Week 46. Monday 28th May - Sunday 3rd June 2007

After 9 hours solid driving on Monday we reached Tennant’s Creek in time for dinner. The only thing we’d passed on the way was the famous Daly Waters Pub which is the oldest in the territory. Unfortunately it was a total tourist trap and very lacking in real atmosphere. We went to a local social club in Tennant’s Creek where we got fed up and talking to some locals. Kiwi Greg was kind enough to invite us back to his gaff where we had a good nights sleep without our mosquito nets for once. Nice one.
Tuesday was another 9 hour marathon drive across the Border into Queensland. It’s hard to describe just how little there is to see when driving these roads. Huge long straight roads for vast distances broken only by the odd one horse town. The longest we managed was 35 miles without having to turn the wheel even the slightest degree and this wasn’t a rare occurance.
Wednesday was more of the same until we finally hit the east coast on Thursday when we arrived in Townsville (good name eh?). We went to the aquarium here which was pretty cool - containing a living reef and lots of turtles and sharks and then had some local brews from the brewery. We cleverly booked a days whitewater rafting for the next day aswell so we had to drive up to Tully that night.
The Whitewater rafting was pretty cool. We ended up flipping the dingy plenty of times and at one point I floated away down the river for about half a mile before getting resuced by a boat full of Japanese tourists. They were well impressed when I told them I’d been to Japan and more so when I told them I’d had Fugu. They weren’t so impressed when I told them it was minging though. Still a good day was had by all and it was a good introduction to the east coast. The 2 Richs signed up for skydiving the next day at Mission Beach and looked suitably queasy when they returned to land. Fools.
Saturday and Sunday saw us in Cairns which is a quality town with lots of great venues and eateries. We met up with some locals we’d met on the rafting and got stuck into the nightlife. Cairns is a cool town and we’ll probably spend a next few days here but time is running short for me and Mr Reed. The Landy has to be out by the end of the month when the carnet runs out. Mr. Clayton is going to hang around Cairns and try to get some work while we make haste down the coast to Sydney. Not before we see the Reef though which we are booked on for Monday.
Dwyer