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FNQ Tourism Relying On Domestic Visitors

tourism-FNQ-covid — Sunset swimmers inside stinger net at Palm Cove. Photo by Bob Wilson

The old saying that you could fire a gun in the main street and not hit anybody certainly applied to Cairns on the May Day public holiday. We rolled into Cairns, far north Queensland’s biggest city, believing we would struggle to find a car park. Turning into Sheridan Street, we spotted an RV Parking sign. Once we’d picked a shady spot in the deserted car park (six cars and a motor home), we went to meet a friend for lunch in the CBD.

“They’re closed – c u at ‘Sauce’ down road” our friend texted.

We had just arrived at the first rendezvous to be told by a waitress the restaurant was closing (at noon!).

Just down the road, the boutique brewery and bar ‘Sauce’ was open and serving meals. Only a few customers there too, so before long we were tucking in to coral trout, chips and salad and other dishes.

It was hard to reconcile the deserted CBD with the image of Cairns as a magnet for international and domestic tourists. Trouble is, visitors from overseas have been absent since March 2020. Domestic travellers tend to arrive at the airport, hire a car and head for the Daintree, the Cape or the Atherton Tablelands. We’d just been staying on the Tablelands and found, on a Sunday walk around Lake Eacham, that half of Australia had decided to do the same thing. Travel stats for the May long weekend may take some time to surface, but it would be great if it emulated the region’s Easter experience. The ABC reported that more than 70,000 flew into Cairns and spread themselves around FNQ (Port Douglas resorts reported 90% occupancy).

After lunch in Cairns on May Day, we met up with the extended family at a resort in Palm Cove. My niece, a Cairns local, did not think it peculiar that the city would be deserted on a public holiday,

“We north Queenslanders take our public holidays seriously!”

Just for sport, I googled accommodation in Palm Cove for May 3 and found only three options – two of which were $900+ for an overnight stay in a three-bedroom apartment. Good thing SWPR booked our caravan spot months ago.

After checking in, I strolled along the beach, observing the swimmers taking advantage of the stinger net. Signs abound warning of marine stingers and crocodiles (which have been sighted swimming in the ocean). Our local source informed me the stinger ‘season’ now spans October to May, which probably explains why FNQ’s peak tourism season is June to September.

Marine stingers have been responsible for 63 deaths since records began in the 19^th century. In the most recent case, a teenager from Bamaga was killed by a box jellyfish. Hundreds of people get stung every year, so the warning signs that abound at FNQ beaches should not be taken lightly.

A quick stroll around the Cairns CBD reveals the damage inflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic and associated restrictions. There are lots of empty shops with ‘for lease’ signs on the windows.

The story of how Covid-19 decimated Cairns’ tourism industry is partially revealed in passenger arrival data kept by Cairns Airport Pty Ltd. For example, only 300 international passengers arrived in Cairns in March 2021, compared with 22,619 in March 2020. Domestic visitor numbers held up, however, with 185,109 passengers in March 2021, compared with 181,307 in March 2020.

Cairns Council statistics show 799,000 international visitors visited the far north in 2019, as did 1.1 million domestic tourists. A report to Cairns Council showed how Covid travel restrictions affected Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s activities in 2020. More than $2.2 billion of visitor spending was lost – $1.6 billion of in domestic visitor expenditure and $650 million lost due to international border closures.The Federal government recently sought to help the tourism sector by introducing airfare subsidies. The Queensland government did its bit by offering $200 travel vouchers to encourage domestic tourism.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Mark Olsen told Brisbane Times that if FNQ could secure its share of the subsidised airfares, an extra 5,000 to 7,000 visitors could land each week and inject up to $1 million a day to the local economy.

On our slow road trip from southern Queensland to the tropical north, we have seen plenty of evidence to suggest Australians are replacing international travel with forays to the outback and the far north.

A recent survey by KPMG found that Australians had been saving hard during the pandemic and domestic travel was No. 1 on their bucket lists. Some 61% of respondents planned a trip between January and June 2021 and 72% planned a domestic holiday between July and December 2021. KPMG noted that people would have accrued leave during the lockdown periods. This meant they now have the time and the money for domestic travel. The challenge will be to convince those of us with the wanderlust to spend 70% of what we spent on international travel in 2019 (or whatever year we last went abroad) on domestic travel.

Tourism Australia leaves us in no doubt of the importance of tourism to our economy. The total spend by tourists in 2019 was $126.1 billion, $45.4 billion of which was attributed to international tourism, with 9.3 million people flying into Australia in 2018-2019. Almost half of the overnight spend (44%) was in regional Australia. In 2019 the industry employed 666,000 people. JobKeeper may well have salvaged some of those jobs, but where tourism goes from here is anybody’s guess.

Our family convoy has done its bit for the sector, paying for accommodation and meals in Palm Cove. Yesterday some paid $255 a head to go for a reef cruise while me and the Bro’ drove to the Daintree and spent about $50 a head.

This weekend we’re heading to Cooktown with a side tour to Laura to explore Indigenous art and culture. Then it’s a slow 10-day trip home via Canarvon Gorge. For all of the modelling in KPMG’s report, I doubt very much we would spend 70% of our budget for Canada and Europe where we travelled in 2010.

A few notes on last week’s commentary on Australia’s most dangerous critters. The photo was not a blue ringed octopus as we suspected, but it aptly illustrated the story. Also, while I did mention five deaths attributed to paralysis ticks, they were not included in the list and maybe they should be. This link is for Michael, who made the point, and anyone who might have missed this 2017 post.

People who have never heard of mammalian meat allergy think it must be fake news. It is not! We personally know three people who can no longer indulge in the Sunday roast lamb..

https://bobwords.com.au/scary-truth-paralysis-tick/

Keeping your distance – way out west

There’s a misleading headline for you – ‘way out west’. At best we were 400 kms from home at any one time. All the while, though, we were keeping our distance, as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk encouraged us to do. Regardless, she also said we should to go forth and do tourist things in the State of Queensland. Spend money and support our small towns, the Premier said, while reminding us to meet COVID-19 restrictions. These include keeping 1.5m distance from other humans, washing your hands at every opportunity and avoiding Victorians like the plague. (I added that bit, just for a bit of colour.)

On the first day, we stopped for the few minutes it takes to navigate into the viewing enclosure built so tourists can enjoy the art work at the Yelarbon silos (above). The last time we drove from Warwick to Goondiwindi, this controversial project had not been completed. I include this link not to rake over old coals, rather to showcase the solid regional reporting that is at risk now that so many country news outlets have been shut down or relegated to online-only.

Before Yelarbon, our first stop on a 10-day circuit through western Queensland was Inglewood, where a wind chill made the noon temperature of 12 degrees feel like 5. We stopped at the Shot 2 U cafe for lunch, since our first day out was a day off for the cook. This cafe was serving takeaways and limiting the numbers of people who could be in the building at the same time. She Who Prefers Gluten Free found that this cafe ticked all of the boxes so we bought a container full of gluten-free, dairy-free brownies. It’s like the Premier keeps saying – go out into these small towns and spend some money. That’s not what they are saying in other States right now, but on the other hand, Queensland is/was COVID-free.

