Step 94 Fountain Springs - Bang Bang via Cloncurry – 337 km's

Thursday 28^th July

8:00am and it's 8.5 degrees. I don't care how little sympathy I get from Melbourne. That is cold.

Heeding the warnings we have been receiving from our travel advisors we booked ahead for Karumba before leaving this morning. We have one more stop before we get there but everyone says it gets crowded up there at this time of the year.

Cruised the 60 kilometres into Cloncurry, or the Curry as we call it out here. We were surprised at how large it is. Not a metropolis like Geelong, but big for a country town. Unfortunately we have just missed the rodeo. No really, that is unfortunate, I think it would have been interesting to get to a real outback rodeo. Never mind, when I get back to the real world I'll see if I can catch a PBR (Professional Bull Riding) event in Las Vegas. I'm sure the indoor 15,000 seat arena event will be very similar to the Cloncurry one.

Right, for our educational lesson today: The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS). As you all know the RFDS was founded by The Very Reverend Dr. John Flynn, in Cloncurry. Consequently there is an RFDS museum right here in town.

The first Flying Doctor plane

The good doctor obviously didn't do it all on his own but I was surprised to find that QANTAS was instrumental in getting the service started and provided the first planes. I probably shouldn't have been surprised as QANTAS was started just down the road at Longreach.

After that educational experience it was back in MM and on our way. Making a left at the main intersection we are heading North again and technically deflecting from our general direction of “homeward”.

The brilliant Australian invention: The pedal operated radio
Made the whole Royal Flying Doctor Service viable
Well that and the planes of course
And the doctors
The Royal bit wasn't necessary but it gave them a bit of kudos down at the pub

Stopping just up the road at Quamby I was tempted, temporarily, to buy the pub. Which is in fact the whole town of Quamby. Known affectionately as the “pub in the scrub” it goes up for auction tomorrow. Given the nearest settlement is about an hour down the road we scratch that from the list of “opportunities”.

Passing up a couple of unattractive options for overnight stops we did a quick top up of diesel at the Burke & Wills Roadhouse. 

Another gratuitous artistic shot
Part of the Wheels of Australia collection

Yep, we are in Burke and Wills country. This is the way they came on their ill fated expedition to the North. They would have come back this way as well except they didn't. Come back that is.

I won't be coming back down this road either, luckily. It is our first experience on this trip of the famous Australian “ribbon road”. That means there is just one lane of bitumen, to be “shared” by vehicles going in either direction. The idea is, if you meet a car coming the other way you both drop your left hand wheels off the edge of the bitumen and drive half on the road and half in the dirt. If you meet a road train coming the other way you get completely off the road. As far as you can and get the hell out of their way. Luckily we didn't meet any road trains.

For the third night in a row it's a free camp night tonight and we are just about back on budget (for accommodation anyway) after our two weeks in Darwin and the nights in Kakadu. Good recovery.

Bumped into a family we met a couple of nights ago, it's that part of the world where everyone is going the same way and travelling the same sort of distances.

Also got chatting to another German guy, but I didn't check whether he knew the Aldi brothers. I don't think he could have done, I'm sure he would have mentioned it if he did. The reason I chatted to him is because I chat to everyone. No, I chatted to him because he was driving the new VW Amarook. VW's answer to the ubiquitous Toyota Hi Lux. He is very happy with it and towing a decent sized fifth wheeler he is getting 12 litres / 100 km's. Not bad compared to the 25 ltrs / 100km's someone told me they were getting with a Hi Lux. On the other hand the Amarook has not been put through the punishment the Hi Lux was by the Top Gear team. Yet.

In another momentous occasion, nearly nine months into the trip, we used the shower in MM for the first time. Should have done it sooner. Much easier to use and much more effective than we thought it would be. Di smells better now too.