BY MOTORHOME ACROSS AUSTRALIA

Part Three: June 2005

Margaret and Barry Williamson

The log could be read in conjunction with our Notes on Motorhome Travel in Australia.

The full range of published photographs can be seen at Australian Photographs

This daily log gives an account of a 90-day motorhome journey across Australia by hired motorhome. We left Perth on the west (or Indian Ocean) coast on 2 April 2005 aiming to reach Brisbane on the east (or Pacific Ocean) coast at the end of June. The route was to take us across the Nullarbor Plain to Port Augusta (with time to hike in the Flinders Ranges), south to Adelaide, then along the Murray River to Echuca and down to Melbourne for the ferry to Tasmania.

After Tasmania we aimed to retrace our steps to Swan Hill on the Murray, drive north to Broken Hill and then to follow the Darling River up to Bourke. We would then drive the Mitchell Highway and Matilda Way north to Barcaldine and north again on the inland route to Cairns, before turning south for the coastal route to Brisbane.

This log of what actually happened should be read in conjunction with 'Australian Travel Notes' which gives a lot of background information on travelling and motorhoming in Australia, as well as details of the motorhome we used.

The distance driven is given, along with the cost of a powered site with 2 adults at the named CP, TP or HP, taking account of the 10% discount if a Top Tourist or Big 4 member.CP = Caravan Park TP = Tourist Park HP = Holiday Park

(All would be called a Campsite in the UK, a Campground in the US)

June 1                     SWAN HILL HP ($A19)

Frost over the lawns again, time to head north. Farewell to Cliff, who wants to come with us, and we're back on the road. Retraced our route up the Murray Valley Highway, chasing the river through the orchards and vineyards it waters. Past a grove of cricket bat willows, then along the edge of the Piangil State Forest – this is Major Mitchell territory, the explorer who named Swan Hill and continued up the Murrumbidgee in the 1840's. There were many single kookaburras along the telegraph lines, a few pelicans and black swans on the ponds.

The road turned west with the Murray at BOUNDARY BEND, its confluence with the Murrumbidgee, the scenic banks home to a roadhouse and caravan park. Fields of bright green broccoli, 'Orange Pickers Wanted' signs outside the fruiting citrus orchards, almond trees, olive groves supplying an olive oil press: this could be the Mediterranean. Past the turning for Hattah, through which we'd driven from Mildura, but this time we continued to ROBINVALE (a vine-growing centre, pop 1,750). Across the Murray here to EUSTON, leaving Victoria for New South Wales, on a very narrow planked bridge which is being replaced by a concrete one. NSW Tourism's website is www.visitnsw.com.au.

On the Sturt Highway for the next 50 miles, meeting the Murray again at GOL GOL, where we lunched in a quiet riverside park. The toilet block had an outside tap labelled Filtered Drinking Water (from the Murray?) Didn't detour across the next bridge to Mildura (back in Victoria), bypassing it and driving straight to WENTWORTH, the Town on Two Rivers.

Wentworth is a historic port (1830s) at the meeting place of Australia's two greatest rivers. We were surprised to learn that the Darling at 2,740 km is longer than the Murray (2,530 km). The world's fourth largest river system is formed by the Murray-Darling Basin, where the Great Dividing Range prevents all the inland rivers from reaching the Pacific Ocean. The northern rivers, fed by summer monsoons, flow into the Darling while southern rivers, sourced by winter rains and spring snow thaws, flow into the Murray. The Wentworth area only gets 8 or 10 inches of rain in a good year (which this isn't), but has plentiful water year-round from the river system. All this was explained to us by a very enthusiastic senior volunteer in the Visitor Info Centre, who sent us off to see the confluence from a viewing tower near the No. 10 Lock and Weir.

Duly informed, we continued north on the Silver City Highway to the eponymous city of Broken Hill. The alternative road which follows the Darling River to Menindee is, sadly, unsealed after Pooncarie, so we couldn't follow in the tracks of Burke and Wills (perhaps just as well). Love Macca's remark that B&W would have got lost on the bitumen!

Our highway runs for 266 empty km, with nothing to break the drive except a single simple roadhouse about half way, at COOMBAH, where we had a brew-up. From the Mighty Murray to the Great Outback – red soil, saltbush, feral goats, a lone emu, a few kangaroos emerging as the sun went down in a glorious outback sunset. Nothing growing but saltbush, though we're still in the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone, which must extend beyond the orchards as far as the blighters can fly!

As dusk fell, the broken hills and lights of the outback mining town welcomed us and we settled at the caravan park on the Barrier Highway – we had at last rejoined our cross-country cycle route of 2000, as we stayed here in a cabin after the previous night at the Olary Hotel.

Much warmer here than at Swan Hill, now over 300 miles to the south.

Still a bit frosty up here in the hills (nearly 1,000 ft). Into BROKEN HILL to shop for food plus a new filter for the Brita water jug, after 8 weeks' use - from 'Big W', the hardware branch of Woolworths. The town is its own graphic testimony to its history, the 'mullocks' (slag-heaps) and headframes towering over the silver-lead-zinc mining city, the grand turn-of-the-century stone buildings and small miners' cottages, the gridwork of streets with names like Wolfram Lane, Bromide St, Sulphide St, Chloride St, Cobalt St, Crystal St, Beryl Lane and so on. The colours and light of the landscape have attracted artists and film-makers, an odd combination with the heavy industry.

Heading east on the Barrier Highway, we quickly left all trace of the town behind. Past a sign telling us to forward our clocks by 30 mins for Eastern Standard Time (Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland and NSW except Broken Hill, which clings to Central Standard Time with NT and SA). As we hadn't put them back yesterday, it didn't matter! Another sign indicated that we were leaving the Fruit Fly Free Zone, quite a relief. Red earth and scrub, the 25-Mile Creek (25 miles after Broken Hill) bone dry, like all the others we crossed. Plenty of road-kill to fatten the ravens, crows and wedgetail eagles – wonder where they nest?

After 80 empty kms the Little Topar Roadhouse appeared on the horizon, offering fuel, food, simple rooms and a dry-composting dunny. A couple of miles further is the left turn for Hazelvale Emu Farm & Camping, a mile up a dusty track. Five years ago, we'd enjoyed a splendid evening there, taking dinner (cooked under the stars in a bush oven), bed and breakfast with the lone emu farmer. Today we were sad to see the sign had been taken down, the gate was locked, it seemed Roy's hard work had not paid off.

