It has been quite some time since I posted a blog page. Well with all this interstate and international lockdown due to Covid-19 there’s not a lot to blog about. However since Christmas we have managed to get about. 26,000 kms in the last year or so in fact. In this blog I’ll let you know about our 2021 navy reunion trip with my brothers of the 30th Junior Recruit Establishment from 1970 and all the fun (and disappointment) involved with the entire trip.
The tour was planned to take us down the coast to the Gold Coast, west to Roma, north to Karumba then east back to Townsville. We drove our old Triton (with 200,00kms on the clock) and planned to stay in onsite cabins at caravan parks. All I can say about this trip is thank goodness for the reunion. It was the highlight and saving grace of the trip. Apart from the reunion however it was mostly a sweet and sour trip. So sour in fact that when we joined the Flinders Hwy at Cloncurry I wanted to turn right and come home but Shane wanted to continue north to Karumba. Fortunately there were sweet parts to temper the sour.
We left Townsville on May 22nd and our first stop was the town of Clairview where we had pre-booked a cabin in the Barracrab Caravan Park. For our first night of a 1 month trip we hoped this wasn’t to be a portent of things to come. Clairview is the only town between Brisbane and Bowen where you can see the ocean and we’d often thought of stopping here. I doubt we’ll stop here again. The food at the onsite café was 2 star at best. It was very dusty a there’s no potable water so all taps have a sign over them saying “Do not drink the water”. It was funny to see a queue of people early in the cold morning lined up at the only water tank of drinkable water with their buckets collecting what they could to start the day. Thankfully we were only there overnight.
From Clairview we moved on to long-time friends Chris & Jillian who now live at lovely Burrum Heads. We’ve known this wonderful couple since our kids went to school together at Billinudgel back in the 1980’s. It was great to catch up and join them, if only for the one night.
Next was the reason for the trip. This was our 50th year celebrations that had been delayed since last year due to Covid-19 so it was actually our 51st year as mates. Most of the attendees had booked into the Cotton Tree Holiday Park while a few were at other locations around Maroochydore. CTHP is extremely hard to get into because of its popularity, quality and location at the mouth of the Maroochy River. It’s also expensive. We had a 1 bedroom cabin which was very comfortable and central to everything. We arrived right on 4 o’clock which happened to also be ‘beer o’clock’. For the next few hours the banter and laughter was deafening. Maroochydore Surf Club and Maroochydore RSL were both pleased to see us though the surf club may have been caught off guard by our number and so had to call in extra staff on the first Friday night. This revelry was to continue for the next fortnight until the last of us hit the road for our homes in all parts of Australia. As always getting together with the guys and their partners is always a blast and it never ceases to amaze me just how well we still get on after 51 years. The informal meal (Hawaiian style BBQ) was a terrific with some 67 members and partners making quite a cacophony of laughter and story telling. I am so looking forward to our next gathering wherever that turns out to be.
After a superb 10 days we ‘sailed’ south to my cousin Beth’s at Elanora on the Gold Coast. Catching up with family is always good and this stop gave us two days to recuperate from the reunion. After 2 nights with Beth & Gary we turned west to Toowoomba to catch up with another long-time friend, Tanya and be re-introduced to her family. Last time we saw her children Jordan and Caitlin they were toddlers while Erin hadn’t been born.
Up until this point we had been in the more highly populated coastal area. Turning north from Toowoomba we were moving into the Australian outback with Roma as the first stop. I forgot that once you leave the coast your phone is near useless if you aren’t on a Telstra network. Consequently, we didn’t have phone, GPS (we use the phone for it), wifi or hardly any comms for 2 weeks. Desperate times calls for desperate measures and at one point I only had reception because I have the motel manager’s phone on hotspot. I think he took pity on me. We did manage to get some wifi in Winton by sitting in the gutter outside the Waltzing Matilda Museum and sucking some free wifi air time off them but it was a weak signal.
