Hot Roads

Hot roads

We read somewhere that the trip across Australia from West to East was one of the great road trips, and well-worth the painfully long trip. They lied!

Having left Ayres Rock we headed back to Katherine, where our little baby Blue was having her very own holiday under a friends car port. After another night of trying to sleep in position that would challenge even those familiar with Yoga we were very pleased to see out home/bed.

No rest for the wicked though. Pleased with our clever planning, that meant we could now get in a full day’s driving we headed off towards Threeways (aptly named as 3 roads cross here) and through the last part of the Northern Territory. We hoped to make the border by night fall. However we gave up by 5pm due to sweat saturation and the fact we saw a caravan park with a large sign for cold beer and happy hour 5-6pm! Needless to say we slept well that night even without the home comforts we’ve become used to; air conditioning, a real mattress etc.

The next two days were spent similarly with 14 hours of driving as we rushed across the country to meet Ricky. That said we wouldn’t have liked to take the journey any slower as truck stops and road kill (the only real scenery along the way) don’t make for real tourist attractions.

We were up at 4am for an early start (or in Ben’s case a change of sleeping location) and drove until there was no more light, or sometimes a little longer…Ben got a right ticking off by a little old lady in a caravan park for driving too late. It was a hard 3 days that we wouldn’t like to repeat any time soon (well who would choose to travel 3 times the length of England in 2 ½ days?)

We travelled from red dust into dry, barren farm land (there’s a drought you know) and finally into the lush green hills of Queensland (and some BIG humidity to go with them). Although there was little to see on the way we did go through some funny little towns. You’re miles from anywhere and suddenly 4 houses and a petrol pump appear out of no-where. As does the sign saying something like Wagga Wagga (this is a real name for a town believe it or not) ‘nominated for Australia’s tidiest town’ First question- who lives there to make a mess? Second question who the hell drove all that way to judge it? You can also imagine the dulcet tones in the background of Lloyd Grossman saying ‘who lives in a town like this?’

Luckily we arrived in Cairns with enough time to camp out for the night and be at the airport bright and early to start out adventures with Rick.