Over 100 very empty kms of Barrier Highway till our next cycle staging point, the town of WILCANNIA on the Darling River. Once a very busy port in the days of the paddle steamers, taking wool to Adelaide, it is now in decline with a largely Aboriginal population of 1,000. The Wilcannia Motel we had stayed at, the general store and roadhouse are still in business, and some sandstone Colonial-era buildings such as that housing the Central Darling Shire offices, but many other shops and houses boarded up. Made lunch by the Darling, which looks very low and still. We walked to look at the rotting wooden wharf and the 2 ages of bridge – the early steel centre-lift bridge and the newer concrete one carrying the Barrier Highway across the river. A dozen black cockatoos took to the air with a flash of red tails as soon as our camera approached their roost, on the river bank.

Another 100 km of straight highway, rolling gently, to our next cycling stage, the Emmdale Roadhouse (no accommodation, we'd just pitched the tent in the thorny paddock and eaten supper with the hosts). It is still open today, but a For Sale notice hangs on the fence. Stop for a brew up and take photos of a family of 3 emus grazing nearby.

The final 160 km is even emptier, if that is possible. Even the traffic (mostly trucks and caravans) has disappeared since Wilcannia. The only signs of life are feral goats, a few live kangaroos and the odd mob of sheep where a windmill-pump indicated a waterhole. Couldn't recognise the place we'd camped in the bush, with no landmarks.

Pleased to get a signal on the ABC Radio National for some of the day, listening to the 2 current serials: Sarah Turnbull's 'Almost French' (an Australian girl living in Paris) and 'Life of Pi', a Booker Prize winner by an Indian named Patel. Frustrating that we only catch odd episodes of each. When radio reception fades, between towns, we listen to our small CD collection (choice of Macca, Eva Cassidy or a classical collection)!

Finally COBAR hove into view, a working copper-mining town, smaller than Broken Hill but with a good caravan park on the road in (giving a $A1 discount for cash payment!) This is the crossroads with the Kidman Highway and tomorrow we turn north, leaving our cycle route which continued east to Nyngan.

For more information, have a look at: www.cobar.nsw.gov.au, www.kidmanway.org.au and www.outbacknsw.org.au/cobar.

No ground frost this morning, the caravan park busy with Aussie grey nomads heading north for winter sun. In Cobar the Library offered free internet: a chance to check our bank balances and incoming emails. The Great Cobar Heritage Centre and Visitor Info, in a splendid copper company building, has a dump point and water for vans. We couldn't help them with their appeal for information about the Copper Ram (a town icon), stolen from outside the Centre recently!

The Kidman Way (a narrow road running north for 100 miles to Bourke) is named after Sir Sidney Kidman, the 'Cattle King' – on his death in 1935 he owned over 100 sheep and cattle stations. There was absolutely nothing along the way apart from a couple of rest areas and the boundary post of the Shires of Cobar (= the area of Tasmania) and Bourke (= Denmark!) Very little traffic indeed, just a few emus running through the bush, until fields of cotton heralded the approach to BOURKE, where we met the broader Mitchell Highway from Nyngan, the railway and the Darling River.

The friendly volunteer in the Visitor Centre at the old railway station played us a video about the history of the port and made us coffee, all free of charge. Again, there was a dump/water point outside and more information leaflets than we could carry. Bourke was the furthest port up the Darling, handling wool and produce brought by camel or bullock carts for shipping to the south coast by paddlesteamers towing barges. Now, the town has been saved from decline by its irrigation scheme, enabling a cotton and citrus fruit industry to thrive.

Made our way to the site of the historic wharf (abandoned for the last 70 years). The river was still as a lake, the redgums on both banks full of white corellas, squawking and flapping, occasionally wheeling high over the water before resettling densely on the branches. Perhaps they were spooked by a pair of wedgetail eagles soaring high above.

The first lock on the Darling was opened a few miles downstream, and the first bridge across it was built here in 1883, 2 years before the railway came. We find these Victorian dates and achievements an amazing part of British history in this far-flung colony. Major Mitchell was the early explorer of the area, naming his Fort Bourke Stockade after the Governor of the Colony in 1835. There are several historic buildings (ie over a century old), but we saw more Aboriginee housing than elegant architecture.

'Back o' Bourke' is an Australian term for the back of beyond, the remote outback, the 'never never': an area and a concept dear to many writers, from Henry Lawson to modern bush poets. Scottish stockman/poet Will Ogilvie wrote: "That's where the wildest floods have birth, out of the nakedest ends of the earth, out at the back o' Bourke … It's the bitterest land of sweat and sorrow, but if I were free I'd be off tomorrow, out at the back o' Bourke". Historian Charles Bean summed it up in 1908: "There exists inside coastal Australia a second Australia, of which most of our people know very little … The core of Australia, the real red Australia of the ages." That's the Australia we love to travel through.

There is a caravan park in the town but we drove 7 kms north up the Mitchell Highway, crossing the river on the modern Gateway Bridge alongside the lift-up North Bourke Bridge, the first one built over the Darling in the 1880's, now only safe for pedestrians. The old Back o'Bourke pub on the north bank is the meeting place of the Bourke Bush Poets.

Our somewhat pretentious 'Camp Resort' has amenities labelled 'Cowgirls' and 'Cowboys', calls its cabins Stockman's Suites, and offers sausage sizzles with bush poetry two nights a week (but not tonight – we did our own bangers and mash!) It also sold bags of sweet local oranges for $A1.

Today we put the air-con on when we arrived at camp, rather than the heating, what a contrast. The night air is still and warm, the sky like a black velvet blanket. Trousers give way to shorts again, chocolate bars go back in the fridge.

For more information, see: www.visitbourke.com, www.backobourke.com.au and www.outbackbeds.com.au.

Sunday means Macca's on the Radio (7 am-10 am) and we're eating porage. Then we hit the Mitchell Highway northwards, a ribbon of black tarmac through the mulga scrub, the red ochre of the soil the predominant colour contrasting with the wide horizon blue. The road followed the Warrego River, invisible to our west. A dead sheep gave the crows a taste of mutton, as well as the usual kangaroo carcasses and an emu which didn't make it to the other side.