On we travelled to the Moonie Crossroads Roadhouse, where we parked our van and adjourned to the lounge for whatever was on the menu, while keeping our distance. The German tourist who works behind the bar happily found and served a piccolo of bubbles to celebrate Bastille Day. Next day, we set off on a short drive to Glenmorgan and Myall Park Botanic Garden. This 132ha property is privately owned and operated by a trust and contains many Grevillea species, bred and cultivated by the Gordon family. They named the best known of these species after their daughters – Robyn, Sandra and Melinda. It’s a wonderful little oasis of native flora and fauna which last year was at risk because of the effects of ongoing drought. Some 300mm of rain in February helped the property bounce back.

On our trek through Moonie, Glenmorgan, Roma, Theodore, Kilkiven, Maleny, Brisbane then home, we were followed in part by three single women of a certain age who decided on a short road trip for much the same reason as we did, ie to ‘get out of the house’. They travelled together in one car, stayed at motels, ate in restaurants or cafes and spotted rare sights like this ‘B-Triple’, on the road. (photo by Sandra Wilson).

Also taking a break from four walls were Brisbane friends we bumped into by serendipity in the small river town of Theodore. Like us, they had decided to get away from the house for a while. Many of their regular activities have been curtailed so as we all know, after a month or two of living under one roof, you get a bit stir crazy. After a spontaneous picnic lunch, and keeping our distance, our friends continued on towards Winton.

In Theodore, where we spent a couple of nights, we spotted four vehicles with Victorian number plates. Theodore has a police station, so you’d have to assume they have been checked.

Nevertheless, anxiety-tainted emotions arose; worries about contagion, proximity and the fear of the unknown. Hypothetical worries maybe, but you never know. Perhaps those with Victorian plates had been in Queensland since March, or earlier.

Some Grey Nomads, particularly those from colder climes, spend a lot of their winter north of the border.

Other travcllers seem to be worming their way into the State and not caring too much about leaving an accurate trail. Last I checked, there were still 185 people ‘missing’ after filling in forms at the NSW/Qld border. They are all supposed to be in quarantine for two weeks, but many still cannot be found. This implies that they used fake registration and/or address and contact details. Police have arrested several people this week, so we will watch the story unfold when they appear in court in September.

Crikey, as we say here in Australia when we really mean WTF. It would only take one contagious person to go into a licensed bar or restaurant and the viral ball would start rolling again.

I wondered if the authorities at border control are scanning drivers’ licences, as routinely happens when you go to licensed clubs. Or would this infringe our civil rights?

On the way to Theodore, we stopped off at the Isla Gorge lookout. If you want to climb down into the sandstone gorge and go exploring in this national park, you need to check in with the ranger, take a detailed map and make sure someone knows what you plan to do.

As it stands, you can pick your way carefully along a steep, unfenced track to a viewing point, but venturing further is only for the brave and thoroughly prepared tramper. You can stay overnight, but you need a permit and must be self-sufficient.

Everyone has their own comfort level when travelling. I spotted a young couple, rugged up and huddled around the camp fire at a Roma farmstay, before retiring to their little dome tent (as temperatures approached 5 degrees. At Wandoan we chatted briefly to an older couple in a little car who were exploring the Showgrounds as a likely place to camp. As we were setting up our caravan (and connecting power), the couple put up a small tent, table and chairs and a portable barbecue. It got to 3 degrees that night, so no, we were not keeping our distance!

If you want to go bush but feel like you need a guided tour with all the creature comforts, refer to Everald Compton’s recent blog). He and his wife Helen recently took time out for a bush holiday. Everald was born in 1931, so those of us who like to go bush with a swag and a nylon tent can excuse him a bit of luxury. They joined an organised tour with Nature bound Australia, a bush touring experience, where guests are ferried around in the operator’s four-wheel drive.

“We chose how many days we wanted to go on tour with them and agreed on an itinerary, after we had interesting advice from them about the many options that rural Australia offers. None of our chosen destinations had yet experienced COVID19.”

“Our itinerary took us on back roads through delightfully small communities and our accommodation was in bed and breakfast homes on farming and grazing properties, with other meals at wineries and quaint cafes in interesting places.”

Everald concluded that the bush adventure proved to be the right antidote for COVID-19 angst.

“A good bush holiday is all about reconnecting to nature and the guiding restorative power it has on our lives,” he wrote.

I’m sure our friends, creating their own versions of a bush adventure, would entirely agree. Just avoid interstate vehicles and, if someone wants to shake your hand, use hand sanitizer before you touch anything else.

Don’t fence me in – a COVID-19 adventure

covid-19-travel-adventure — The author looking for an elusive bird at Sawn Rocks, 25kms from Narrabri. Photo by Laurel Wilson.

In downtown Dubbo, NSW, the checkout operator at one of the major supermarkets described the day as ‘crazy’. Shopping late (6pm) we managed to buy enough food to tide us over, mindful of Scotty from Marketing’s exhortation to stop hoarding, because ‘it’s UnAustralian’. But the PM was at least three weeks late with that edict, which fell on deaf shoulders (in Dubbo at least). There were plenty of empty shelves and shortages. No rice, mince, long life milk, potatoes, pumpkins or toilet rolls. I cracked a lame joke with a customer about SFM’s demand that we stop hoarding.

“Didn’t work here,” was the terse response. (Possibly because people resent being spoken to like naughty schoolkids.Ed.) The only things on our list that we could not buy were spuds and long life milk – the mainstay of campers everywhere. What is that about? In normal times supermarkets can’t give it away!

But these are not normal times, not at all.

As of 8pm on Thursday, there were 565 diagnosed cases of coronavirus in Australia. Yes, it is spreading fast. But lazy reporting, combined with deliberate sensationalism in the news media does not help with perspective.

Example: “The number of COVID-19 cases in NSW (265), has escalated dramatically,” the comment not balanced with the observation, ‘Australia’s most populous state’ (7.54 million).

Scotty and his War Cabinet came up with the idea of advising the cancellation of all non-essential events attracting crowds of more than 500 people. Just why they decided on that arbitrary number is one mystery. The other imponderable is why the COVID Crisis Team decided to foreshadow the plan on March 11 but postpone it until after the weekend of March 13-15, which just happened to be the start of the rugby league season.

As we all now know, future rounds of NRL matches will be held in empty stadiums, to attempt to limit the spread of the virus; to flatten the curve, as they say.

Regardless of what happens to the infection rate now, 80,000 people attended eight rugby league games last weekend, not to mention the thousands who attended the Hillsong Conference in Sydney. As of last Monday, you can’t go and watch a live footie game anywhere. I have no argument with that, but must roll out the old cliché about closing the stable door. Too late, Scotty, that horse has bolted. The War Cabinet may yet regret the decision to let 80,000 people co-mingle, three days ahead of a ban on mass gatherings, which they now tell us could last for six months.

As I said last week, we are on the road and anything could happen. The three music festivals and a garden show we had planned to attend have been cancelled. Nevertheless, we motored on down the New England and Newell highways, giving our new-ish caravan its first serious road-test.

People we know who are taking the coronavirus more seriously than we are (so far) seemed alarmed that we were not self-immolating or whatever they call it. We are not alone. I counted 185 vehicles between Moree and Narrabri (some 100kms). A third of them were trucks – essential services, no doubt. In a way, we travellers are all self-isolating, sealed in our air conditioned cabs except for times when we have to refuel (paying by EFTPOS, using the same keypad upon which hundreds of customers have already left their microbe-laden fingerprints).

