Day 55 Wednesday 1st September 2010 & Postscript

Greetings from Burketown. I have just watched sunset through the trees while Simon headed to the wharf for a spot of fishing. The scene around the campsite from the warm darkness of the camper reminds me of a painting we saw in Jack Absalom’s gallery of campsite at sunset with orangey campfires illuminating "swaggies" forms in the growing darkness. My vision was of somewhat different forms illuminated; these are potbellied males 60+ in stubbies and thongs. The further north we go the more of these bronzed seniors we see, they are not an attractive sight. Thankfully Simon has no illusions that his paunch is attractive and keeps it well covered to the public gaze. I should add that his paunch is shrinking, (as is mine) from increased exercise and only 2 meals a day on the travelling days.

Today being a travelling day we breakfasted by 7am and by 5pm were positively ravenous, early tea at 5.45 of bacon, eggs, onions, tomatoes, smashed potatoes and beer and wine filled that very empty spot. Tonight we even had dessert an extreme rarity. Tinned chilled fruit. The time at Lawn Hill without a shop in sight has allowed me to use some tinned food that I brought from home. I think the count is now 5 tins..... a small dent in the 50 something which cleaned out the pantry.

We packed up in record time this morning, helped by the hour or so already spent last night on taking the awning down and packing the roof bag, geeze we have some stuff, but keep consoling ourselves that it isn’t much for a year on the road..
A shower of rain helped us to get our skates on but in the end it didn’t even dampen the road. Initial plans were to camp on the river at Gregory Downs but we had made such good time we decided to keep going. The road which we were told was a shocker for bulldust turned out to be OK, corrugations were not too bad and there was bitumen every now and then, we even got up to 100km/hr at times.

Before we left I took the obligatory photo of Honeydin the travelling teddy, our version of the gnome, who is looking forward to becoming a facebook identity.


Honeydin in the car leaving Adelaide



Adels Grove

We stopped at Adeles Grove for a cup of coffee from the instant cappuccino machine, which gave me a chance to get a photo from the restaurant deck.

Simon arrived back from fishing after 20 minutes, I was expecting a massive catch.... but instead he made a note that long sleeves and hat with net are needed for comfortable fishing not just long trousers! As I type this I hear bats in the trees and shudder, having already retreated indoors after an encounter with a beetle. My list of disagreeable insects is growing included now are locusts grasshoppers and beetles, anything with haphazard flying!

Cheers Susan

Postscript
About 20km out of Burketown we were flagged down by some locals in a late model lancer who asked if we had any engine oil. Unfortunately it is one of the few things we don't carry. We enquired if they would like us to take a message back to town however that wasn't required. They had plenty of fluids of the VB variety and seemed quite happy. I went to the pub to buy necessary supplies and after having supplied my life details to obtain some VB i enquired about a cask for Susan. "Don't sell casks" "How about bottles?" Came down to a choice of 2. They do however sell wine in cans! As i said previously strange things happen when you cross the border!
Cheers Simon