Culture shock, Devil's Gate and the missing Aussie aerial

The time came to leave Lawn Hill, so we packed up our Adel's Grove campsite and got onto the Savannah Way. We stopped at Doomadgee, an Aboriginal settlement, for lunch and supplies.  Driving into there we felt very white, because the whole population was decidedly black.  Well, almost.  On closer inspection we discovered to our surprise that a few key positions in the town were occupied by whites.  The bakery and the school to name two.
Speaking of the bakery, in order to get brown bread there we had to order with a week's notice and pay extra.  White bread was, however, available in abundance.  Also in the supermarket the size of the sugar bags were unbelievable.  Much, much larger than I have ever seen before.  I think that right there are two reasons why indigenous people in this country have higher rates of diabetes than the rest of the population.  Add to that the difficulty of getting fresh food in those remote communities and the prevalence of soft drinks (which would be very popular in such a hot dry climate).

It was while we were inside the supermarket shopping that (we think) our Australia aerial went missing.  When we bought our Pajero it had an aerial shaped like Australia.  It was an excellent likeness, not just some random approximation.   It had many of the actual features of the coastline, it was quite impressive, especially considering it was handmade out of a coat hanger. Well someone decided that they liked the look of it, so it got swiped while we were visiting Doomadgee.  It took us a little while before we noticed, and we had travelled some distance down the Savannah Way before the discovery was made.

Along the way we had to stop at Devil's Gate Roadhouse, for the experience. Unfortunately, all it has left is its reputation.  New grog restrictions in the Northern Territory put the onus on the publicans to make sure that they only sell 2 cases of beer per car.  Given that their major source of revenue was selling car loads of cases of beer, this new regulation has put a serious dent in their profits and left them to administer the regulation.  Most publicans have hence decided not to sell any alcohol at all and forgo their liquor licences. So the old Devil's Gate was a very quiet and subdued affair and not a drop of alcohol to be had.

As I wrote in my diary on 10/5/2007:

2/3 of their business was selling beer to Aboriginals.  They would come in car loads on Thursdays with their pay cheques and buy 5 cases of beer each.
I think that the publicans have decided it is not worth the headache of administering it when a huge slice of their profits have been taken away from them.
We are having a very dry season - no beer - poor Steve.

We camped the night at Calvert River Crossing, near where Leichhardt the explorer would have camped. It was an okay spot, as it was free.  It rained that night, just enough to damp down the dust.

On the 11th we moved onto Borroloola, another Aboriginal settlement. Once again it was a bit of a culture shock entering a town and feeling terribly white. There were heaps of Aboriginals just hanging around or driving around in cars. It didn't feel like a particularly happy town.  Once again, all the businesses in Borroloola were run (staffed) by whites.
We camped the night at the local caravan park.

Lawn Hill National Park

What a wonderful find this was.  This was one place that we had been told about before we left home and it lived up to all expectations.  Lawn Hill was beautiful and so were the camp grounds at Adele's Grove.

Evan's diary entry:

Today we're at Lawn Hill.
While we were in Lawn Hill we went canoeing, swimming in the cascades and park and camping ground gorge.

Sarah made a bow but it broke.

I made one too.  It lasted. Every target I hit on the spot.

It's a good bow.

My Diary Entry:

We went for a walk in the Lover Gorge at Lawn Hill National Park and visited Dog Dreaming.  It was an Aboriginal cave with paintings.  They were no where near as impressive as the ones at Carnarvon Gorge.

We had lunch and then progressed down to the cascades for a well deserved swim.  It is very hot.  The water was beautifully warm.

The children made bows and arrows based on their imaginations being piqued from reading Eragon.  The trees at the camp ground at Adele's Grove were well suited to making bows.  They pretended to go hunting with them and practise their archery skills.
Evan and Harry looked very funny with their "armour" on: a few layers of t-shirts, undies on their heads and socks on their hands - Classic!

9/5/07

Today we spent 1 1/4 hours paddling up Lawn Hill Gorge. The spectacular red cliffs on either side were beautiful.