We’ve been staying in local showgrounds, a process which usually involved leaving cash in an honesty box. Vans are parked a long way from each other so there’s not much interaction unless you go looking for it. As I have remarked to people who know me well – I have no trouble with social distancing.

It’s a bit hard to find a news story which is not touching on the coronavirus pandemic, even in a small way, so we switched off and went birdwatching. Lake Narrabri is a good spot to see water birds of all varieties, which we did, thanks to the unprecedented discipline of getting out of bed at 7am!

If we were not ambling around country New South Wales (centre of the coronavirus universe, remember), we’d not have seen the amazing Sawn Rocks (photo above). The basalt formation lies at the bottom of a small gorge in remnant rainforest. The spectacular geology is known in the trade as ‘organ piping’.

Later we drove to Gulargambone, (kudos for those who can pronounce it correctly) stopping off for a good soak in the Pilliga Bore Baths. There were three other people in the pool and we all negotiated our corners without anyone having to say anything. I noticed that they close the baths for cleaning on Friday mornings.

Matters of personal hygiene loom large when assailed by a fast-spreading virus for which there is no vaccine. Dubbo’s biggest supermarket was right out of all items related to hand sanitation. My plan is to buy a small spray bottle from a $2 shop and mix up a mild solution of antiseptic and water. I was bemused to see sideline officials at the Tigers vs Dragons game, disinfecting footballs every time one of them went off-field. Dip, rinse and dry. Then gloved-up ball kids ran the ball back to where it was needed. Did that really happen?

The cancellation of the three music festivals at Katoomba, Yackandandah and Horsham was not a financial loss for us, apart from deciding not to upgrade our non-refundable cheap air fares to Sydney and back.

We were just going to these festivals as punters, maybe picking up a walk-up gig along the way. But I feel for my musician friends trying to earn a living in a notoriously fickle business.

As one muso friend said: “We’re watching our careers evaporate and transition to an online model that can’t possibly be sustained.”

Sick of all the negativity and doom-saying across all media, I went on a hunt for the places which had the smallest exposure to COVID-19. Gibraltar, a British protectorate located between Spain and Morocco, has only three reported cases after banning all cruise ships quite some time ago. The Vatican (meaning the Holy See), had one reported case, and the ACT has three, including high-profile politician Peter Dutton. Or you could head for the Northern Territory where no cases of COVID-19 have been reported. But you’d have to be sure you were not carrying the virus, and apparently that is the one thing none of us know.

I’m not at all sure how the Vatican City, a walled enclave within greater Rome, has managed to keep coronavirus out. Italy now has 25,000 cases and the death toll has reached 1,809. Normally a haven for tourists in the lead-up to Holy Week, this report says tourists have vanished across Italy. That must be a weird feeling for the citizens of Venice, who each year host 20 million tourists.

Closer to home, the Byron Bay Blues Festival and Canberra’s National Folk Festival at Easter have both been cancelled, with a host of smaller events following suit. Sydney’s Royal Easter Show and Melbourne’s annual flower show have also been axed. This is likely to be a financial disaster for the catering businesses who earn a living from such events.

Meanwhile we will continue on our uncharted road adventure, spending a bit of money in local towns, as my editor person says “until someone in authority orders us to stop.”

Simpson Desert or bust

Although I find the Australian outback fascinating and a little scary, I am unlikely to join the increasing numbers of people whose bucket list item is crossing the Simpson Desert.

It’s not just that we don’t own a 4WD. I/we lack the essential Australian pioneering ability to fix things that break down. Regardless, thousands of people trek across the Simpson Desert each year, from Birdsville in Queensland to Dalhousie Springs in South Australia.

The actual distance travelled between Birdsville and Dalhousie Springs (about 480 kms), seems like a jaunt compared to the 18-hour journey from Brisbane to Birdsville. The conventional first leg, however, is a comparative dawdle, with its largely bitumen and dirt road stretches between Queensland’s capital and the famous outpost which each year draws tourists and adventurers to the annual Birdsville Races and Big Red Bash.

Crossing the Simpson Desert requires thorough preparation and all the skills to navigate a 4WD vehicle across 1,100+ sand dunes. Most guides to the trek recommend an average speed of between 15 and 20 kmh (on tyres deflated to about 20psi), so the crossing can take four or five days.

There are no services between Birdsville and Dalhousie so you need to carry your own food, water and fuel. The key thing to remember is that traversing sand dunes consumes double the amount of fuel you would use on a conventional road. It is recommended to travel in convoy with friends as back-up, in case something goes wrong.

The convoy strategy paid off for Sunshine coast residents Graham Waters and Evelyn Harris, whose planned Simpson Desert crossing went awry on the notoriously corrugated Strzelecki Track.

The party of seven in three vehicles travelled south to Bourke, Cameron Corner and Innamincka, planning to cross the Simpson from west to east.

About 100 kms south of Innamincka, Graham heard an ominous rattle in the rear of the vehicle. Thinking he had a flat tyre, he got out to find that five of the six wheel nuts holding the wheel to the rear axle of his Ford 4WD had sheared off.

“If the sixth nut had broken off, anything could have happened, so in that way we were lucky,” Graham said.

Graham set about ‘borrowing’ wheel nuts from other tyres in the hope they could keep going as far as Moomba. A seasoned four-wheel drive explorer (expeditions include a three-month trip to Cape York), Graham realised he had to find expert help.

“We were there for two nights, off the side of the road. It’s a relatively busy road, so truckies kept stopping to ask if we needed help.

“We tried going back to Innamincka but the wheel started rattling again, “We also tried to drive to Moomba but the replacement nuts wouldn’t hold.”

In the end, a low-loader came out to take the vehicle to the Santos gas plant at Moomba. After a temporary fix at the Moomba workshops, they drove to Port Augusta.

“It ended up being a $5,000 exercise, including the towing, two new axles and the labour.

“But if you did this as an organised tour, it would probably cost that much at least for each person,” Graham added.

Once the vehicle was repaired in Port Augusta, they travelled north via the Flinders Ranges and Lake Eyre before starting the Simpson Desert crossing at Dalhousie Springs.

“We did talk about packing it in and just going home, but after a night in a B&B in Port Augusta, we got our second wind and decided to keep going.

“We’re really glad we did, because if you slow down and stop frequently, you realise the desert, while it’s stark and windy, is a beautiful place full of wild flowers and birdlife.”

“When you are camped out there at night under the stars all you can hear is the occasional howl from a dingo or a grunt from a feral camel. It’s a magic experience.”

Evelyn knew with one look at the damaged wheel it was a case of “how much is it going to cost to get us out of this situation”.

“Usually Graham can bodgie things up, but this time he couldn’t. It’s all part of the adventure, though. You hope it won’t happen, but if it does you can make the best of it”.

Travelling in convoy also proved crucial for Brisbane couple David Caddie and Margaret Pope while on a Simpson Desert crossing. David was driving his Toyota Prado, customised to include a slide-out camp kitchen, fridge and pantry built in to the back of the vehicle. Unfortunately, at the convoy’s first overnight stop, David found he could not get the rear doors open. They had become jammed with the fine powdery substance known as bull dust.

“Luckily the people we were traveling with love their food so they had plenty”, he said. “At least enough till we got to Alice Springs and a smash repairer used a Spit Water Pressure Cleaner to wash out the dust”.

