Wednesday the 24th of October

This is one of the good roads we have been travelling on

The distance from Hann river to Bamaga was 537kms. We left Hann River at 0737am.
We had a small amount of bitumen but mostly it was red red dust.

We pulled into Musgrave Telegraph station and had some very nice sandwiches. If you don't like pepper say so or else large amounts of pepper goes onto everything.

There was some petrol bowsers outside of Musgrave and if you needed to get petrol you would of had to chase the cows away from the bowsers. There was one cow who was sitting under a sprinkler. It was having a very enjoyable time until the sprinkler got turned off. The cows expression changed to one of being one nasty cow.
If you are coming up this way, Musgrave is a very clean place to camp. The toilets and showers are spotless and the food was nice too.

We travelled onto Moreton Telegraph Station and it was the complete opposite of Musgrave. Moreton is on the Wenlock which provides a very beautiful setting for this station but the caretakers have completely ruin this gorgeous spot. We thought we would have lunch at this station as we read in numerous books they do both dine in and take away food. We pulled up and this sour faced cow of a woman asked Matt what he wanted. Matt replied that we would like some lunch and she replied "NO" Matt was a bit shocked and said a book said food was served here and she replied in the most gutterly snarly bitchy manner that "he was wrong two years ago and he's still wrong". So Leisa went to the toilet and Matt bought ice creams and we tried to read about the history of Moreton as there was photos and a story on the wall. This woman stood about 2 metres away from us and just stared and snarled at us the whole time so we hurried back to the Jeep and left her choking in our dust. We know now why the place looked deserted. It was such a shame. So much history and infrastructure being destroyed. So if you are looking for lunch after Musgrave do not drive past Archer River Roadhouse. Archer River has some memorials devoted to one tough old chickie who used to drive her truck up and down the road to deliver groceries/supplies to all the stations. We only stayed for such a short time on the way on but on the return trip we will stay a little longer.

cow re -fueling at Moreton

We arrived at Bramwell Junction at around 330pm. The caretakers at the junction are normally the chef and bar tender from Bramwell station which is the most northern cattle station in Australia. This couple were fantastic and it was nice to sit and talk to them.
We set up camp at Bramwell junction and waited for Steve and his mate Fitzy to met us. When Steve arrived we had dinner and a few drinkies and slept very soundly that night

Termite Mounds

If anyone is umming and ahhing about buying a camping fridge, don't um and ahh anymore. The fridge are worth their weight in gold. It so nice not to have to worry about ice melting and the drinks are always the perfect temp.

Tuesday 23rd of October Part two

Continuing on from previous post:-

We left Cardwell and refuelled at Tully (128.90 cents/litre).

We had breakfast at McDonalds at Innisfail.

We were absolutely shocked and dumb founded. From Ayr onwards people were using sprinklers. It was so shocking to see.

After Innisfail we turned inland and headed through East Palmerston to see tea and bananas growing, There was some really cool fauna crossings that looked like an extreme adventure course for humans.

The Jeep started to get a wee bit hot around Mount Molloy which stopped the air conditioning from working. We had to stop at the pub at Mt Molloy and have a beer. (well leisa had a beer and matt had a coke). We also had a really great lunch. Highly recommend lunch at this place. Big servings and good food and the beer was ice cold!

We started coming across bulls and cows on the road from here. (both alive and dead)

We stopped at Bobs lookout and had a good look out

Just after 2pm we hit the turnoff to the Cape at Lakelands. This is where the Cape York adventure begins.

We travelled until we got to Hann River and pulled up for a camp at the roadhouse. All the creek crossings between lakelands and Hann River were dry and the dust was well......very very dusty.

A Friend at Hann River

Well another quick post as there is so much to do and sitting at a computer is not one of them. We have decided to leave on Wednesday to go to Weipa. Hopefully we will get a chance to update again shortly. Still having a great time, no signs of getting a divorce and Leisa's Insomnia is well and truly cured

Tuesday 23rd October Part One!

We had another day of full on driving today another day of fuel prices and dodgy chicko rolls.

We left Bluewater Caravan Park at four minutes past five in the morning. We have 1224kms to go. The humidity has turned Leisa's hair into something like Nicole Kidmans in BMX bandits.

We meet the local constabulary about 40 minutes later. There was about 15 hawks/eagles/kites (haven't worked out what they are yet) feeding off some road kill and when they took off, we both looked up and watch these things fly away as Matt was still accelerating. Through the flock of birds there was some pretty red and blue lights. Matt was not speeding that much so after a 15 minute talk and a warning we were on our way again. Out of repest for those police officers, Matt did not speed at all after that. However Matt was disgusted when he asked "What speed do you think the hummer was doing??"

We stopped at Cardwell for a little walk around. Cardwell is now on the list of places we would like to live.