To start, Steve, Evan and Harry went in the three man canoe.  They looked surprisingly like  the Berenstain bear father and his 2 cubs as they rowed out from shore.  Sarah and I shared the second canoe.  I started out in the front and could not for the life of me control the thing.  We stopped and swapped places - it made a HUGE difference.  There must be some physics based rule as to why it is best to have the weight in the back of the canoe, not the front.

We paddled up to the falls and got out and had a swim in the beautiful warm water.  On the way back Sarah, Evan and I paddled back in the big canoe and Steve and Harry took the small one.

It was a lot of fun.



Mt Isa

Well what can you say about Mt Isa?  What a disappointment for us.  Our family trip had been humming along beautifully up to this point. Then we pulled into the much fabled Mt Isa and found very little to recommend it.  It was busy, smelly, expensive, and as we were to later find out, a hot bed of crime.

I'll relate Evan's diary entry first as it quite succinctly sums up the place:

At Mount Isa we went to Sunset Top Tourist Park.  It was expensive.

We went to the library and found lots of crochet books to photocopy. But when we left we had our mobile phone stolen.  We also had Sarah's MP3 player, $91 and some other things stolen.

We left Mt Isa quickly.


My diary for Mt Isa:

3/5/07
We packed up camp and arrived in Mt Isa. We are not overly impressed with the town.  The Information Centre ladies took one look at me and announced that absolutely no way can we bush camp in Mt Isa, we must stay at a caravan park.

We booked in at Sunset Caravan Park.  It has a pool which is good, because it is quite hot.  Once again tent campers are shoved down the back on dodgy ground with no tap and the furtherest away from the camp kitchen and pool.  Ironically it is the campers who are the ones who use the camp kitchen facilities, but they are always the ones sited the furtherest away.  Well, at least we had shade for most of the day.

We went shopping for Steve's birthday....

4/5/07

Steve's 41st Birthday

We had bacon and eggs for brekkie and cooked a cake for Steve in the camp kitchen gas oven.  Well tried to anyway, but managed to burn it instead.

The park has an air conditioned room with a TV.  We watched Eragon, Evan bought the DVD yesterday.  Both Sarah and Evan have been reading Eragon as we have been travelling.

We collected the mail and then went to the library. Just as it was starting to sound like a ho hum day, reading mail, writing emails, photocopying some crochet books; drama unfolded when we discovered that Sarah's little handbag had been stolen!  Sarah had recently had a birthday and she was loaded up with birthday money from her newly opened mail.  She had $91 and an MP3 player in her bag that was stolen.  We searched the library to no avail.

Later that afternoon, I discovered that my mobile phone was missing.  We realised that this too must have been stolen while were at the library.  We tried calling it but it was out of credit.  The buggers had used up all $30 of credit on it.

We reported the thefts to the police but they held very little hope that we would ever find our goods again.  I'm pretty sure that once we walked out of the door they filed our complaint under B for bin.

We decided that Mt Isa was not the place for us so we decided to pack up and move on fairly quickly once we had replenished our camping supplies.

It seems that we were so underwhelmed with Mt Isa that we don't even seem to have any photos of our time there.  Maybe it's a good thing, because if we had have gotten our camera out it too might have been stolen.

On Sunday the 6th we packed up and left Mt Isa for Riversleigh fossils.  We had a short walk through some fossils, there was not much to see really.  It showcased giant crocodiles and thunderbirds that lived around 20 million years ago - the period of mega fauna after the dinosaurs had died out.

We continued on our journey and will continue in the next blog about what happened when we got to Adele's Grove at Lawn Hill.

Boulia and the min min lights

On the second of May we packed up our camp at the Diamantina River and set off for Boulia.  We visited the wonderful Min Min Encounter centre at Boulia and found out the fascinating story of the Min Min lights.  We continued on toward Mt Isa and found ourselves a beautiful camping spot on the way.  We pulled off the road about 130km south of Mt Isa at a 'magical oasis' that was absolutely beautiful and picturesque.  This was made more so by the fact that we had the place to ourselves and it was a full moon that night.  We camped in what was essentially a cow paddock with a big dam.  There were rocking slopes to explore and a lovely grassy patch by the water in which to pitch our tent.