Peter and Linda Scharf’s 4WD motto is to pack light and don’t be in a hurry. A few years ago, he and Linda took 21 days to traverse the 1,850km Canning Stock Route in Western Australia in a Land Rover with a tent, an HF Flying Doctor radio and basic supplies.

“For us it is all about preparation. You pack light and the things you pack need to have multiple uses. Most people take way more clothes than they actually need.

Peter and Linda did carry tools and spare parts, which came in handy when a shock absorber broke.

“For a long time we travelled without long-range communications. Now we have an HF radio with a range of about 3,000 kilometres.”

But as Peter says, one ought not to rely on technology. “You can only guarantee satellite phone coverage of about 80%. So there are still places, especially in northern Australia, where they won’t work.”

Remote area 4WD traveller John Greig told FOMM the stresses and strains on vehicle chassis/bodies on desert tracks can be enormous.

“These days almost every popular desert crossing, including the Canning Stock Route, is suffering from diagonally opposed holes, opening up in the wheel tracks”.

“This is mainly caused by drivers not dropping their tyre pressures low enough”.

Potential setbacks aside, if you have a hankering to cross the Simpson Desert, the best time is between April and October.

Handy tips abound on the internet, including this one drawn from many sources:

While the Australian desert outback is a beautifully scary and remote place, technology and the capabilities of modern 4WD vehicles have made it far less daunting. Robyn Davidson found fame after her 1977 crossing of the Gibson Desert between Alice Springs and the Indian Ocean. She crossed the 1,700 kilometres on foot, with four camels and a dog.

Her book about one woman’s quest for solitude, Tracks, was subsequently made into a movie starring Mia Wasikowska as Davidson.

In a recent ABC interview, Davidson conceded that doing the same trip in the same way would be impossible today.

“Back then there were no mobile or satellite phones. (You’d) come across a two-way radio every three months – it was how you got messages out of there.”

Davidson, who grew up on a mid-western Queensland cattle station, believes one of the greatest gifts of living in a country like Australia is the physically large open spaces.

She had a fascination with the desert and wonders now if those “those early sensual signals of dry air and the smell of dry grass” of her childhood ran deep.

“Perhaps all Australians have some sense of the desert back there buried in their psyches,” she said.

“This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words and indeed in thought”. T. E. Lawrence

All photos (including drone footage) by Graham Waters.

Caravan maintenance and the art of journaling

No 6 in a six-part travelogue.

caravan-maintenance-journaling — Theresa Creek Dam at sunset. Caravan maintenance and the art of journaling.

As we start out on the last six days of a six-week caravan adventure, now is the time to dig into my journal for publishable insights and ironies. We found quite by accident an oasis in the outback called Theresa Creek Dam, 22km south west of Clermont. The dam was built here in 1985 by Blair Athol Coal to supply Clermont with drinking water.

It’s a tranquil lake spanning some 8,100 acres with abundant birdlife and a special kind of light. The dam is also an angler’s paradise, stocked quite recently (2015-16) with 14,200 barramundi and 34,147 golden perch. There’s also jewfish, saratoga and red claw. All kinds of boating is allowed, but you must have a licence to go fishing.

So after some hard driving across the flatlands of central Queensland, known for beef cattle and abundant reserves of coal, we took time to sit by the cool waters and reflect on the journey. We also did some running repairs on car and caravan. I say ‘we’ advisedly, as I am the sort of impractical bloke who will try three ways of doing something before the fourth and correct way.

This trip has not been without its mishaps, starting with the realisation, three days out, that the three-way caravan fridge wasn’t working. It cost $230 for a fridge mechanic in Charleville to tell us the bad news, that the fridge, given its age and resale value (nil), was not worth fixing.

So it’s had a good innings, this fridge, which the mechanic said was still working on gas, or at least it was until we took the van on dirt roads. She Who Plans Ahead Even When Being In The Moment reckoned it would cost $500 just to get the old fridge removed and a new three-way fridge (about $1200) installed.

The alternative, we figure, is an upright 12-volt fridge which will also cost about $1,100 but the installation will be a piece of cake. It can then run off the car battery when driving, the van battery when camped and the solar panel can keep the latter topped up. (Meanwhile, we pretend we’re in the 1920’s and use the fridge as an icebox, replenishing ice every couple of days. Ed)

In other on-road adventures, we bought a new car battery in Clermont. The old on failed once at Mt Surprise for no real reason other than to suspect the original Ford battery (four years old) was about to cark it. We got a ‘low battery’ warning a few days ago when starting the car, so got it tested in Clermont by the local RACQ approved repairer.

caravan-maintenance — Handy Mandy and the art of caravan maintenance

The other challenge was the caravan wardrobe door, which fell off while we were bouncing our way across the dirt road shortcut between Hughenden and The Lynd. Fortunately, the mirror on the inside of the door remained intact. Not so the hinges, which apart from matching all other hinges in the van, proved a curse to replace. Uncle John, who is possibly more handy than She Who Screws With her Left Hand (make of that what you will), tried three different hardware stores on the Atherton Tablelands and came up empty. He suggested a hardware store in Cairns which (a) was hard to find) and (b) couldn’t help us anyway. Persistent as always, SWSWHLH found a set of offset hinges in a caravan supplies shop in Townsville. But there were only two to (the only) packet. Not to be deterred, SWSWHLH took a hinge off a back cupboard, replacing it with the damaged one off the wardrobe, figuring that it ‘would do’ as it is not load bearing. So yesterday, with my assistance, She hung the wardrobe door and what do you know, it closes and locks. Yay. Estimated cost $4.86.

Anais Nin and my 40-year journaling habit

All of these little challenges are detailed in my journal, a long-running series of notebooks which contain not only factual observations, but also fiction and my interpretations of life as it progresses. It’s hardly the erotic adventures of Anais Nin, but as any good psychologist could tell you, it can be cathartic and even helpful to pour one’s feelings out in a journal that will hopefully never be read by anyone else. My executors have their instructions.

My journal contains sentiments which could be misinterpreted in the context of a loving relationship spanning many years. For example, Ms Acronym is apt to interrupt my sudden brilliant flashes of creativity, encouraging me to go birding, walking, do the laundry, work out what we’re doing tomorrow etc just when the small kernel of a new song has started rattling around in my head.

And as she no doubt caustically observes when scribbling in her own book, when travelling I tend to get dazed and confused in the late afternoon, readily confusing left and right and north and south. I grant that one’s spouse could find that exasperating, as I so often insist my way is the right way (when it is abundantly clear it is not).

She Who Keeps A Journal While Travelling has another writing exercise where she is supposed to spend 10 minutes writing down her feelings and then burn the paper. I apparently blundered into this exercise, rummaging around in the fridge (kept cool with ice boxes), saying “Honey, where are the carrots?” (My riposte was milder than you might suspect. Ed.)

Other minor mishaps on this escapade were usually due to somehow getting lost, which we either found amusing (or not). On leaving Glenmorgan for Surat (we’d been at Myall Park, a fascinating botanic garden in the bush), our GPS told us to turn left and continue down a corrugated dirt road which, half an hour later, had not yet met a bend. As my journal now tells me, some weeks after we stopped being annoyed about it, if we had not taken this road less travelled we would not have seen a mob of wallabies, a Bustard, a feral cat, four dead dingos hanging from a tree and a drover on a horse, durrie hanging from the corner of his mouth, who gave us a puzzled look and a laconic wave as if to say ‘are youse lost or something’. Later we deduced we had taken a local access road through various pastoral properties, emerging some 120 kms later at Surat.