We scarcely noticed ENGONNIA after 60 km but paused 34 km later at BARRINGUN, just before the Queensland border. Here, the last pub in NSW, the Tattersall Hotel, was once a Cobb & Co coaching inn. The Bush Tucker Inn, on the opposite side of the road, advertised food, petrol and a caravan park, but looked like a rusty tin shack.

Across the Dog Fence and over the border into the Sunshine State. The sky was filling with swirling white cloud, overlaid with puffy smaller clouds – beautiful. The highway, now subtitled Matilda Way, led another 120 km to CUNNAMULLA, a wool and beef town at a stock-route crossroads on the Warrego River, home to 1,200 souls and the world's largest woolshed! We stopped for lunch and a fill of diesel (8 cents a litre cheaper in Queensland, with State subsidy). There is a caravan park in the town, and also camping at the Nardoo Station, 38 km further up the Mitchell Highway, which now followed a railway line.

Half way between Cunnamulla and Charleville (100 km from each) is the tiny railway town of WYANDRA. The small population (60) is trying to attract outback tourists and even offered free powered caravan sites and toilets on a paddock by the school. The roads are busy with thousands of migrants from Victoria and NSW heading north for the winter, and a few were camped here. We continued through the Mitchell grass flats and bushland to CHARLEVILLE, (pop 3,500) complete with Flying Dr Service covering an area the size of Britain, and a School of the Air (or School of Distant Education).

The Cobb & Co Caravan Park was practically full, the Top Tourist had no powered sites at all – the grey nomads had arrived ahead of us and we finally realised that May-Sept (winter) is the peak season in the northern half of this vast and timeless land! We took an en-suite cabin ($A54), rather than squat in the dust, and enjoyed the space and the TV for a change – a programme debunking the Dan Brown phenomenon 'The Da Vinci Code', followed by a documentary about Elvis with some poignant songs, then Billy Connolly for laughs. The road climbed imperceptibly all day, rising from 400 ft to almost 1,000 ft, but no chill factor – it gets warmer each day and stays light a little longer.

For more on Cunnamulla/Wyandra, see www.paroo.info and for Charleville, see www.murweh.qld.gov.au (Visitor Info Centre sites). Queensland Tourism's site is www.tq.com.au. A few statistics which surprised us: the area of Queensland is about 7 times larger than Great Britain, more than twice the size of Texas, and nearly a quarter of the land area of Australia! It has 300 days of sunshine per year, and more sheep than people: 4-5 million head, against a population of just under 3,900,000.

A distinct change in the landscape as we drove north, with more trees (including Boab or Bottle Trees – useful in drought as cattle can eat the soft tissue in the swollen trunk), fresh green grass on the verges rather than red dust, even cacti. There was a little muddy water in the creek-beds we crossed. Coffee break after 85 km at AUGATHELLA (pop 580) in the park by the (dry) Warrego River, where there was a tap and toilets but a No Camping sign.

The Landsborough Highway, named after the man who explored the region in 1862 looking for Burke & Wills, continued relentlessly north. Over the next 100 km stretch, we climbed to over 1,500 ft before cresting a rise and dropping into the vast Lake Eyre-Coopers Creek catchment area. During the 20 km across this to TAMBO, we stopped to allow a mob of cattle cross the road, herded by 2 genuine drovers on horseback – a good photo opportunity! Lunch parked by the lake in Tambo (pop 700), a quick refuel and another 100 km of highway following the Barcoo River to BLACKALL, a merino wool town with a Big Ram, about 2,000 people and 18 inches average annual rainfall.

Here we sought out the famous Black Stump ('Beyond the Black Stump' is another name for Australia's wild west). We were strangely unimpressed by the tree stump, on which surveyors rested their theodolites when mapping Queensland in the 1880's – perhaps because it's been replaced by a different fossilised specimen. We felt no urge to visit the only steam-powered wool-washing shed left in Australia (and, no doubt, the world), but couldn't miss the Thomas Mitchell clocktower on the main street (the Major discovered Blackall in 1846 – what was there to discover then, we wondered?) Another memorial marks the first meeting of the shearers' union in 1886, to become the basis of the Australian Labour Party. Resisted the temptation of the caravan park and continued north for another 100 km to meet the Capricorn Highway (as in Tropic of Capricorn) and the railway.

Here, at BARCALDINE (pop 1,800) made tea outside the railway station (the 'Spirit of the Outback' takes nearly 24 hrs to arrive from Brisbane), by a 200-year-old ghost gum tree. During the Great Shearers Strike in 1891, the men met under its branches and it has been preserved in memory of 13 strike leaders sent to jail.

Now, significantly, we turned west, the road running just below the Tropic, following the railway for 80 km to the little town of ILFRACOMBE (pop 185) and a final 25 km to LONGREACH on the Thompson River. Though Barcaldine had 2 busy competing caravan parks, and Ilframcombe another, both caravan parks in Longreach were full! The Matilda Way is a popular route and Longreach (with 4,500 inhabitants) has the twin attractions of the Qantas Museum and the Stockman's Hall of Fame. To avoid a claustrophobic dusty corner, we again took a cabin, costing $A63. There was free entertainment in the evening round a campfire, in the form of singer-songwriter-comedian (and former rodeo rider) Tom McIvor, who amused for an hour or so. Learnt that Slim Dusty (country music legend) died recently, as Tom sang a tribute.

For more on the above towns, see Visitor Information Centre websites: www.tambo.qld.gov.au www.blackall.qld.gov.au www.barcaldine.qld.gov.au www.ilfracombe.qld.gov.au www.longreach.qld.gov.au

Longreach has many paying attractions (you can even take a 1.5 hour tour of the local college for $5 – see students at work and have a cup of tea!) We chose to visit the Boeing 747 'City of Bunbury' jumbo jet which landed at Longreach Airport in Nov 2002, after 23 years of service for Qantas, carrying 5.4 million passengers. It is next to the Qantas Founders Outback Museum, with a separate entry fee for the hourly guided tour ($A12, seniors $A10). The first available tour was at 1.30 pm, so spent a useful morning working on the free internet-email in the town library. Tried to get a newspaper but they didn't arrive until the afternoon! The Tropic of Capricorn line on Eagle Street (all the streets were named after birds) separated the Torrid Zone from the Temperate Zone (torrid is us!)