This is Evan's diary entry for Boulia:

Today we went to Boulia at the Min Min Encounter. When we went in it was really cold, dark, freaky and cool.

The min min encounter was about the min min light. Some people think the lights are real and some just think it is in their imagination.

I don't know what to believe.

Do you?

Lark Quarry

Lark Quarry is the location of a stampede of dinosaur footprints which are the subject of some conjecture as to how they were caused.

Both Evan and I have diary entries for our visit to Lark Quarry.  I'll start with mine:

1/5/07

We packed up camp at Winton with the plan to head to Lark Quarry. On the way we drove through Bladensburg National Park and visited an old homestead.

At Lark Quarry we planned to look at the dinosaur footprints.  They were enclosed in a big air conditioned building and we had to line up for ages to get into see them.  They spent so long before hand building us up to see them that by the time we got in it was a slight anticlimax. "By the time Harry got inside he was bored silly and not interested in the foot prints at all."

We left Lark Quarry after lunch and went looking for Old Cork Station on our way to Middleton. However, we took a wrong turn and ended up in the Diamantina National Park.  It was a fortuitous turn as we found a lovely campsite right on the banks of the Diamantina River at a place called Hunter's Gorge. I have a very strong memory (though I didn't write it in my diary) of the flies being unbelievably bad.  They were the kind that crawled all over your face and tried to get into every moist area, like in your eyes and up your nose.

We couldn't help ourselves while we were staying there singing the old Redgum song The Diamintina Drover, lyrics are below:

The faces in the photograph have faded
And I can't believe he looks so much like me
For it's been ten years today
Since I left for Old Cork Station
Sayin' I won't be back till the drovin's done

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

Well it seems like the sun comes up each mornin'
Sets me up and takes it all away
For the dreaming by the light
Of the camp fire at night
Ends with the burning by the day

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

Sometimes I think I'll settle back in Sydney
But it's been so long it's hard to change my mind
For the cattle trail goes on and on
And the fences roll forever
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back till the drovin's done

For the rain never falls on the dusty Diamantina
And a drover finds it hard to change his mind
For the years have surely gone
Like the drays from Old Cork Station
And I won't be back when the drovin's done

Read more: Redgum - Diamantina Drover Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Evan's Diary Entry:

Today at Lark Quarry we saw real dinosaur foot prints.

They told us that the dinosaurs came down to the river bank to have a drink. Then a big dinosaur came to eat them. Then they stampeded back to the forest (leaving the footprints).

After the tour, we went on the spinifex walk, and when the walk finished we had lunch.

We all thought their theory stunk, because they could have all rushed in and then ran all the way out, and then the big dinosaur ran in had a drink and left. And there sort of ? because there were no little footprints in his big footprints.

(Recently, a new theory has been put forward that suggests it was a dinosaur stampede at all.)

I thought Lark Quarry was very hot.

Winton

The family with Banjo Patterson

 We stayed a little while at Winton while Steve was recovering from the flu. Just before we got to Winton we  looked for a bush camp to stay at. At one place we pulled up near a river,  I didn't get out of the car very quickly, but Steve got straight out of the car.  I didn't really pay attention to him, but as he returned to the car I looked up and saw him standing there dripping wet and naked. I said what on earth are you doing?  He replied that he was so hot he just had to immediately immerse himself in the creek.  That's when we realised that he was  running a significant fever.  Not a good thing to have in almost 40 degree heat.  After we took Steve to the doctor he was told to have cool showers to cool himself down.  We were perplexed as to how he could do this as the water out of the tap was naturally nice and warm as it comes straight out of the Great artesian Basin.

I wrote quite a bit about what we did as I probably realised that Steve was in no condition to be keeping up with his diary.  I will relate Evan's diary entry first because his is nice and short:

Today we're at Winton.