We share equal blame for mishaps and forgetfulness. Someone left the van step on the footpath in Augathella while we went to take photos of murals. “Maybe someone nicked it,” I said, in an attempt to be charitable.

We drove on to Morven, planning to have a leisurely meal at the pub then watch State of Origin II. Alas, the pub burned down two years earlier so we ate canned stew and watched the game on the Ipad. I believe it is called finding strength in adversity.

My best act of dazed and confused was going into the ladies loo at Morven Recreation Ground. I came out of the shower wearing only a towel to find a woman about my own age looking less than excited to find a paunchy, near-naked old man in the ladies’ loo. “I think you’re in the wrong place, mate,” she said, in that charming understated outback way, adding “Ewes means girls, mate.”

Cape York or bust

No 5 in an outback series

On the last day of Queensland’s school holidays, a steady line of dusty 4WD’s returning from Cape York are queuing up for the Daintree River ferry crossing. Many of these road-beaten vehicles are rentals from Cairns. You can tell the real deal 4WD by the snorkel (a vertical exhaust above the cabin – designed for crossing creek and rivers without killing the engine).

Kids or even adults have written epitaphs on the dusty windows including “Cape York or bust” “Been there done that” and “still driving”.

(And my very favourite one-“Capey McCapeface”.Ed)

The bitumen road peters out just past Cape Tribulation in the Daintree rainforest. Intrepid travellers with appropriate vehicles can take the scenic Bloomfield track to Cooktown then loop back along a sealed road to Lakeland, where the 582 kms journey to Weipa begins. After Weipa, the route becomes a 4WD dirt road with a few sealed sections, all up 908.4 kms, a 28 hour drive to the northernmost tip of Australia. Last time a survey was done, between 60,000 and 70,000 people had made the arduous trek every year. Those are small numbers compared to the volume of tourists visiting Uluru or Kakadu National Park, but in the context of a wild, undeveloped frontier, it’s a lot of traffic.

Some take organised 4WD tours, some fly/drive; others take a boat to Cape York and come back by road. If you do decide to drive from Lakeland, you have an estimated 15 and a half hour journey to Weipa (averaging 37 kmh). By contrast, the bitumen road from Cairns to Lakeland is a three hour drive (250 kms).

You might know that our outback travelling is constrained by the limitations of a six-cylinder rear-wheel drive vehicle and a 30 year old caravan. It’s a high-set van, but as recent journeys on unsealed roads have shown, the suspension is not built for corrugations. We call the 271 kms short cut from Hughenden to The Lynd, which has sealed sections and some rough stretches, ‘The Road that Broke the Wardrobe Door’.

So our adventures north of Cairns were limited to a day trip from Newell Beach to Cape Tribulation and back, via a cruise on the Daintree River, two hikes in the rainforest and the extreme disappointment that arose from listening to the Broncos getting thrashed by the Warriors (well may you scoff and say, ‘what’s that about being in the moment’?).

Daintree-Cape-York — Daintree River croc – Cape York or Bust

Despite the high tide, we saw three crocodiles on the (highly recommended) one-hour Solar Whisper cruise, including a 3m croc known as Scooter who decided to swim along the mangrove-lined bank a few metres from the boat. John the skipper pointed out a few birds including an Azure Kingfisher, a Papuan Frogmouth, a Rufous Night Heron and Radjah Shelducks. (There are photos on my camera, but the downloading process is rather primitive. Ed)

As for Cape York or bust, I can only repeat what authorities will tell you: take extra fuel, water, tyres, vehicle spares, a jack or two and a shovel. Always give way to wildlife. Note to those who are tempted: there is no mobile reception in much of the Cape region and satellite phones do not always work.

Nevertheless, Cape York or bust is a major bucket list item for the intrepid traveller; some ride trail bikes, others mountain bikes and more than a few walk the track, carrying their food and shelter on their backs.

Tourism is just one part of the Cape York story, a tussle between pro-development lobbyists (remember the Spaceport?), the mining industry, pastoralists, the traditional owners and increasing awareness that this pristine wilderness has to be protected for all time.

Even on the relatively tame Mossman to Daintree road there are decisions for the risk-averse. We don’t often take guided tours, but when it comes to croc-spotting (that’s Scooter on the left) on the Daintree River, go with an expert. I told our skipper about Paddy McHugh’s chilling song, Dan O’Halloran. He’d not heard of it, but I said he should look it up but maybe not share with his passengers. Not to spoil a good story song, I’ll just give you the chorus line: “Nobody knows what happened to Dan O’Halloran except me, and it makes me shiver”.

As we drove back along the narrow, winding but sealed road from Cape Tribulation, I wondered if (in the future) I had a Cape York or bust trip in me, and, when I did, would it be a sealed highway by then.

Successive governments have made efforts to upgrade the road from Lakeland to Weipa, which in 2014 still had 380 kms of dirt road, impassable after rain.

The Federal and State governments co-funded work to seal sections of road between Lakeland and Weipa, on the Cape’s west coast. Weipa is the site of a major mining operation and a deep water port. So there are commercial imperatives involved with sealing that road.

But it is a slow process, at about 30 kms per year on average between 2014 and 2018. The slow pace of the project was used as an election issue in 2017.

The numbers of tourists visiting the region fluctuate according to economic conditions and extreme weather events. Studies have concluded that the majority of Cape York adventurers are self-contained, so their contribution to the local economy is negligible.

As the Federal Government’s Wild Rivers report observed, Cape York is large and underdeveloped and only accessible for eight or nine months of the year. The region comprises 15% of Queensland in area, but accounts for only 0.3% of the State’s population. Cape York’s residents are amongst the most disadvantaged in Queensland. More than half (54%) of Cape York people aged 15 years and over have a gross weekly income of less than $400 per week.

While sealing Cape York’s main road and also minor roads to Aboriginal communities might be a good thing for locals (less wear and tear on their vehicles and all-weather access), one ought not to make the trek too easy. Cape York has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage site (near neighbours, the Great Barrier Reef and the Queensland Wet Tropics, are already listed). But as the University of Melbourne’s Jo Caust recently wrote in The Conversation, some World Heritage listed sites are being loved to death and authorities need to exert some control over visitor numbers.

When you read about the impact of mass tourism on Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and Vietnam’s Hoi An, a coastal town that escaped the ravages of war, perhaps it’s a good thing that mass tourism is unlikely in Queensland’s rugged and remote top end.

Longreach to Winton via Mystery Road

longreach-winton-mystery road — Apex Park outside Longreach (photo by Bob Wilson)

From Hughenden: No 3 in an outback adventure series

So we’re driving into Longreach from Barcaldine, a journey rarely punctuated by a bend in the road, when snippets of a song jump into my head.

“I dunno why they call it Longreach, it doesn’t seem that far to me,” goes the line from one of Mick O’Halloran’s songs. .

Unlike much of the outback, at least you know when you’re coming into Longreach, 1,175 kms north-west of Brisbane, because of the unmistakable landmark which is the Qantas Founders’ Museum. We found our way to the town information centre and paid $6 for the privilege of camping for two nights at Apex Park, 4 kms west. The photo doesn’t quite do justice to the sight of 90 or so caravans, fifth-wheelers, slide-ons, camper trailers, A-vans, converted buses and the occasional tent, squatting in the dust alongside the Thompson River.