The tour of the 747 was extremely interesting, especially to frequent flyers. Everything was explained and viewed, from the wheels to the amazingly small cockpit. The only jumbo jet open for public inspection - the town was evacuated and roads closed while it came in to land by the original Qantas hangar (Queensland and Northern Territories Aerial Service), where the world's second oldest airline began in 1920.

Well impressed, we drove north-west, a long empty stretch of road to the remote home of 'Waltzing Matilda' at WINTON. The only caravan park (apart from 20 free places without electricity behind the North Gregory Hotel) is a small Top Tourist park, busy but not full. We ordered the evening meal (served at 6.30 pm round the campfire for $A10 each) and were disappointed with a school-dinner meal of rissoles in gravy, luke-warm veg and tea/coffee. But again there was free entertainment, this time a real Bush Poet. Milton Taylor, retired shearer, gave a virtuoso performance, 2 hours of recitation of classic and modern verse, as well as some of his own verses. Learnt that 'Clancy of the Overflow' (in 'The Man from Snowy River') was Clancy McNamara, a several-times-great-uncle of Macca.

For more on Winton, see www.experiencewinton.com.au

A family of 3 Brolgas was strutting round the van as we breakfasted, unperturbed by an approaching camera. These cranes stand 1.5 m tall, grey legs and feathers, red necks, long probing beaks and a harsh cry. And they can fly.

Walked Winton's main street and posted cards before leaving. Learnt of the town's links with Banjo Paterson's Andy ("Andy sang, Andy watched, Andy waited till his billy boiled …") and of its earlier history and link with Winton, Bournemouth – the home of good friends! It's a remote town almost in the centre of Queensland. About 60 miles north of the Tropic of Capricorn, it is 400 miles west of the Pacific Ocean and Great Barrier Reef and about the same distance east of the border with the Northern Territory. The nearest towns are Longreach (110 miles south-east), Hughenden (140 miles north-east) and Cloncurry (200 miles north-west).

The town was founded in 1876 by Albert Allen. He was a policeman in the town of Aramac (about 140 miles east), but gave that up in 1875, loaded his drays and moved west to the banks of the Western River. He set up camp at a place which, for obvious reasons, he called 'Pelican Waterhole'. There he built a hotel and general store for passing travellers, stockmen, pastoralists and prospectors.

He was flooded out during the wet season of 1876 and moved his hotel and store to what is now the centre of Winton, appointing himself the unofficial postmaster. Soon tiring of writing 'Pelican Waterhole' on letters and packets, he renamed his small settlement after his birthplace - Winton, a suburb of Bournemouth in England.

In 1879 an official post office was established and in 1881 the first bank moved in – the Queensland National Bank.

In 1895 the classic Australian song 'Waltzing Matilda' had its first public performance in the town's North Gregory Hotel. The words were written by "Banjo" Paterson, a Sydney lawyer, and the music by Christina MacPherson while Banjo was staying on her family's nearby Dagwood Sheep Station.

In 1920, the Winton Club hosted the first meeting of what was to become Australia's international airline: QANTAS (Queensland And Northern Territories Aerial Service). The outback airline set up its first airfield and hangars at nearby Longreach.

By 1945 the population of Winton, which had been as high as 3,500, fell to 1,600. Today it has stabilised at about 900 with growing tourist activity. Its attractions include 3,000 dinosaur footprints in the nearby Lark Quarry (70 miles of gravel road away) and a Waltzing Matilda Centre in the town. The litter bins are fibreglass dinosaur feet and the post office sold cuddly dinosaurs, as well as Jolly Swagmen – something for everyone! Opal mining continues at nearby Opalton and every September, in odd-numbered years, there is a crayfish Derby. It also has what is claimed to be the world's only musical fence where any passer-by can strike up a tune.

Not least, the town is proud of its public water supply which comes from the Great Australian Artesian Basin, 4,000 ft underground. The water emerges at about 80°C but is allowed to cool to about 50°C before being circulated round the town. There is a smell of hydrogen sulphide gas which soon dissipates when the water is allowed to stand or boiled prior to chilling for drinking. However, visitors are warned: "Please note that the tap water may also cause silver jewellery to tarnish".

We left the 'Matilda Way' here, so missing Kynuna, whose hotel makes a rival claim to the first performance of the song! Our route followed a freight railway line on a development road through empty bushland – the trees always on the horizon. A couple of dead sheep attracted several wedgetail eagles, wheeling impatiently overhead when our arrival disturbed their meal. Tiny settlements on the way: after 80 km CORFIELD (pop 20) had a pub and a tennis court, another 70 km to STAMFORD (pop 3) with just a roadhouse. Places which come to life for the annual horse races. The new road was still being sealed for the last 10 km, before HUGHENDEN hove into view, with its 1,500 inhabitants. Here we met the Flinders Highway (or 'Overlanders Way'), running east-west alongside the railway, from the coast at Townsville to Mount Isa.

The small caravan park opposite the shunting yard was just that – a place to rest, shower, do the laundry – no campfires or bush poets! For entertainment we could swim in the town's free 33-metre-long outdoor pool, right next door: very refreshing (air temperature in the 80's, water cold! Shopped at the local bakery and butcher's (prize-winning pungent garlic & herb pork sausages).

Still no signal on the mobile phone since Longreach (whatever the Telstra coverage map says!) A good feeling of isolation under the incredibly starry night sky.

For more on Hughenden, visit www.flinders.qld.gov.au

The Outback gradually gave way to trees, with small termite mounds punctuating the red earth. All the creeks were flat dry sand, mocked by signs saying 'Floodway' or 'Road subject to flooding' with depth markers. Again, a series of minute settlements along the railway: PRAIRIE (pop 40) with an old coaching hotel, TORRENS CREEK (pop 15), where the Exchange Hotel-Motel-Caravan Park begs for your business: 'Stop for a feed before we both starve'! We did stop for a walk and found a tiny shop, a post office, a police station, a cemetery. To the north of our road lay the Porcupine Gorge National Park, accessed by dirt road.