I wanted to go to the Waltzing Matilda Centre but mum and dad said that we would go through the route of the river gum.  It was in the desert, so there wasn't much to see.

One of the days we were at Winton, me and Harry went with dad to the library. We played games on the computer, Harry didn't want to leave because he wanted to play on the computer at the library.

It was lovely at Winton.

My diary entries:

26/4/07

Drove to Winton today.
Camped at Pelican Park in Winton. We looked at a campsite at Bladensburg National Park, but they wanted to charge $18 per night!  For only $24 per night we could camp in town with full facilities, a pool and nightly entertainment.

Tonight, country music singer Graham Roger, sang and we were also entertained by a bush poet with some very funny verses.  We ate dinner watching the entertainment. I really enjoyed it.

Steve has had a wickedly sore throat for a couple of days.  He can't swallow or even talk without great pain.  I hope that the rest of us don't catch it.  Harry ran a fever on the 21st and said that he had a sore throat. Steve may have caught it from him.  Today Sarah is complaining of a sore throat . This maybe an ongoing sickness if it manages to make its way through the entire family.

27/4/07

We are spending a quiet day around camp seeing as Steve and Sarah don't feel well.
Harry and Evan are enjoying the dirt roads around camp by driving their cars through it. They are getting quite filthy.

We went to the town library around 3 o'clock so that Steve could rest in air conditioning and so that Sarah and Evan could do some school work.
It's a very nice library. There are lots of good books that I would like to read.  There were heaps of toys for Harry to play with and videos for Steve to watch.

We thought that using public libraries where we can go to do school work during the hot part of the day is a good idea.

On the way back to camp we dropped Steve off at the doctor.  The doctor found pus on his tonsils and a 40 degree Celsius temperature. The doctor has put him on antibiotics and painkillers.

While Steve was being doctored the kids and I checked out Arno's wall.  It was a few hundred metres of a stone and concrete wall that had had all manner of junk cemented into it - lawnmowers, lots of wheels, motorbikes, typewriters, TV sets, microwaves - everything.

28/4/07

Another lazy day while Steve gets better. As the day wore on he definitely improved.

We went to Fitzmaurice - an old shop that is now set up as a museum for opals and dinosaurs.

We visited the musical fence.  It is great! It is made up of different tensioned wires that make a great musical sound by hitting it with whatever you can find - sticks, pipes etc.  There is a drum kit made out of junk, fantastic.

Here we are in the dry outback. It only rains once every 15 years and yet everyone has a nice green front lawn, and the van parks and sporting fields are all green.  There are no signs of water restrictions here, they water at anytime, day and night.

This is an interesting juxtaposition to the major capital cities in Australia where they are on strict water restrictions and have front lawns that look like dust bowls.  Even green and lush Coffs Harbour that normally has extremely high annual rainfall has permanent level 1 water restrictions, because, well, morally we just should.

So, why can the outback use so much water?
The Great Artesian Basin!!! It is a massive underground water resource.

ANZAC Day 2007

In 2007 we spent ANZAC Day in Ilfracombe.

We were staying in the local caravan park and were invited to join in with the town march.  It was a very welcoming and friendly gesture. I had never been involved in an ANZAC march before.  Now that our children are older and involved with scouts, they participate in ANZAC marches every year. But to be staying in a small town and invited to be a part of the march and festivities was a very touching thing.

This is my diary entry for that day:

Joined in the town march from the primary school to memorial park, complete with marching band.  It was very moving.
The service at the park was also moving, and  the poems brought tears to my eyes.
As a town/shire of just 400, I was amazed and impressed at the size of the large crowd at the park.

The after service celebrations were amazing. Free beer, champagne, rum, scotch and soft drink was provided by the council and football club.  There was an enormous spread of sandwiches, sausage rolls, quiches and Anzac bikkies, all provided by the CWA (Country Woman's Association).

The shires here in outback Queensland are tiny.  Some, like Ilfracombe, have only 400 residents in them.  It looks like the state Government wants to amalgamate them into super shires and make them at least 5000 people strong.  This would mean that some shires could cover vast distances.