There’s a barbecue and covered picnic tables, flushing toilets and it’s only five minutes from town. But we were all a bit too close together for comfort and there were irritants like drifting smoke from camp fires, the grumble of generators, the untimely crowing of feral roosters and the bloody flies! I’ve been on a quest for a pair of his and hers fly swatters but so far on this trip they’ve been out of stock everywhere we looked.

I could not help noticing how many more vans there were in the morning, implying that some arrived late (or early), as it the habit of the lesser crested grey nomad, nabbing the best sites. I’m not suggesting they do it to avoid paying $3 – nobody’s that much of a tight arse.

Apex Park is reached via the Landsborough Highway west of Longreach across a series of bridges forming a long causeway across the Thompson River flood plain. The Thompson is a 3,500km long inland river that runs across channel country into Lake Eyre. While Longreach, like other western Queensland towns, has relatively low rainfall (average 450mm a year) floods are common because the many tributaries of the Thompson join and spread during heavy rain. The causeway’s 16 interlinked bridges stretch 24 kms across the flood plain, one effort to minimise flooding in the town.

We drove to the other side of Longreach for a late afternoon walk through Iningai Nature Reserve. Named after the traditional owners, this example of Mitchell Grass Downs country along the Thompson River has been allowed to regenerate since goats left it a dusty desert in 1950. There’s a fine example of a Coolibah tree, under which one can pose for the inevitable photo. The reserve is touted as a bird watcher’s paradise but we didn’t see many, maybe because night was gathering fast. Tip for bushwalkers – always carry a torch.

Onwards to the town seeking to claim the crown of South Australia’s Quorn as the country’s best known outdoor sound stage. Major films like Mystery Road and Goldstone were filmed in the Winton district. We were in Winton primarily to enjoy the Outback Film Festival, established in 2013 after the successful premiere of the aforementioned Mystery Road, starring Aaron Pedersen as a surly black cowboy detective. Some 400 people packed in to Winton’s famous open air theatre for the event, which remains the main venue for the film festival. Some films are also shown in a theatre at Winton’s rebuilt Waltzing Matilda Centre.

We saw some great films in the four days we were in Winton including Mystery Road, Sweet Country, Brothers’ Nest (starring Shane and Clayton Nicholson), documentaries (Night Parrot, Black Panther Woman and Backtrack Boys stand out), and a gory sci-fi film, Upgrade, which was a last minute replacement for That’s not my Dog.

If you get bored with the show you just look up, let your eyes adjust and take in nature’s starry, starry night. When Upgrade finished about 10.20 we were heading to bed but noticed that comedian Lawrence Mooney was doing an R18 late show at the North Gregory Hotel. Mooney came out in character as PM Malcolm Turnbull and wasted no time establishing the tone with a few swear words.

“Are there any kids here?” he asked. “If there are, f*** them off because this is an adults-only show.”

Mooney’s sharp satirical sword spared no-one; Millennials and Gen Xers copped it, so too the Greens, Labor and a few Senators singled out for special mention. Two people walked out when he made a joke about farmers and suicide and one heckler in the front row kept up such a running commentary Mooney resorted to telling her to shut the f*** up. You attend late night comedy shows at your own risk.

Grey nomads also copped a spray, although they were so under-represented in the Monday night audience there was little risk someone would take offence at his suggestion that serial killers should stop preying on backpackers and focus on grey nomads instead “because nobody cares”.

The telling part near the end of his show was Mooney asking the audience of 30-40 people how many actually lived in Winton. One woman raised her hand only to say she used to live in Winton but had moved away.

I had vague ambitions about driving out to Middleton, where Mystery Road was shot, until I figured out it was a 360km round-trip. Every place of interest around here is at least two hours’ drive away.

The Outback Film Festival, A Vision Splendid, is a bold project for a small outback community to sustain. It deserves to be supported (and you can still find time to go fossicking or dinosaur spotting).

On Wednesday night we got glammed up and went to the 100^th Anniversary celebrations of the Royal Open Air Theatre, which included dinner and a special screening of the silent film classic, The Sentimental Bloke.

It meant skipping the spectacular sunsets you so often see in the flat country spreading west, but there are sure to be more as we head north to Hughenden and the Gulf country.

The alert among you will observe that this was posted on Thursday, as we’re going bush and will be out of WIFI range for a few days. I’m off to buy some block ice as our caravan fridge decided to cark it (Aussie expression meaning it died). After our visits to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach and Barcaldine’s Australian Heritage Centre, which tell stories of the hard life of country people in the 1800s, getting by without a fridge for a few weeks is no great hardship (as long as you don’t forget to buy the ice-Ed.)

When desert stars disappear

Outback: No 2 in a six-part series

stars-outback-music — stars – Image of Charleville night sky, June 26 by Laurel Wilson’s Nikon Coolpix

I was going to be cute and headline this piece about stars, ‘Charleville’s starry starry night’, which in one tells you where I am and sneaks in one of those song references for which I am apparently known. Our plan was to visit Charleville’s famous Cosmos Centre, an observatory which takes advantage of the (usual) crisp and clear night air to show the far west’s spectacular night sky.

But you can’t count on the weather. Halfway through our second day in Charleville, 747.3 kms west of Brisbane, the clear blue winter sky began clouding over. By the time we came out of a supermarket expecting to go to dinner and then to an astral show, we found instead rain spots on the windscreen and a voicemail message from Mike at the Cosmos Centre. Tonight’s shows are unfortunately cancelled due to cloud and expected rain, he said. If you are still around tomorrow you can rebook, he added. But the weather forecast was a 90% chance of precipitation, and besides, we had to be in Blackall.

Drat, we said and went off to the RSL for the Barra special.

I was space-mad when I was a kid and so were all my mates. In 1957 (most of us were 9 or 10), the Soviets declared themselves winners of the space race (on account of launching the world’s first satellite station (Sputnik), which orbited for a couple of weeks before running out of battery power. The USA was aghast and immediately ramped up its own space programme, frantically trying to catch up to the USSR. These were the Cold War years, long before perestroika and glasnost. The US and USSR happily spied on each other and played nuclear chicken (the Bay of Pigs crisis). The US arguably won the space race in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Even today you will find conspiracists who say the whole thing was a con, filmed in a studio.

Do you remember Laika, one of Moscow’s stray mutts until the USSR space team captured the dog and sent into orbit? Laika was one of three dogs ‘trained’ to become astronauts. The Soviets coldly admitted that the dog would die in space (and it did), heralding perhaps the birth of the animal rights movement.

Not that me and my Kiwi school friends were thinking about such deep things, but the space race got us interested in the wider world.

Our parents were not too thrilled, though, about experiments with home-made rockets (taking fireworks apart and stuffing the explosives into toilet roll tubes).

I read up on astronomy and became something of an expert (so I thought) on the planets, their moons and even distant stars. A famous New Zealand radio quiz show (It’s in the Bag) visited our small town so I put my name down to answer questions on my special subject. Genial host Selwyn Toogood found me out, though, on question two or three which was: name the second furthest planet from earth. I said Saturn when the correct answer was Neptune. Selwyn said something like “By hokey, that’s not right, Bobby. But thanks for taking part in the fun.”

