Are we having fun yet?

23/6/16

Expecting to take another couple of weeks to get across to Cairns so I’m not sure how much internet service I’ll have to keep this blog up to date during that time.

We travelled to Katherine for lunch and work out how far we could get and still be in phone contact for Friday as we were expecting a very important phone call.

23/6/16

We got to Mataranka thinking that was the safest to be in range but had no service and didn’t want to stay in the van park or in town, so headed out along the Savannah Way to get as far as we could and be able to get to phone range early Friday. The road started out one lane of bitumen, supposed to run for about 100k but they are upgrading so we were on and off side tracks all the way along.

Found a nice quiet spot with plenty of room, ended up with one other person there from Caloundra and knows my cousin, who lives there. 

Had a good nights sleep as it cooled down a bit. The only down side of this site was the flies.

Sunrise on the Savannah Way

The Roper River at Tomato Island

Sunset at Tomato Island

The road changed in colour as well as condition

 

24/6/16

Headed off along the now completely dirt road not too bad but occasional corrugations, the car still throwing up the suspension warning light, Ray stopping to restart the engine and cancel the warning every now and then. It’s getting very tiresome and stressful for Ray particularly. The van rode along really well and not much dust got inside as we headed to Tomato Island campground in Limmen National Park. It’s not an island and no tomatoes in site, don’t ask me why it’s called that. $6.60 each per night with toilets & showers and again plenty of room. The river is huge and obviously a popular spot for fishermen to spend the winter months at each year. The hosts invited us all to Happy Hour around one of the campfires so we thought we’d better be sociable but that will be the last one we probably ever go to. One other couple we’d been talking to earlier felt totally uncomfortable and left early with us to get tea then met up later for a game of cards. Had a lovely night, made the stay much more enjoyable than sitting around reading until bedtime.

The reason we had to be in phone contact was that our daughter in law was having a Caesarian to deliver their 4th child which is a healthy boy, can't wait to meet him on our way home back down the east coast, in a couple of weeks.

25/6/16

Left the campground, planning to call into a few places on the way across to Borroloola but we must have been distracted by baby photos that came by message as we were locking up the van and we might not have actually locked the door, though we are positive we did but it seems it flew open a bit on the way so we had lots of dirt inside the van and now have a slightly damaged door letting in dirt still. The car is worrying Ray and we are not enjoying this dirt road anymore so have made the decision to head out to Cape Crawford and down to the Barkly Hwy to stay on the bitumen and perhaps more accessible road if we break down. We did go into Butterfly Springs and have morning tea and a stroll down to the waterhole which looked lovely, then onto another spot by a waterway for lunch, another lovely spot but 400 odd kilometres will have to be enough of an adventure this time.

After we’d made the decision to not go further on the Savannah Way the car behaved itself right until we got to Cape Crawford Campground, behind the Heartbreak Hotel. Lovely grassy spot with quite a few vans in. It could be noisy with generators etc. running tonight.

Apparently the hot water heater didn't like the bumpy ride either and we now have no hot water.

26/6/16

I was right about the noise, not only the generator going all night but a rooster started crowing from 3.15am. 

We continued on the Tablelands Highway which again was a one lane bitumen road and though no corrugations it's a bit like a roller coaster but much more pleasant than yesterday. The door was unlocked again when we stopped for morning tea and we know we locked it. We found a catch missing in the top of the outer door so it's not closing properly. We have had to push the top of the door when closing it for a while now so obviously it had a faulty catch and that's what caused it to fly open yesterday. 

The suspension warning kept going off this morning but between morning tea and lunch it didn't come on once and this afternoon it only came on as we got close to Barkly Highway. We have stopped at Barkly Roadhouse as it's the only place there is Telstra service for a few more days, we think. Heading for Adel's Grove hopefully.