PENTLAND, 100 km before Charters Towers, again offered a hotel-motel-caravan park, as did BALFE'S CREEK and then HOMESTEAD, 30 km further on. Every village (a word not used in Australia) is hanging on to life, trying to tempt travellers to pause. We felt guilty in our self-sufficient vehicle: cyclists would appreciate and use these hostelries, but no-one is riding here.

About 2 km before CHARTERS TOWERS, the outback behind us, we settled on the shady green Top Tourist park. Took an en-suite site, an excellent idea unknown in Europe – camp alongside your own private toilet-shower compartment for a few dollars morel.

'The Towers' is a substantial city built on goldmining, with plenty of heritage-listed buildings – splendid banks, hotels, post office, library: the School of Mines, the vast cemetery and the newspaper offices of the 'Northern Miner' say it all. Modern heritage too, in the form of Woolworth's, Tandy Electrics and fast food places. Even a cinema and no less than 4 caravan parks.

Spent a day getting back in touch with the world via text messages and email, though Hotmail was 'down' for the morning. The library unusually charges $A5 per hour for access and does not allow the use of a USB Flashdrive, so we worked in the computer shop, with better equipment at $A6 per hour.

Today (Saturday) is the start of a long weekend holiday to mark the Queen's Birthday, which is not a public holiday in the UK!

The Gregory Developmental Road, running north-west from Charters Towers, is part of the Great Inland Way. In fact this northern section is just a very narrow 'Beef Road' for stock movement, much of it just a truck width with gravel verges and occasional 2-lane stretches. It climbed from around 800 ft to a max of 1,627 ft before dropping to 1,500 ft at Greenvale, the first settlement after more than 200 km. See http://www.greatinlandway.org.au/ for the whole route, from Dubbo (NSW) to Cairns (Queensland).

After 33 km an easily missed sign indicates a right turn for Big Bend, 2 km along a track. We parked and walked to see the eastern fringe of a 100-km-long lava flow known as the Great Basalt Wall. There were black volcanic boulders at the bend in the Burdekin River, which the lava diverted to form a pool at Echo Hole. A couple of fishermen were camped on the bank (today is Saturday of the Queen's Birthday Holiday long weekend). Perhaps the geological formations are more impressive at Red Falls, 44 km along a track west of the highway?

13 km further on, we crossed Fletcher Creek, where the free campground by the river was busy with vans and tents. The foundations of the older bridge and track to nearby Dalrymple were visible – a short-lived goldrush town, destroyed by flood in 1870. Continuing north, the creeks became dry, and the parched grass beneath the trees was studded with hundreds of small pointed termite mounds. Very little life, on or off the road – just 2 emus strutting by. What a length of leg – 'emu drumsticks with rice would be nice' sings Rolf Harris!

About halfway to Greenvale, at 106 km from Charters Towers, the Blue Waters Roadhouse offers fuel and refreshment, opposite a cattle station with Brahman cows, well suited to the heat and dust from their breeding in India.

The old railway line (Townsville-Greenvale) followed the road for the rest of the way, but the rails and sleepers had been removed, since the town's nickel mine (once the biggest in the southern hemisphere) closed in 1992 after only 20 years' working.

GREENVALE itself is still open (just). The service station has closed down and the Three Rivers Hotel, though still in business, is for sale. (Immortalised in Stan Coster & Slim Dusty's song, known to us via John Williamson.) The quiet little caravan park doubles as a hardware and transport business, with a flock of tame galahs (pink and grey parrots). Sadly, we are told that the annual rodeo is no longer held because of Public Liability Insurance problems.

June 12 (398 km) KURANDA, Bec & Kev's Rainforest Garden House

Talked with a friend of Sue Corbett, landlady of the Three Rivers Hotel. The original pub was literally moved along with the thirsty workmen, when 'from Townsville to Greenvale, they're building a line, through ranges and gorges to the great nickel mine …' The railway crossed the Star, Burdekin and Clarke Rivers. The pub finally came to rest at the end of the line: the Greenvale Hotel. Replaced by a new building, it was renamed after Stan & Slim's ballad and their portraits adorn the bar, with a memorial outside to Stan Coster, who won Tamworth's 'Golden Guitar' for Best Composition with the song in 1977. Greenvale today has a population of 80, mainly retired: houses are cheap, there is a golf course (made on sand mixed with oil), Olympic size pool, library, post office and school serving the region, though serious shopping means a 200 km trip to Townsville or Charters Towers.

We went north on the narrow Great Inland Way, through dry termite-mound-studded beef country where gaunt white Brahman cattle were huddled round shrinking waterholes. After 52 km, the junction with an unsealed road to Hughenden (256 km of dirt) was marked by THE LYND roadhouse and van park, claiming to be the country's smallest bar. We continued north-west on the bitumen, the road climbing steadily from 1,400 ft at Greenvale to over 3,000 ft, the climate getting greener and fresher.

The Gt Inland Way joined Highway 1 (the Savannah Way, Broome-Cairns) after 108 km, putting us back on the route we'd taken to Kuranda in 2002. Stopped to lunch in the Forty Mile Scrub National Park picnic area, which offered a 10-minute walk into 'Dry Rain Forest', a curious oxymoron. The termites were now building big bulbous mounds (known as Cathedrals). Though busier, the road was still single lane with few overtaking sections, regularly forcing us onto the rough verge to avoid collision. Another 68 km to MOUNT GARNET, a town at 2,236 ft with fuel and a caravan park, after which we could relax on a 2-lane highway.

At the spa of INNOT HOT SPRINGS, we were on the edge of the Atherton Tablelands – the wooded highlands behind Cairns, opened up for tin mining in the 1870's. Free-campers had gathered at Archer Creek, at a discreet distance along the road from the Hot Springs Caravan Park. Much of the forest has been cleared for dairy cattle and a variety of crops, enjoying monsoonal rain. 45 km from Mt Garnet, the highway reaches RAVENSHOE (Queensland's highest town at 3,228 ft). The road continues to climb to a maximum of 3,650 ft, passing a windfarm on the ridge near Millaa Millaa and 2 junctions with access roads from the coast. We were amazed at the lush green grass and black & white cows covering volcanic hillsides, reminiscent of New Zealand. We had left the dusty outback to re-enter civilisation at ATHERTON (all services, including cheaper fuel and McDonalds). Visit http://www.athertontablelands.com/ for Tropical Tablelands Tourism.