‘It’s in the Bag’ offered contestants the choice between keeping answering questions (and being gonged out), and choosing between cash or an unopened bag. Nobody knew what was inside the bag. It could have been a (voucher for) a new fridge or washing machine, or one of the dreaded booby prizes.

You will have to take my account of this episode with a grain of nutmeg as it was long ago (1958?) and these days I’m flat out remembering where I left my keys and phone.

I’ve always been a bit of a stargazer, and you can take that any way you like. When you grow up in a small country Kiwi town, the stars take their proper place in the firmament.

Australia’s outback is the best place to see the night sky. There’s no artificial light and in the winter months the colder nights mostly guarantee a crystal-clear sky.

More than a few songwriters have had a stab at describing the starry starry night, but none as convincingly as Don McLean, in his ballad about Vincent van Gogh. There are others, as I found when plundering my IPod – Dream a Little Dream of Me, Starman (Bowie), And I Love Her (Beatles). More recently Coldplay came up with A Sky Full of Stars. Moon Dance doesn’t qualify but it’s a great tune and Van is undeniably a star.

Music historian Lyn Nuttall (aka Franky’s Dad), found an example from the 1950s (I knew he would). Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes was a hit for Perry Como, but the original was recorded by the writer, Slim Willet. Lyn, who curates the website poparchives, quotes Arnold Rypens of The Originals (this is for my songwriter pals patiently waiting for their APRA cheques), who wrote of this song:

“Slim pulled a gun on Bill McCall (head of 4 Star records & publishing), forced him to walk to the bank and collect an overdue payment for royalties in cash.”

The poets waxed on about stars, to wit the ‘mansions built by nature’s hands’ (Wordsworth). Shakespeare’s Sonnet 14 is often held up as the gold standard. But Gerald Manley Hopkins was more adventurous. He likened stars to the ‘eyes of elves’ or ‘fire folk sitting in the night sky’. Hopkins also described stars as ‘diamonds in dark mines or caves’.

That makes my ‘blazing starry nights’ (last week) seem prosaic.

We went outside at Moonie last week where there was a clear sky. She Who Knows About Such Things pointed out the Southern Cross. We both identified Venus and guessed we were about a week away from a full moon. But, as you might gather, there’s a bit of rain about in the west for the next week or so. Charleville got 10mm overnight after our star gazing was thwarted, making it 173mm for the year to date.

Out west the paddocks are dead brown and parched and we’ve already seen a couple of drovers driving cattle along the ‘long paddock’. So it would be churlish of us grey nomads to complain about a bit of rain, eh.

Next week: further west

Re last week’s episode, Ridley wrote to point out that camper trailers and other camping vehicles (slide-ons, for example), didn’t factor in our stats. Moreover, slide-ons (the camper sits on the tray of a Ute or small truck and can be dismounted), don’t have to be registered. So yes, there’s even more undocumented grey nomads out there.

Does a six-week outback trip make you a grey nomad

(No 1 in a series of six)

The last thing packed into the 12ft caravan we call The Tardis was a heavy duty doona, an essential item considering we’re heading west, to Charleville and beyond. Night temperatures out west at this time of year vary from -2 to 6 degrees. The days will be beautiful, though – sunny and still. I’m looking forward to the blazing starry nights.

The ubiquitous Grey Nomads, many of them temporarily migrated from Victoria, have Queensland all worked out. In the spirit of the Canadian ‘Snow Birds’, who winter over in New Mexico and Arizona, they are escaping the unforgiving cold of places like Ballarat, Bendigo and Melbourne for the stable sunny climes of west and north Queensland.

Likewise, Queenslanders tend to head south and west when the seriously humid part of summer starts.

The first thing you find when trying to research this elusive subject is that reliable data on grey nomads is hard to find.

A Sydney Morning Herald report last year surmised that grey nomad numbers had doubled in the previous three years. The latest official Tourism Research Australia figures show that caravan and camping nights are up 13 per cent on the previous year, to 11.78 million nights.

A more reliable way to get a sense of potential grey nomad numbers is to look at caravan and camper van registrations. They totalled almost 500,000 in 2017. Caravans led the way by a long margin (450,564), with 47,775 camper vans. States with the most registered caravans were Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, each in six figures. NSW led Queensland and Victoria in camper van registrations.

Of course, these figures do not suggest that all of these vans are on Australian roads every day of the year. As caravan owners know too well, these expensive bedrooms on wheels sit in garages and carports 80% of the time. As many of you know, the old Coromal or Windsor van that has ‘done the lap’ twice is now sitting out the back, semi-permanent accommodation for a family member. It could be the adult son (between share houses), the adult daughter (between marriages) or Mum, who can still live by herself but needs a loved one checking in quite often.

Nevertheless, the call of the wild still drives tens of thousands of Aussies around the eastern seaboard or trekking across the outback. All they need is a reliable person to mind the house and pets (or take the pets with them). Or they may have sold the house to fund the road rig.

Research by Professor Jenny Onyx of University of Technology Sydney cited an estimate by the Bureau of Tourism Research that in a single year Australian retirees undertook 200,000 caravan trips of six weeks’ duration or more. The same source speculated that these numbers were set to increase greatly as more baby boomers retire.

Let’s be clear about the term Grey Nomad – it means a person of at least 60 years of age, retired and often pursuing domestic travel as a way of life. While the size of some caravans and road rigs would cause you to think otherwise, the demographic is not wealthy, often eking out stays in free camps waiting for the next pension payment.

Prof. Onyx also did research on the North American phenomenon known as ‘Snow Birds’ – North Americans who choose to winter in warmer American states like Arizona, New Mexico and Florida.

Prof. Onyx says that 220,000 retirees moved to Phoenix Arizona in the winter of 1993-1994, of which one third lived in what North Americans call RV Parks (dedicated resorts for recreational vehicles). All of which is a long way from the Aussie grey nomad, camped down by a billabong with a solar panel, a portaloo and/or a generator.

PhD student Rod Caldicott from Southern Cross University identified a growing problem for caravanners who stay on the road for extended periods. He said that while there was a 257% increase in caravan registrations between 1995 and 2005, the short and long-term capacity of caravan parks was on the decrease. Caldicott chose Tweed Shire for a case study, concluding that tent sites in the shire’s 27 tourist parks had declined by 64% since the 1970s and the number of ensuite cabins correspondingly increased. Annual caravan sites have fallen 12% between 1970 and 2010.

The advent of fly-in fly-out workers has increased demand for permanent and semi-permanent accommodation.

It’s not unusual to stay at an outback caravan park and find the washing lines full of overalls and high-vis vests.

There are a few unwritten rules if you are going to be on the road with a caravan for months at a time. The first of these is to take a break from driving every two hours. And the driving ought to be shared. It’s hard work.

The next rule is to set a constant speed – 90kmh is good, and keep a steady eye on the road behind you.

Extendable side mirrors are good, but a CB radio is better. Paint your UHF channel on the back of the van so the road train that’s following can call in: “10-4 Ned & Mary, B-triple right behind you and about to pass.”

SMH writer Sue Williams raised the common conflict between grey nomads (who seem to prefer 70kmh) and the road trains on freight deadlines. She quoted truck driver and Pilbara Heavy Haulage Girls trucking company boss Heather Jones.

Jones says she was driving a triple road train with a 70-tonne load along a highway when she came up behind a grey nomad caravan that drove at 30km/h, then 80km/h, then 30km/h. Then it stopped dead.

