simpson, east to west and west to east.  The latter, we’re told is easier going as the prevailing wind will be behind us and that makes the ascending side of the dunes less steep than the descending.  But we first have to get to the western side of the desert as we live in Brisbane on the east coast.

The navigator, that’s Kim, has a plan to take a northern route through Mitchell, Longreach, Winton to Boulia.  That’s a little over 1,700 kilometres.  We’ll then follow the Plenty Highway, which is mainly unsealed, through pretty much nowhere until we turn south to Alice Springs - another 800 plus Kilometres.  I guess we’ll take a couple of days in Alice before setting out for the Simpson and Birdsville, but more of that later.

For now it’s vehicle preparation time; servicing, checking and cleaning the equipment we take with us, fitting two jerry cans for additional fuel and finding somewhere for Cito, our Beaglier, to stay while we are gone.  He’s a bit of an old softy and likes his luxury.  And doggie demands must be met.

It’s almost time to load up, top up the fuel tanks and get ready for the off.  The scheduled date is Tuesday 7^th August.  First stop hopefully is Mitchell.  No doubt it will take a couple of days to get back into the routine of setting up camp and adjusting to life on the road/track but that’s all part of the fun.

Who’d have thought that I’d be camping well into my seventies.  Ho hum.

More soon. 

Hong Kong and Home

Looking back over the last several blogs I noticed that it’s written in the third person.  I’m not sure why.  Was it an ‘out of body experience’?  Have I suddenly become a non-person?  I don’t know, but will write this, the last in the current series of blogs in the first person.  Stand by for a bunch of ‘I’ and ‘we’.

Hong Kong is a special place for us.  We spent the first few years of our life together there.  We were married there and made friendships that have endured over the years.  It’s a place we cherish and where we still feel at home when we visit.  We arrived, courtesy of that dreadful airline Lufthansa, mid afternoon, checked into our hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui (more-or-less pronounced Chim Sa Choy) and straight away went for a walk.  It was hot and humid, no change there then!  Finding ourselves near the water we took a nostalgic trip on the Star Ferry (on the Twinkling Star if you must know) and watched fascinated as myriad lights on both sides of the harbour changed in a variety of patterns and colours.  They never did that when Kai Tak was the airport.  The ferry ride is quicker these days as the water front extends further out and the harbour decreases in size as the years pass.  Should you go to Hong Kong, take a tram ride on the island and consider that the tracks were originally right on the waterfront.  They’re not now!

Bright and early next morning, well almost, we found our way to Dick Ho’s jewellery shop tucked away in a back street arcade.  Dick made Kim’s engagement ring and one of the stones had been lost.  Could it be fixed?  We were in Hong Kong for only a few days.  “Of course, today is Friday, collect it Monday noon.  And your pearls will also be restrung.”  Yes, all was ready on time, the ring repaired, polished and shiny as new, the pearls restrung and the clasp fixed as the jeweller spotted that it was worn.  Such is Hong Kong.

Almost thirty years ago I worked for the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club as it was then known.  It’s title has now lost the Royal but it continues to thrive as horse racing is just as an important part of life as it has been for decades.  Isaac Tong was part of our original data security team and he invited us to dinner where we met his lovely wife Sugar for the first time.  They found a pretty special restaurant – check out the specialities.  And yes, it tasted as good as it looks.

Next day and jet lag caught up with us in a big way.  We didn’t wake up until eleven o’clock!  Fortunately it was not too late to pay a visit to the flower market in Mong Kok where amongst the displays we spotted these orchids.

We rode the tram back to Central, nostalgic certainly as we frequently travelled by tram when we lived in Happy Valley.  It seemed as though little had changed.  They rattled and clanged just as they always did, and were crowded just as they always were.  Just the fare had increased a bit.

Sunday and we met with very good friends Hayden and Scarlet with their youngest daughter Prudence.  We even found a Land Rover in the middle of the city and tried to explain how we travelled around Australia in such a vehicle.  I’m not sure they thought us entirely sane!

We’ve done the tourist trails in Hong Kong before and so Hayden and Scarlet took us to their temple where joss sticks were lit and we absorbed the peaceful, if somewhat smokey atmosphere.  We’d not known of this temple tucked away in a back street and it came as a pleasant surprise to see so many people attending their devotions.