Over the next 30 km to MAREEBA we passed another free-camping place at Rocky Creek War Memorial. Crops of avocado, bananas, sugarcane and coffee are evidence of the warm wet climate on the Tablelands, where tobacco was also grown until recently.

Turning east, we descended for 32 km to KURANDA, a tourist village at the head of the Barron Gorge (linked to Cairns by both scenic railway and Skyrail cable car). A few miles from here, under the cane railway and over the Barron River (luckily not in flood at this time of year), is the rainforest home of friends Bec & Kev (Australian Rebecca and Kevin from England).

They offered us an idyllic camping spot in their extensive 'garden in a forest, that the world has never seen'. The motorhome fitted nicely on a shelf at the end of their forest track, leading off the road we had followed from Kuranda. Soon, an electrical lead snaked its way up from the house below, giving us the energy to keep the battery charged and the refrigerator compressing.

JUNE 13/19 KURANDA, Bec & Kev's Rainforest Garden Home

Bec and Kev made us (and our website) very much at home for the next week. They are both professional computer programmers and Bec, with close support from Kev, is responsible for the design, structure and format of our new website.

We enjoyed good company and excellent meals, dining and talking the evenings away on the verandah: the natural extension to the wooden stilt house. Built out at tree-top height in the Tropical Rain Forest, 1,250 ft above Cairns, it is the perfect platform for watching the wildlife below. In the daytime, pretty red-browed finches and emerald doves came to feed at the bird table and lizards darted through the outdoor bathroom. At dusk the delightful pademelons (forest wallabies – partial to bananas and carrots), possums and bandicoots emerged. The calls of the whip-birds and tree-frogs intensified after dark, when we were pleased not to meet any pythons or venomous creatures – the large Huntsman Spider was enough (albeit non-poisonous). And yes, the weather was both tropical and wet!

Exploring the 'garden' and the track to the Barron River was a delight. Simply fetching the mail or reading the electricity meter was a nature walk in itself. Yet this lifestyle comes with the comforts of internet connection, dishwasher and automatic washing machine: all a very welcome change from life on the road.

Bec and Kev have 3 desktop computers and enough spare leads to connect our laptop to the net as well. Once Kev had left for his work with the Police in Cairns, we all settled down to keyboards, on and off-line. Bec had her own work, often interrupted by requests for help and support from us, as we worked on the content of this very website. During this week we made giant strides – putting in the remaining articles and logs (there is much more waiting in the UK), images, labelling, formatting. The internet highlight of the week was discovering ways to open a 'Useful Links' page (hopefully to be reciprocated in due course) and a page for 'Readers' Comments'. Overall, this was a very satisfying and creative period of friendship and co-operation, now enshrined in www.magbaztravels.com

Not that it was all work – other highlights were the chicken barbecue, an Indian evening with Kev's poppadoms and the downloading and viewing of a brilliantly funny animated video-clip about the dreaded Cane Toad made by 2 young Australian film students (visit http://www.cane-toad.com/).

June 20 (314 km) INGHAM, Palm Tree CP ($A20)

Sadly, we had to leave our friends in their piece of the Tropical Rain Forest. We returned to KURANDA, then took the twisting road towards Cairns, climbing through the Kuranda Range World Heritage Area, pausing at a scenic lookout over the coast at 1,270 ft, finally dropping abruptly to sea level at SMITHFIELD. We stopped at the Smithfield Centre: a huge shopping complex, its crowds and cars a strange contrast to the peace of the forest, just 20 km above. Nearby is the base of the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, whose passengers are bussed out from Cairns, to be carried above the Barron Gorge to Kuranda.

Highway 1 (known as Captain Cook Highway, running down the coast from Cape Tribulation) took us past the airport to the centre of CAIRNS – about 40 km commuting each way for Kev. The city looks very modern and very busy, with no unmetered parking in the centre. The sea beyond the mudflats is unattractive, but there is bathing in a large open pool on the Esplanade and we found a free car park for lunch to the north of it. There are about 10 caravan parks round the city, at above average prices, and signs threatening $A150 spot fines for free-camping ('Ranger on Duty').

South on highway 1, now called the Bruce Highway or Great Green Way, a busy 2-lane road. Sugarcane and bananas grew along the coastal strip, with forested hills still rising behind - Queensland's highest peak, Bartle Frere, poked through the clouds in the Bellenden Ker Range. The afternoon temperature reached 31ēC, with tomorrow the winter solstice! Sugarcane mills smoked and lorries loaded the cane train cages which feed them.

Paused where the road touched the coast again at INNISFAIL, 90 km from Cairns at the mouth of the Johnstone River. Continued south, past a Sugar Museum, directly to TULLY, which boasts the highest rainfall in Australia: 450 cm or 180 inches per annum. Its Visitor Centre has an excellent exhibition about the history of the banana and sugar plantations – and free cups of tea!

We met the sea again at CARDWELL, where the expensive Top Tourist CP was crowded (it's school holiday time in Queensland). The road turned inland again, rising to a lookout over Hinchinbrook Island at 420 ft, then down to INGHAM. The caravan park is 3 km south of the town, directly on the Bruce Highway (and at non-seaside prices).

Our overnight stay was recorded with a lovely flash photograph of a tree-frog, which sat motionless all evening in the foliage, right outside the busy amenities block.

June 21/22 (306 km) CHARTERS TOWERS CP – Top Tourist ($A22.50)

South again on the Bruce Highway (or 'Great Green Way', whose logo is a tree-frog), through ROLLINGSTONE to TOWNSVILLE, a fine city 110 km along with a harbour on Ross Creek. The landscape changed as the sugarcane fields gradually gave way to mangoes and more bananas; the dark green cloud-shrouded forest plateau turned to sparse low woodland.

In Townsville (founded 1864 by Captain Robert Towns) we parked on the Strand, for a walk on the seafront. The Surf Lifesaving Club had flags indicating the safe swimming area, though in the Marine Stinger season (November to May) the deadly jellyfish must be avoided by keeping to the enclosed Rock Pool. Don & Madge from Brisbane, walking past as we had coffee, inspected the motorhome - 'thinking of hiring one' was their excuse. We were pleased to oblige.