“It turned out they’d stopped to take a photo of a Sturt’s desert pea flower,” she says. “But they seemed to have no idea that a massive truck was behind them that takes a while to stop.”

Our photograph this week, which I’ve used before, shows our road rig next to a cattle road train. It does make you think.

We were in an auto electrician’s shop recently having a new car aerial fitted to the Ford Territory (this is a virtue signal to show we have upgraded from the green wagon in the photo). While chatting to the young fellow who fitted the new aerial, the conversation fell to reversing cameras. The Ford has one, but it’s not much use once the van is hooked up. It turns out we could buy a monitoring camera for the caravan as well. This means you could have as good a view of the road behind as the road ahead.

Or we could do what most Grey Nomads do. The husband (usually) starts backing the rig into the designated camping site. The wife (usually), stands at the back and waves her arms to indicate keep coming, keep coming, and stop! (I prefer ‘left hand down’, ‘right hand down’ etc in dulcet tones while conversing through the open car window- ‘the wife’) We’re looking forward to this jaunt – west to Charleville, then north to Winton, Hughenden and on then to Coastal north Queensland before turning for home via Townsville (go the Cowboys!) and points South. We have star-gazing, the Winton film festival, national parks, hiking, bird watching and an ongoing scrabble tournament on our to-do list.

Somewhere along the way, we’ll do what all travellers should do – schedule do-nothing days. Throw the laundry in a commercial washing machine and assign the husband to peg it out when the time comes. Sit out in the sun and read a book; take a nanna nap…

This would be the day when hubby cooks dinner, right?

In praise of the small caravan

small caravan at Barkly Homestead Roadhouse, NT

It’s hard to estimate just how many kilometres we’ve clocked up touring around in this little Jayco pop-top caravan, but it’s a lot. Probably close to 100,000. We bought the van back in late 2011, after an exhaustive search for a small, older caravan. We decided that as we did not know if we’d enjoy caravanning or not, it seemed wisest to spend as little money as possible.

Eventually we bought ‘The Tardis’ from a retired aeronautical engineer, a Mr Fussy who’d looked after the 1984 caravan meticulously, kept it under cover and added luxury extras like electric brakes and LED lights, as well as small truck tyres to give extra clearance. There was an awning too, stored away under the beds (more on that later).

Done all the dumb things

Caravanners would probably agree, but you never stop learning. You never, ever stop doing dumb things (like not putting the chocks back in the van; instead driving them into the turf as you leave). One of our neighbours at Castle Rock campground at Girraween confessed he had once driven out of a camp site with stabilisers still down. This is not recommended. The same could be said for not properly clipping down the front window, not locking the van door and forgetting to undo the safety chains before you drive the car away! (Guilty as charged, on all counts. Ed)

Most of the National Park campers we encountered recently were in relatively modest rigs – a few A-vans, a couple of camper trailers and one caravan even older than ours. There were also a lot of tents, a lot of kids and not an IPad to be seen anywhere.

You don’t often see rigs like the one above in national parks. The access defeats them and there’s usually not enough room to park a beast like this (the sides push out, making for a large living room). I believe this one also had a washing machine and dryer. For $100,000 or more (including vehicle), you could have one too.

We saw many rigs like this (and larger) on our three month, round-Australia trip in 2014. There was a rig we saw in Alice that also had a trailer on the back towing a small Suzuki 4WD. On the back of the 4WD was a bike rack and two bikes!

Meanwhile we have learned how to eat, sleep, make love and play scrabble in a 12ft caravan. There have been occasions when we coveted more space, a toilet and shower even, but they are few in number.

Our caravan is simplicity itself. We arrive, pick a spot, reverse in (easy), put the jockey wheel on, detach the car, get the van level and push the roof up. Job done.

We should have kept a log book. The top photo was snapped at the Barkly Roadhouse in the Northern Territory. I was taken by the contrast between our humble rig and the ‘B-Triple’ cattle train.

Our most recent van trip between Christmas and New Year and beyond was to Girraween National Park via Brisbane, Warwick and Yangan. Our sister-in-law had a houseful prior to and including Christmas, so we parked the van next to her house on the bayside and did some ‘home camping’.

Onwards to Girraween where we found a quiet spot near some other campers, who appeared to be camping as an extended family.

This was the trip where, apart from the super moon and the blessed silence after 9pm, we made two amazing discoveries about our caravan. One, I found out how to light the grill! The van has a full-sized oven and cook top that runs off gas. To light the grill and make toast, I finally discovered, you open the oven door, turn on the grill and stick a match underneath. Not what you’d call rocket science, but we had tried various ways of lighting the grill in the past, but nothing worked.

The second thing, given we were going to be staying a few nights, was to put up the awning (left) − an old-style canvas sheet which has to be threaded into a channel along the roof of the caravan, then pegged out with poles and ropes. Believe it or not, this was a first. Now, with a bit of wax for the sail track and a few extra tent pegs, we can achieve this every time we stay more than one night. #feelingsmug

It’s been around, this little van. And, I’d need to add that we have seen smaller ones – 10 footers with a door at the rear. A six-footer with a home-made tilt-top and a few slide-on vans that sit on the backs of utes. There are also bubble vans so small you could probably tow one with a motorcycle.

Ours has been hither and yon – the first big trip in 2012 to the Man from Snowy River festival at Cooma, the National Folk Festival in Canberra and home again. We did a big northern trip in 2013, to Cairns and Karumba, across country to the Territory and back in a loop that took in Budjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park and home, via western Queensland. Then the big trip in 2014, road-testing our near-new Ford Territory (which had only 9,000 kms on the clock). On reflection, we should have gone for six months, as Western Australia is far too large to whiz through in a month.

We’ve also taken this rig to the Blue Mountains for the music festival and that was when we discovered the leaks we’d fixed were, er, not fixed.

So I went to K Mart and bought a really big tarpaulin for $30 and we threw it over the entire van. Try doing that in a fifth wheeler.

Caravans – a money drain or a hobby for DIY types

We have spent some money on the van, it’s true. The first time was when heavy local rain seeped in and destroyed the kitchen bench top, which we then had replaced with marine ply (after fixing the leaks). Then when our local mechanic checked the tyres, he concluded they were so old they didn’t even have identifier numbers on them. So $400 later we were back in business and feeling safe. We’ve had lots of spot jobs done on the road (the insides of our three-way fridge fell to pieces after being taken on the Lawn Hill road) but a smart young guy in Mt Isa fixed it for $130. Another chap in Mt Isa stayed back on a Friday night to fashion new aluminium hinges to repair the van door which had come adrift. An artful fellow with a van repair business near Sunshine Coast Airport recently fixed everything on the van that didn’t work properly and replaced worn wheel bearings.

Not a small caravan No 2 (is that a quad bike on the back?)

Some people, we found, are permanently on the road, hence the need for impressive rigs like this (left). Others make do nicely with vans as small as the one below.

I fondly remember on one of our first forays north stumbling upon a former work colleague, retired from newspaper life, travelling with his wife in an old 10ft van with single beds. “It’s all we need,” said Roy, getting his fiddle out for a few campfire tunes.

As an old fella we met in the NT, towing a 30-year-old van with an aged Kingswood* said, when a fifth-wheeler rig roared past: “Aw, he’s just showin’ orf.”

*Holden Kingswood, the classic car for everyman, produced from 1968-1984.

More reading : an outback travelogue from 2014