Further on at Roma we’d paid for a cabin that was advertised as having “wifi to each room” and “private balcony”. All a scam. When I rang to ask how to log in to the wifi the manager told us straight up that wifi is only available at the main office. I asked why then do they advertise it as available in each room and all I got was the same reply about only available at the office. Their private balconies were also non-existent unless we sat on the floor of the common area walkway (because there was no seating or tables). Don’t get me started on the filthy cabin. We’re surprised the council haven’t closed it down for health reasons. The fridge was a glass doored drinks fridge with a blue light that lit up the entire room all night and leaked water over the floor. We couldn’t wait to get out of Roma.
In a complete coincidence we stopped for a break on the road at a tiny town between Dalby & Miles called Warra. As I wandered back to the car the only other fellow at the stop looked at my HMAS Perth shirt and said “G’day shipmate”. It turned out we served aboard the Guided Missile Destroyer Perth II together in 1973. Small world!
At Charleville the cabin we stayed in is 5 star. It’s the only cabin they have at Charleville Bush Caravan Park but we stop here whenever we’re in town. We love this place. There was no wifi or reception but we knew that from a previous visit so we were happy to wear it. We always enjoy our stay here and this time we got to do the ‘Secret American WW2 Base Tour’. It was also our location to enjoy the Blues complete annihilation of the Maroons in the first State of Origin game for 2021. If you ever visit Charleville make sure you leave enough time to see all the town has to offer. It is one of our favourite towns.
After Charleville our next stop was to be Longreach. On the road though there were several stops we wanted to make. Shane had the famous Tambo Teddy shop in her sights while I wanted proof we were beyond the Black Stump (in Blackall town). We also had to stop at Barcaldine to see “The Tree of Knowledge” where the Australian Labor Party origins began following the great shearers strike of the late 1800’s.
At Longreach the cabin was near new and decent except for a dearth of luggage space. It was pretty ironic that they had notices up warning that a failure to leave the room in a clean state would incur a $180 cleaning fee however they were so tight they only supplied us with ¼ of a scourer and half a chux and nothing else to clean up with. This mob was so tight they really only provided 2 of everything right down to the cutlery/crockery. Like so many places, we got sick and tired of stepping over luggage that had nowhere else to go but on the floor and nowhere to sit except on the bed.
Longreach is another historic Australian town which every Aussie should visit. While here a ‘must do’ is the QANTAS Founders Museum where you can walk through several iconic aircraft from a 747 Jumbo to a DH61 Giant Moth (complete with timber toilet installed). Another place to visit here is the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. Sadly it was closed during the period we were here so we missed it.
Winton was next and thank God for the wifi at the Waltzing Matilda Centre. There is little reception for Optus based networks west of the Great Divide so we still had no communication with the kids back in Townsville. This was a problem defeated by us sitting on the footpath outside the WMC and using their wifi as it leaked from the building. But we didn’t steal the wifi. We did pay for tickets to inspect the centre which is very informative and well worth the stop. I can’t finish writing about Winton without saying it is another fantastic town for tourists (if you get decent accommodation). We fully intend to come back with our grandchildren to take them to the “Australian Age of Dinosaurs” facility some 25 kms south of town. At its present stage of development it is the premier destination for anyone with the slightest interest in Australia’s mega fauna from millions of years ago. The bones you see here are real not replicas. You can visit the laboratory where volunteers scratch and etch away millennia of dirt to expose more fossilised relics of our past. The shows and displays are simple to understand and the location, on top of a horseshoe shaped cliff, is stunning. In one huge building these saviours of the past have fully excavated then rebuilt the full jigsaw of a river bank riddled with dinosaur tracks even to the extent of relaying it with the same orientation and tilt of its original location. We saw during our visit (June 2021) a Cosmosphere was nearing completion where viewings of the night sky are planned and there are also plans for a Natural Science Museum in the future. I am convinced that in no time this will be Australia’s number one natural science facility.