A gathering in Hong Kong is never complete without eating and so we were taken for excellent dim sum at lunch time and to a local restaurant for dinner where, as I am approaching yet another birthday, Scarlet had arranged for a special celebratory treat called Shoutao, or Longevity Peach.  I’m hoping it works!

It was with real pleasure that we enjoyed the company of our friends, had a lot of laughs, reminisced about times past, discussed how children were rapidly growing into adults and what plans that were being made for the future.  We were joined by Scarlet’s sister and her daughter and of course Kim took more photos.  As evening turned to night it was time to leave after a very special time.

All good things come to an end and it was with sadness that we made our way to the airport and the flight home to Brisbane, QANTAS this time thank goodness.  We’ve been travelling for over three months and were beginning to feel that we needed to stay put for a while.  Living out of suitcases is fine but it will be nice to have a real wardrobe and according to Kim, a larger selection of clothing from which to choose to wear.

Arriving in the early morning at Brisbane we rapidly passed through the immigration formalities, made our way to the taxi queue and in twenty minutes or so were at our door.  The only problem was youngest son Alexander had decided to meet and greet us at the airport but somehow had missed seeing us.  So we were camped outside our house while he waited at the airport with his specially made welcome sign.  Ah well, things do go awry and a phone call soon brought him home where cups of morning tea eased the soul as well as the thirst.

There’s just one disappointment.  Mike’s brother Malcolm remains unwell.  He’s had another fall and is back in hospital.  Hopefully he will make a full recovery but it may be a bit of a long haul.

So that’s it.  We’ve travelled right around the world.  America, Canada, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.  We’ve caught up with family and friends, met some fascinating people and experienced some incredible sights and events.  We’ve enjoyed a variety of cuisines, beers, wines and other treats.  Kim has taken thousands of photos (which now need sorting) and I’ve found time to write a small blog.  We’ve had another amazing adventure and hope that you have enjoyed sharing some of it with us.  We’re signing off - for now. . . .

Antiques and Flowers

Monday 23rd May started out well enough.  The sun was shining and apart from a bit of a traffic holdup on the M25, the drive to Faversham in Kent was pleasant enough.  Kim was born in the town and although it’s not on the tourist map, Faversham has some interesting old buildings and a lot of history.  The old market square  building is almost a thousand years old

Mike used to sail there but now Faversham creek has been cleaned up a bit and presents tranquil scenes of boats and riverside dwellings.  However, it’s still all mud when the tide goes out!

The journey back left something to be desired.  Completely blocked motorways, traffic chaos on minor roads exacerbated by schools turning out and large trucks endeavouring to manoeuvre on country lanes made for a slow going.  Almost at journey’s end a text call alerted that Mike’s brother Malcolm had suffered a serious accident and was in hospital.  The details will be omitted here but suffice it to say that much of the rest of their ‘UK holiday’ was spent in dealing with hospital and social care people, and cleaning up Malcolm’s house that looked like a scene from a horror movie.

There were lighter moments.  There was time to visit the Antiques Roadshow which was being filmed at Audley End house, not very far distant.  Attending with Paul and Sue, they watched the filming and saw some of the presenters and specialists identifying and valuing antiques, all taking place in the warmth of a beautiful spring afternoon.  If you are a fan of the show, you should be able to recognise a couple of the ‘celebrities’– there were lots more.

Kim took time out to attend the Chelsea Flower Show with Ros, a good friend of hers.  From the reports and photographs (over 600 of them) it would appear that they had a good time, checked out quality of the Pimms and once again played ‘celebrity spotting’.  Now it’s an impossible task to pick out a couple of representative pictures from the hundreds on the computer, so at great personal risk here are a few that Mike likes (he’ll be in trouble now).

In the final couple of days there was time to have dinner with some friends, enjoy a short walk in the Essex countryside and visit a country pub or two.

Then it was off to London for two nights.  They took in a show – Beautiful, the Carole King musical (a fabulous show that leaves the audience singing as they leave).  Mike had a Nostalgia Lunch (he’s a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists – the 100th City livery company) and met up with some old work colleagues.  Meanwhile Kim needed to catch up with some late shopping.  Then it was off to Heathrow for Frankfurt, change planes and on to Hong Kong.