A narrow 3-km road winds up to Townsville's Castle Hill Lookout, 880 ft above the town. A short walk round the summit loop enabled us to admire the panorama and watch the planes on the civil and military airport below. A busy spot for lunch with a view. Offshore is Magnetic Island, named by Captain Cook in 1770, as his compass wouldn't work as he sailed by. See http://www.townsvilleonline.com/

After crossing the Ross River we left the Bruce Highway, tired of the busy coast road (which we knew from our last visit in 2002). Instead, we turned west for 130 km to CHARTERS TOWERS, along the A6, the Flinders Highway or 'Overlanders Way'. Now we were back in the Outback, with parched Brahman cattle, termite mounds, dry riverbeds and sandy creeks. About half-way from Townsville, the Reid River Rest Area, just before crossing the river, had toilets and tables and allowed a maximum of 20 hrs stay, though we just stopped for a pot of tea.

The road was empty until the outskirts of 'The Towers'. We went straight to the shady wooded caravan park we'd stayed on 9-10 June, to enjoy an en-suite site. There was an unexpected bonus, in the shape of Cliff Berry and the Driftalongs! For about an hour and a half, Cliff, Betty, Tony and Pauline entertained campers with country music and singalongs. 'One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus': a good philosophy for being back on the road. At over 1,000 ft, it was noticeably cooler than at the coast, particularly at night.

As the end of June, and our time in Australia, approaches we start preparing to leave, sorting our stuff out. The Post Office sells a plastic 'satchel' for $A8, in which to post up to 3 kg anywhere in the country. This was ideal for posting Ruby & Bill's maps and books back to Perth – to await their return from Turkey/Eastern Europe. (We last heard from them in Hungary.)

More work on the laptop, ready to put on the website, and a postcard of thanks (hardly adequate) to Bec & Kev.

June 23 (440 km) CAPELLA Van Park ($A16)

After another fill of Woolworths discounted diesel, it was south on the Gregory Highway (or Great Inland Way – logo, Ernie the Emu). It is a Developmental Road, currently being widened from one lane with gravel shoulders to 2 lanes. This meant 2 lengthy delays during the first 70 km for roadworks, chatting to the Stop-Go Traffic Controllers. Then 50 km of unimproved narrow road, before crossing the Cape River on a low-level bridge, after which there were 2 good lanes of bitumen.

The first habitation on our route was at BELYANDO CROSSING, 205 km from Charters Towers: just a small roadhouse-motel-caravan park, by the bridge over the (dry) Belyando River, the entry to Belyando Shire and Central Queensland. Stopping for lunch, a flock of assorted birds came begging: ravens, magpies, common mynahs, some unknown ones, even a pair of lovely rainbow lorikeets.

We had gradually dropped from 1,100 ft to 600 ft and a flat grassy plain continued for many miles. More birds were seen: a few emus, a flock of galahs and (more unusual) many brolga cranes in the stubblefields of sorghum. The Gregory Highway (from the coast at Mackay) joined our road 165 km after Belyando near the Blair Athol coalmine (the largest of its type in the world). 7 km further on we took a short detour into the small town of CLERMONT and found the 'very quiet spacious caravan park' was absolutely full. We are now going against the flow of the great northward migration.

So we continued south for another 55 km, the trees getting taller, the grass greener. The peaks of the Peak Range National Park were visible to the east. The main crop grown here is sorghum, a tropical grain used for fodder. (We'd come across sorghum beer, made from its fermented syrup, in S Africa).

In CAPELLA the new owners of a quieter van park offered a choice of sites under the trees and 'complimentary smoko' on arrival (free tea/coffee and biscuits). How nice! A cold night with ground frost (height 740 ft).

June 24 (194 km) ROLLESTON CP ($A15)

Along the avenue of boab (or bottle) trees, leaving Capella for the 50 km drive south to EMERALD. A busy town right on the Tropic of Capricorn, at the crossroads with the Capricorn Way from the coast at Rockhampton. After shopping and diesel at Woolworths, we re-entered the Temperate Zone, still following the Gregory Highway south through agricultural land.

After 65 km the mountains of the Minerva Hills National Park rose to the west of the highway, as we entered the pretty town of SPRINGSURE in Queensland's Central Highlands at 1,150 ft. It has a tourist office by a big windmill, where the helpful volunteer suggested we wouldn't like the caravan park in the next town, as it would be full of coalminers and was not suitable for tourists. (Was she on commission for Springsure's CP?) We continued, the road climbing to 1,400 ft (the Staircase Range) before dropping to 800 ft.

ROLLESTON, 70 km along, had a simple caravan park with a friendly manager living in an old bus – we liked it very well! The tiny town has a tiny library with internet and for $A2.50 we had a happy hour reading our incoming emails – a great response to our newly launched website from friends and MMM readers.

June 25 (281 km) ROMA, Villa HP – Big 4 ($A27)

South on the Great Inland Way again (now known as the Carnarvon Developmental Road), climbing steadily from 660 ft to a maximum of 1,880 ft. We passed the entrance to the Carnarvon Gorge National Park after 60 km, its sandstone bluffs forming a line to our west. 13 km further on is the Warremba Farm Stay and Campsite, recommended by the Tourist Office back in Springsure.

The next town, INJUNE - south-west Queensland's 'Gateway to the Carnarvons' - was 174 km from Rolleston and a good stop for lunch, at 1,280 ft. With a population of 500, it has a pleasant caravan park, swimming pool, school, hospital, retirement village, police, small shops, tourist office, cattle depot:

Another 90 km to ROMA, over the crest of the Dividing Range at 1,450 ft. Through cattle and sheep country, there were still surprises: cacti in the fields and our first sighting of an echidna crossing the road (a spiky ant-eating animal like a shaggy hedgehog).

Roma, the birthplace of the country's natural gas and oil exploration, was disappointing. In the 'Big Rig' tourist office, the volunteer had volunteered to go home early (it's Saturday); the town's internet outlets were closed; the first 2 caravan parks visited were full and unhelpful. Success at the Big 4 park, a couple of km out of the centre next to a winery established in 1863. We got an en-suite site and the use of the internet in the office for an hour.

For Roma Tourism visit http://www.thebigrig.com.au/ The 'Big Rig' outside the Visitor Centre was used from 1929-1941 in local oil and gas drilling. Gas was first found on Hospital Hill by workmen drilling for water in 1900.