Anyhow, I have to go. We are off to Benny and Sabs place for dinner and I just g0t the hurry up. Matt and I are absolutely exhausted but having a good time. We have not stopped the whole time we have been here and this was the first time I have been near a computer for over a week. I am enjoying the no mobile phone coverage. I will try to post more photos tonight or tomorrow. We are off to Thursday Island tomorrow (Mon 29th of Oct) and then off to Weipa on Tuesday so if I don't get a chance to update tonight or tomorrow, i won't be updating till Friday.

Monday 22nd of October

A bit of a boring day today as we needed to get the kilometers behind us as we had a deadline to met Steve.

Monday morning saw us up and about at 330am and out of Matts parents house by twenty two minutes past four. Even though it was dark, there didn't appear to be any clouds in the sky and the temp was a nice 17 degrees C.

We had 2569kms to go at this stage.

We stopped at Maryborough just after 630am, where we fuelled the Jeep and we grabbed some breaky. (price of diesel 124.9 cents/litre).

As we went through Rocky, Matt had tears in his eyes, as all the bull statues had steel rods in a very uncomfortable spot. We encounter a little bit of rain at Rocky but nothing of any substance.

We had lunch at the BP Marlborough. I do not recommend stopping for lunch at this place. only half a star for the chicko roll here.

We fuelled again at Mackay (diesel 126.90 cents/litre) and we encounter some more rain at Pindi Pindi on the northern side of Mackay with some threatening clouds over the mountain ranges.

There was a truck rollover at Merinda which contain boxes with Yamaha written all over them. Matt thought they looked like Motorbike boxes.

We passed through the site where Karyn and Jessica were killed and it was not a very pleasant feeling. We did not stop but will call in on the way back.

On the road between Bowen and Ayr we started to see the hawks/eagles/kites picking off the road kill. One eagle swooped mid air and pick off another smaller bird. We wished we had more time to sit and watch them.

A few farmers were burning off their sugar cane around Ayr and we drove through Ash for some time.

We stopped on the Southern side of Townsville (128.90 cents/litre) and decided that we would find a place to pull up for the night. We found Bluewater Caravan Park on the northern side of Townsville, had some toast for tea, a nice long shower and we were in bed by 10pm.

Matt at Petrol Station Maryborough

Sunday 21st of October

Leisa had to work today and the plan was to leave her work right on the blower at 5pm. We finally left our house at seven minutes past six and we headed up to Matts Parents place at Caboolture. The trip was almost cancelled before we got to Caboolture, thanks to Leisa's renditions of most of the Simon and Garfunkel repertoire. I am a rock, I am and EEEYYYYYYYYEEEEEE land in a tone deaf voice was almost too much for Matt to handle. But he carried on like a trooper and we arrived at his parents place, eager to continue on.

WAECO FRIDGE

Bought a WAECO fridge today to run off our 12 volt battery system.
It's fantastic. Leisa can keep her chardy at a nice chilled temp. and her chocolate won't melt either.

Everything is all set for our 5pm departure time on Sunday. We drive to Matts parents place at Cabooluture to drop off some animals, stay there that night and leave about 4am Monday morning.

We have visited every camping shop between GoldCoast and the Queen Street Mall today, as well as getting the tyres checked and we picked up spares for the Jeep and the camper trailer. Matt has packed every conceivable tool so we are very well prepared.

Leisa is planning the menu's tonight, which thanks to the WAECO, the food is going to be delicious every night and there will be no baked beans or two minute noodles. FANTASTIC.

Love to all

ONE WEEK TO GO

The camper trailer is packed with all our camping gear, the Jeep has been serviced, maps memorised, the itinerary has been planned, changed, fine tuned and prepared to be dismissed. The excitement is unbearable. This trip is something we have been planning since May and now it is only one week away.

There is so much we need to do. Because of the horse flu, it has been difficult to find someone to look after the horses.. It will be a worrying time as the horse flu is in our street and we are hoping the hoses on the automatic watering system don't burst off the taps. We will have to rely on our non horsey neighbours to watch for flu symptoms and pray that the horses don't develop a secondary illness. We have a theory though that our horses think they are human and therefore can't possibly catch the horse flu. We also hope the horses don't guts the round bales of lucerne that we are leaving out for them. So this afternoon we are double checking the fences, the watering system etc. Leisa is very nervous about leaving the horses with the flu being so close.

Our camper trailer is a Lifestyle Camper. http://www.lifestylecampertrailers.com.au/index.php?page=home

It has a queen size innerspring mattress, a 12 volt system so Leisa can charge her camera batteries and lots of other nice things. We can set the trailer up in 90 seconds. That means that once we reach a camp site, it is only 90 seconds till chardy time. There is so much storage space, that will we not fill the camper and the Jeep will only carry an esky for convience and Leisa's camera gear.

Here is our set up. (the camper photos were taken with a camera phone)

WHAT A CAR!

Now the blog won't be updated everyday due to lack of internet services but we will update when we can so check in every few days. It will save you a lot of hardache because if you don't check our blog we will arrive on your door step with tens of thousands of photos!