At the caravan park in Winton we had paid in advance for a cabin with a “fully equipped kitchen”. When we got into our cabin it had nothing but a microwave and a bar fridge with no seating except the bed. I challenged the manager and we were quickly hustled to a different but older cabin again. The “fully equipped kitchen” turned out to be a portable 2 burner electric stove, 1 each fry pan and saucepan and a few kitchen tools. Sadly adjoining our cabin (like a duplex) was a bunch visitors who prattled on at top volume till around 2330 when I started banging on the wall and telling them to shut up. We later found out that they had booked for 2 people even though we counted at least 4 of them in the room.
Cloncurry was good for a 2 night stop. The cabin was good but like most places they don’t provide anything but hard seats at a small table for seating. It was relatively well decked out though. Just short of the ‘Curry we were disappointed when we stopped at the world famous Walkabout Creek Hotel where the movie Crocodile Dundee was partly filmed. It was lunchtime and a pub lunch at the ‘Walkabout’ seemed like a good idea except according to the owner she had no staff so hence there was no kitchen and no food. We continued to Cloncurry.
Following a few days rest we moved on to Karumba which turned out to be another crappy stay. The room here is 2.5 stars at best. Again, no seating so we’ve commandeered the extra single bed to use as a lounge. The bathroom is so small that the handbasin is in the bedroom and Shane has to squeeze by it to get out of the room. I had hoped to do some fishing at Karumba but the weather cancelled any hope of that. To add to our misery their wifi broke down the morning that we arrived so still we had no chance to check in with our family. Again we had another noisy bunch in the room next to ours. When the guy wasn’t jabbering in Hindi he was snoring loud enough to drown out our TV. In one stroke of luck we ventured across the road to the Carpentaria Quality Meats butcher shop and found the best smoky beef ribs we have ever had. How good were they? We went back on our last night and bought all he had for our freezer to bring home.
On day 2 of our Karumba stay we drove the 72 kms back to Normanton to catch the Gulflander train to Croydon followed by a bus trip back to Normanton. Luckily the train was barely half full so we were able to spread out and enjoy the ride and the oratory from the driver. At about the halfway mark we stopped at Black Bull Siding and got off the train for a morning tea break. Once at Croydon we had a bit over an hour to wait for the bus back to Normanton so that gave us time for lunch at the local pub and a quick peek at some local historical buildings. After the bus trip back to Normanton we then had to drive the 72 kms back as the sun set dodging kangaroos and the occasional Brolga. It was a big day but well worth it.
Overall the roads have been OK on the entire trip up until Burke & Wills Roadhouse where there are sections undergoing serious upgrades and other parts that still desperately in need of widening. I believe the danger on these roads is not the road conditions but other drivers who do not slow down one iota throwing rocks and debris up and barely move over when passing.
Anyway we departed Karumba on Saturday for a night in Mt Surprise (hopefully with no surprises) before spending 3 nights at Kurramine Beach before we planned to get home to the ‘Ville on the Wednesday evening. Kurramine is a wonderful place for R&R because it is on a no-through road. Our motel was right on the beach and while there the tides played ball by being low tide in the middle of the day meaning we could walk over the exposed rocky reef for a close look. We visited Murdering Point Winery and walked out with a 6 pack of fine wines and we also did a quick shopping trip to Mission Beach. Just before arrival at Kurramine we stopped at a fruit warehouse at Moresby and bought a cheap basket of tropical fruit much of which we hadn’t seen before. Munching into rambutans and dragon fruit by the pool is a great way to relax at the end of a long trip.
All up in 40 days we covered 5925 kms so it was good to get home again and rest up. I don’t know how long it will be before we run away from home again. At the moment the government is saying we won’t be able to leave Australia to return to our rig in the USA before March 2022 but I’ll be applying for an exemption to travel long before then. In the meantime we might just consider another road trip.