Macca (Ian McNamara's 'Australia All Over' on ABC local radio, 7-10 am) for Sunday breakfast, but not porage (run out!) Then east out of Roma on the Warrego Highway, the A2, all the way.

Keeping high across the Western Downs (never below 1,000 ft), the road paralleled the railway, passing cattle saleyards and grain silos along the tracks, through woodlands, pasture, sorghum. After 25 km, passed through WALUMBILLA, from where a pipeline still supplies Brisbane and Gladstone with natural gas. Much more development along our route now, with small towns in quick succession: YULEBA, then DULACCA (where the pub offered 'Meals for $5 including tea or coffee – pity it was only 10.30 am!) However small, Australian towns almost always have a memorial or jubilee park with toilets and a fine war memorial.

Stopped at an excellent Historical Village Museum and Tourist Info in MILES, a larger town, at the crossroads with the Leichardt Highway which runs north-south. Ludwig Leichardt was a Prussian explorer who disappeared in 1848 with all his men and animals on his 3rd expedition.

Lunch in CHINCHILLA, about 200 km from Roma, with another Tourist Info run by friendly retirees (a good source of free maps). The park had a monument to Leichardt, who came through in 1844 exploring a route from Moreton Bay (Brisbane) to the Darwin area. The Warrego Highway now turned SE, through small settlements likeWARRA, once a coalmining town, and the town of DALBY. Dark clouds gathered but the rain only lasted a few minutes.

Detoured through OAKEY, the 'Gateway to the Darling Downs' (rich volcanic soil) at 1,350 ft. No shortage of towns, caravan parks, shops etc today – it would be a good cycling route. On into TOOWOOMBA, high on the Gt Dividing Range at about 2,110 ft (700 m). With a population of 90,000, this is Australia's largest inland town, the Garden City noted for its 4 season climate. With 4 caravan parks, we headed for the Top Tourist on Ruthven Street, just south of the city centre. See http://www.toowoomba.qld.gov.au/ for tourist information.

A rainy day was spent in the excellent Internet Arena on James St, working side by side on our website, using both our laptop and one of their computers, still supported on-line by Bec working at home. Put in 6 new pieces, including many Australian photos and the comments on the Maui motorhome, as well as doing a lot of 'housekeeping'. Round the corner was Sizzlers, where we were able to park the motorhome and enjoy a splendid all-you-can-eat lunch. A very good day, not finishing until after dark at 6.30pm.

Down to the Pacific Ocean (or Moreton Bay) at Brisbane, our final destination. Time to unpack, pack and prepare to leave Australia. The motorhome returns to its owners at Maui after a faithful 90 days and 13,653 km (8,500 miles)

Woke to mist and steady rain, more like an English summer's day! Armed with a map of Brisbane from the Tourist Offfice, we took the A2, Warrego Highway, towards the State capital ('only 90 minutes away'). The 4-km descent from Toowoomba (2,110 ft) to the bottom of the Range at 320 ft is so steep that there are emergency stopping beds and speed ramps for the trucks. We remembered freewheeling down it on our bicycles, heading for Brisbane back in 2000 – and it was raining on that day, too. (We refused a lift in the van of a friendly German, keen to complete the coast-to-coast ride.) Interestingly, rain that falls east of the escarpment flows down to Moreton Bay off Brisbane, while that falling on the west side of the watershed at Toowoomba joins the Murray-Darling System, with a very long journey to South Australia.

Leaving the mist behind on the Range, we drove on for about 40 km, past the University of Queensland agricultural station at GATTON and the nearby 'Big Orange' selling fruit and veg at bargain prices. A further 20 km along the highway at HATTON VALE there is now a Budget Motel, which would have been very welcome when we cycled through these wet hills 5 years ago. We found nothing until IPSWICH, a town we bypassed today.

Lunch by the Moggill Ferry (over the Brisbane River – a 20-km route we had cycled into the city). Today though we continued on the A2 (now called the Ipswich Motorway) for 30 km, into and across BRISBANE to reach the coast at MANLY on Moreton Bay. We met the ocean at Darling Point and drove along the Esplanade to Oyster Point, a special moment completing our ocean-to-ocean drive at the same place we had finished our Indian-Pacific cycle ride. It was just as we remembered – the seafront, the gulls, pelicans and ibises, and the mangroves, though today we didn't walk far in the torrential rain (flooding was reported on the radio later).

Joining the Gateway Motorway, we continued north, over the new toll-bridge across the mouth of the Brisbane River and past the airport. Turning off at Toombul Rd for Aspley, we returned for our 4th visit to the large Top Tourist CP, the nearest to the airport (about 10 km). Rain continued to pour, to the relief of much of the country. The CP is well placed, with a hypermarket complex right behind it and plenty of eating places, though sadly no internet centres. We took an en-suite cabin for the remainder of our stay ($A58.50 a night, including discount and linen). Visit http://www.aspleyacres.com.au/ for more on one of our favourite caravan parks (where we first met our Perth cycling friends, Ruby & Bill!)

We unpacked, cleaned and returned the Maui motorhome to the depot near the airport; repacked for a flight to New Zealand on 1 July; wrote letters and enjoyed time to read and (a rare event) watch TV!

Table of Distances, Fuels and Costs for 90 days in Australia, April-June 2005

Comments on the Table

'Sundries' include laundry, entrance fees and tolls.

'Eating Out' costs could obviously be nil, or much more! We treat ourselves once a week or so to an evening meal or a 'lunchtime special'.

'Food' costs include all consumables, but not equipment or clothing.

'Fuel' costs are for diesel (unleaded petrol is cheaper), using discount vouchers whenever possible (from shopping at Woolworths or Coles). Prices vary greatly: least in Queensland, most in remote areas

Accommodation was usually a powered site on a caravan park or similar. The average price includes an occasional night in a cabin or motel room, and a few nights free of charge at the homes of friends near Perth and Cairns. It does not include the cost of hiring the motorhome.

We stayed in 60 different places for an average of 1Ŋ nights.

This log of our journey through Australia could be read in conjunction with Notes on Motorhome Travel in Australia which gives a lot of background information on travelling and motorhoming in Australia, as well as details of the motorhome we used.