I had planned to replace the windscreen in charleville after we left Mike & Jill, but, we lobbed on show day, and, naturally, everthing was shut for the w/e. we arranged to have it done in Roma and headed off from there to Carnarvon Gorge, the campground at the national park is only openned during school holidays, so, we booked into the caravan park just out of the park, a little bit overpriced, but, it was the only game in town! we did the long walk out to the art gallery, with side trips to the moss garden and amphitheatre, i think it was about 16k all up, slept really well that night!

kookaburra on the awning, waiting for some tucker, he didnt get any!

starting up the gorge!

moss garden

ladder up to the entrance of the amphitheatre

inside the amphitheatre

we left carnarvon gorge to make our way north to head up cape york before the school holidays. we spent a w/e out at Cooktown before leaving the van at Lakeland to tent it up the cape and back. On the first attempt, we got about 100k up the track and got a puncture, after putting 4 plugs in it, and, the mongrel thing was still leaking, and the other spare still had the slow leak from Isa, it was back to Mareeba and fit 4 new tyres on! I knew the tyres were going to need replacing but had hoped to get up the cape and fit new ones when we got back. the road up was in really good nick, we passed the graders in couple of places putting the finishing touches to it for the school holidays in couple of weeks time.

finch bay, cooktown

cooktown

campsite at moreton telegraph

we had a fairly leasurely run north, we had been told the jardine ferry closes PROMPTLY at 5pm so took a detour into fruit bat falls had a good wander about got some piccies and off again. what we didnt know, was the ferry also closes for lunch 12-1, we lobbed and settled in to have lunch while we waited for the clock to tick over, the 40k north of the ferry was probably the worst bit of road we struck, but, it wasnt really rough, just not as good as the rest. we stayed at Loyalty Beach as we decided it was the best of the three we looked at.

fruit bat falls, old telegraph track

lunchtime, jardine ferry

our campsite loyalty beach

we did all the touristy bits and visited the WWII crash sites, the radar installation and of course, the trip to the tip! the ferry over to Thursday Island was booked so we had to wait around few extra days to get over there, weather was bit overcast and threatening to rain, but it held off till the morning we went to T.I., all cleared during the morning and was fine and sunny by lunchtime. we had lunch in the northen most pub in australia, more memorable for its location than the meal!

sunset from loyalty beach, looking towards T.I.

couldnt resist this one, no we didnt take the van down the telegraph track!

So we took off from Mary Kathleen, I got a flat tyre on way into Isa and Mike got one on the way out! after stopping to change two flats, managed to plug mikes one but couldnt find leak in my one so plan was to drop it in the creek when we found one with water in! Its bloody dry out there, they really need some good rain, we pulled up short that night and camped overnight at Peak Creek north of Boulia. Next day on way thru we had a bit of a look around Boulia, before heading off to hamilton hotel ruins(our planned stop the night before). this is the remains of an old Cobb & co staging post, one of many spread about out there.

sunset at peak creek.

hamilton hotel ruins.

we also stopped at Cawnpore Lookout, as we approached I called Mike on the CB and said I thought the track on the right looked the easier of the two ways up, I almost, got to the top and it all went to shit! Had to back up, grab Lo range and have a second go, fortunately mike had stopped at the bottom to see how we went, so they walked up, view from top was fantastic.

view from the top, with Mike safely parked at the bottom!

and the last little bit of track that caused the grief!

We pulled up short again that night and spent the night at a rest area called Poddy Creek, got a really good sunrise next morning.

we travelled on up to walkabout creek hotel, for an overnight and than back dow to Macsland rest area about 24k north of longreach, spent a few nights there as I had the ute serviced in Longreach. we were set up back away from the main camp area, I had the nudist sign out. first night there, we had an overhanging branch scraping on the roof of the van, so next morning I got up on the step ladder and did a bit of pruning, whilst I was there, in the nudity, a mobile home drove passed, sprung again! They stopped on the way out next morning, and asked if they could take a photo of our sign, so couldnt have been too offended. From there it was back west again out to Cooper Creek, now, this bit of water goes by several names, Coopers Creek, Cooper Creek or as the locals call it, the Cooper. it was named by an early explore whose name escapes me at the moment, in honour of the Chief Magistrate(?) of S.A. at the time,  or some other big wig that the explorer obviously wanted to impress. It had flooded twice recently, however, neither time it broke the banks, so the farm/grazing lands along the banks got very little advantage of either flood, she all just ran on down the lake eyre.

we carried on thru quilpie, thargomindah and left Mike & Jill at Cunamulla. 

