OUTBACK--here I come!!!

From Rockhampton to Carnavron Gorge

Friday September 9th, 2005 was our official departure date…and as all things should go with my planning and my ability to meet deadlines so far in Australia (1 or 2 days later than planned), I arrived at 4am from Mission Beach after a 16 hour bus-ride to Rockhampton (Rocky) where I caught a bus into Yeppoon, arriving at 6am on 9/9/05.

I had just finished my East-coast tour!

Laurie picked me up and took me back to his friends Ray&Mag’s place where I had left most of my belongings in anticipation of the last section of my trip being only one-week long in the tropics (ie: I could leave a lot of clothing behind and lighten my 40lb pack-load—my poor, poor back!!!).

I spent the entire morning in a complete daze as a massive cold had grabbed hold of me as I bid my farewells to Northern Queensland. The illness really kicked my whole body into a lethargic and unpleasant state (from which I am still trying to recover today). And, in all honesty, I spent 14 hours of the 16 hour bus-ride back south to Rocky in a coma—coughing and trying to spread my germs around the McCafferty/Greyhound bus to all the other passengers while pretending to heal my body in time for the next part of my OZ-trip (starting in a mere half-day’s time); Laurie was going to be done with his “teaching” at 1:30pm and was ready to take off soon thereafter.

We managed to get all packed up and ready to go around 2:45pm on Friday afternoon. We had a few stops to make in Rocky (ie: bike shop, camping shop, grocery store and bottle shop) and then as a comical ending to our “first” day on the road, we stayed in a caravan park right in Rocky. Today’s road-trip consisted of 38km!
It was a great idea though to have our first run-through near civilization, as we came up with a list of things we needed to purchase the next morning before we “officially” departed. So for all people who are going on a 8+week long caravan trip, my word of advice is: have a test-run to check out the caravan details, the camping details, the tent details and any other details cuz we were sure glad in the end that we had the chance!! (God forbid if Laurie ended up somewhere without enough red-wine, and me without my astounding amounts of food!!!)

So Sat (9/10/05), after a morning of last minute details, we left Rocky in the most humorous fashion: driving around a roundabout that had a sign on one side saying Welcome to Rocky while the other side said Farewell and being that we were having a very hard time getting away from Rocky, we drove around the roundabout just a few times while I cackled in the passenger seat reading off the “welcome” and “farewell” sign every time we passed the double-sided sign. I suggested perhaps we should just stay on the roundabout for a few more rounds because in all honesty, on our first attempt to “leave”, we actually drove down the wrong highway and had to come back to the roundabout to find the right road!! So as we passed the welcome/farewell sign again, I just thought to myself: this is incredibly hilarious and was presenting itself to set the “tone” of our entire trip!! Are we coming or going? Do we know or do we care? Where are we? And where are we going exactly? Don’t know? Oh well…let’s just see what happens when we get there, no?

On the road: Day 1

Carnavron Gorge was our first destination and a place that Laurie was quite excited to check out for the first time. We drove a good 4-5 hours through my first time off the coast line of Australia…and with good conversation and a definite sense that we were really now “officially” on the road!!!

Queensland Highway construction:




Landscape from the van (on our way to Carnavron Gorge):




Please take noe of this fabulous picture!! It’s a boab tree…a strangely proportioned tree that speckles the landscape—surrounded here by the abundant cattle:



On the first night at the campervan site, I was privy to my first up and close encounter with the roo:



This is Laurie with the roo—very annoyed that we won’t stop snapping photos in the middle of his evening meal:



We decided even before arriving that we were going to camp the first night at an on-site park, and that we would hike into the gorge and do an overnight hike the next day at Big Bend.

We were both a bit nervous and excited at the same time as neither of us had ever been on an overnight camping trip…and as all things go, we had no idea how to really prepare for such an adventure.