Our campsite at Townsville Nudist Club, weather was a bit less than the Qld propaganda, beautiful one day, perfect the next. We upset a past president of the club, who is also a founding member, he took offence to Lyn no being naked. Pulled his head in a bit when it was pointed out to him that it had been OK'd by the committee, but not sure i would want to go back there, he was a bit of a knob, all round

!

Shower block at Koorinya gorge, didnt look that flash but the pressure was good and water was hot!

down in the gorge, beautiful spot and we spent a while walking around there.

piece of rock waiting to fall into the gorge

Prairie pub, we went thru too early and it hadnt opened yet, next time!

at the bar at walkabout creek hotel with Jill and Mike who we were travelling with, publican came out from behind the bar to take the photo for us.

posing with the sign outside of Richmond (?) QLD.

the sign below we put up at Mary Kathleen, we had a visit from the caretaker. He said he was happy to have us there, as the nudists never whinge like the backpackers. he went on to say that there is a mob call in each year on the way to darwin, we told him they would be joining us in couple of days and he came over for happy hour when they got there.

this was our campsite at Mary K, no facilities, but a great spot to prop for couple of days. the tree line over the back was on the dry creek bed, and we took a shovel down there as it was easier digging when you needed a crap.

the old mine site, this won an excellence award for restoration after it closed, independent team came thru couple of years later and found the tailings dam was leaching nasties, much concern as local cattle were grazing on plants being watered from the tailings dam. think that would have been back in Jo Bs days, so the excellence award was probly never taken back!

this was "parked" between Mary K and ISA and for some reason it was still there when we cam thru in june? shouldnt be that hard to recover, maybe a sky hook. from the skid marks on road looks like he swerved to miss a cow/roo or whatever.

lake Mary K, looks like a great place to camp!

Been a bit slack but finally got around to posting more piccies.

Corruption on the Murray, sounds like a good name for a book, they came floating passed our campsite at Barooga(?) and below is the campsite.

the GGs house from the National Aboretrium(?) in canberra, and a bonsai plant in the bonsai section of the tree farm. and a crows nest with the Telstra tower in background.

Mount Stromlo, the joint suffered badly during the bushfires not so long ago, still have one telescope operational.

 our campsite at Frying Pan creek, just out of Dungog, went there to wait for the club trip to the watagans, the road in is very steep and looks like clay, last forecast we saw was chance of thunderstorms in next couple of days, unfortunately, we had no phn cover so without an update on weather we only stayed the one night and moved down to the watangans on the weds instead of friday,

 goanna that came to check out our campsite and below is frying pan creek, lovely little spot although suspect during school hols it would be packed, we had the place to our selves.

and a stage (elk?) horn in the tree near a camp.

the horror hilux that we finished up with when merlin chucked a little wobbly and finished up in hospital for a few days, this thing had a reversing beeper on it that sounded like a galah being throttled, and the bloody disco light on the roof wasnt working! it took us 6 hours to get back from wyong to the watagans on thursday night, took the wrong exit off the freeway and it all just got worse after that. finished up on the phone to Brett A to get directions back to camp, as we had left the GPS in merlin. directions would have been easier to follow had there been a few more street names up at the intersections, about every 3rd or 4th one had names up!!!! we went and got some more stuff out of the ute on friday and made it back easy, once we took the right exit off the freeway. we went into Morisett on the friday to buy a generator, finally bit the bullet and got one. the clearing that we were in there virtually only allowed sun onto the solar panel for hour or so it was directly overhead! while in there we called in to see Joshua and got him to make us up an adaptor, as the van has 12 pin flat and the horror hilux had a 7 pin flat. we towed the van back into the caravan park on monday and got the call tuesday merlin was well again and ready to go, just as soon as we paid the $1100 ransom!! 

we spent a couple of nights at Bald Rock NP, on our way north. we did the walk up Bald rock. photo above is on the easy track to the top.

 from the top of Bald Rock.

this is the direct route to the top, we went round the back and went up the easy way, but, we did come back down on the direct route.

 this was our set up at Bald rock and the kooka below dropped in to say hello.

smoko stop on the way to rockhampton, we went inland to avoid the school holidays on the coast.

set up on John and Vickies property just out of rockhampton, we spent a day looking around rocky and finding a new battery charger for the van as the old one died overnight whilst we were there. John and Vicky were joining us on our trip out of townsville as far as boullia where they were to meet another group to travel thru the territory. unfortunately, their farm sitters couldnt get there early so they had to pull out of our trip.

 free campsite in the hills behind mackay, crediton hall, it made a pleasant lunch stop. and the water fall below is on the road to eungella NP