Burketown around the Gulf of Carpentaria from Normanton along 221km of no- too-foul dirt and gravel road proclaims itself to be the world barramundi capital.

We did indeed find barramundi there. We also found Elvis, Elvis, Elvis and Elvis.

After inspecting the Leichardt Falls, or rather the rocky terrain where the falls usually tumble, we headed for the bakery and information. The bakery has a speciality – barramundi-shaped biscuits. Barb bought some for dessert so our American friends could go home saying they ate some of the fabled fish.

Burketown has a few good things going for it. Showers at the rodeo grounds are free and so is the camping on the banks of the Albert River. The town is also blessed with a good supply of fresh water, which means lawns and parks are dazzling green after weeks of brown grass and red dust offset with grey.

 What more could Grey Nomads want? Fish, perhaps. And a pub would be handy.

The Burketown pub burnt down and was supposed to be rebuilt by last Christmas. We watched a pool table being taken into the construction site opposite the bakery and learned that the pub would open in two weeks. They’ve been saying that in Burketown for almost a year now.

We camped a couple of nights on the river bank and met up with neighbour Dave, a Vietnam vet like Ed and Tony. Dave and his wife Eileen are Grey Nomads from Victoria who spend about five months of the year roaming in northern parts. They know everywhere you can camp free or cheaply.

They started off their nomadic life in a camper trailer.  The first trip lasted 36 hours. Setting up and packing up compounded with some weight problems presented challenges. They eventually chucked the camper trailer and bought a van.

They had been on the Albert River catching catfish for about three weeks. Their friends had headed off that day but Dave and Eileen had had their voting papers sent to Burketown so they would have to wait a couple of weeks.

Election? We looked at each other. We had heard on the Cape York grapevine that an election had been called but rarely listened to the radio and saw a TV even more rarely. What glorious days of campaigning are we missing?

Dave and Eileen joined us for dinner before we packed up the next morning. We shot into town for showers before we headed off and found Elvis, Elvis, Elvis and Elvis between us and the rodeo grounds.

Their sticker-plastered, modified and bash-plated 1974 Fairlane 500 was one of 82 vehicles in the 2013 Variety Bash, also had Elvis painted on the boot and was on its fourth Variety Bash. The convoy had landed in Burketown for the night on its way to Broome accompanied by four paramedics and five mobile workshops.

Sporting their Elvis gear were Martin Hills, a communications tech whose VOIP employers sponsored the Fairlane’s fuel, Chris Behrendorff, a locksmith, Haydn van Lochem, a nurse, and David Hobbs, a chaplain.

Martin said the Fairlane, bought for $500, had raised $100,000 for charity on its Variety Bash runs.  This year the event will raise more than a million dollars for kids. Some of the dough gets dished out as they go through towns – Burketown’s school benefited with 40 bike helmets and a couple of Ipads.

Elvis, Elvis, Elvis and Elvis faithfully dress in costumes of The King every morning of the rally and wear their outfits into the evenings. Then they take their wigs off and give their scalps a good scratch. Being Elvis is an itchy business.

PICTURE ABOVE: Elvis, Elvis, Elvis and Elvis hit Burketown with their Fairlane 500 on the way to Broome.

We skipped Karumba because the news was no one was catching any fish and Karumba doesn’t have a lot more to offer than fishing. Normanton at least has the Purple Pub and the scale model of the world record crocodile shot by a woman croc hunter in 1957.

Normanton also has an excellent information centre. Sitting outside it we found a bunch of Victorians who had caught fish. Heaps. Wall to wall mud crabs and barra galore. The only catch is that they had been into Staaten River Station and it was really, really expensive.

They had been able to get a drive-in reduced rate but usually guests were helicoptered into the place and waited on hand and foot. The sum of $7000 for five days was mentioned. Fishing has different scales.

Over 700km of gravel and dirt roads the boys had flicked their lines into a couple of rivers but nothing was doing. We considered camping down by the river in town and checked out Leichardt Lagoon but the story was the same. No real wet season for a couple of years; too cold; no fish.

Big snowfalls in the south had sent cold winds north and the barra were staying tucked up in their flannelette sheets.

We took Ed and Rita to do the things people do in Normanton: get your photo taken with the giant croc model Krys  and at the Purple Pub, which is looking more vividly purple every time I see it.

Krys is named after the remarkable woman who killed the world record monster with a single, perfect shot beneath the eye on the banks of the Norman River in 1957. The saltie measured 8.63m, a size that still raises eyebrows.

Krystina  “One Shot” Pawlowski and husband Ron had been the most famous husband-and-wife of the crocodile hunters on Cape York Peninsula in the middle of last century. They had both immigrated to Perth after World War II trauma in Poland. Ron endured the brutality of the Nazis. Krystina’s family suffered under the Russians.

Ron was a roo shooter and prospector. He stayed at the Perth boarding house run by pretty blonde Krystina. They fell in love, married and went off to shoot crocs in the Gulf. As you do.

Krystina was only 30 when she went into the Guinness Books of Records  and said she instantly regretted  knocking over the two-ton giant. "I would never shoot one like that again. It was such a magnificent specimen."

Photos and measurements taken by Ron were lost in the 1974 flood. The life-size replica in Normanton was recreated from other sources, including Guinness.

We waved goodbye to Krys and set out to where some said fish were being caught: the Little Bynoe River on the way to Burketown.

We camped on a high camp, the boys threw in lines and we contemplated the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars. When our necks became sore we shone torch lights – and Ed and Rita shone flashlights - into the Little Bynoe to see how many sets of red eyes we could see. No fish were seen.

PICTURE ABOVE: Ed and Rita outside the Purple Pub. "Interesting," said Rita.

Phil, Barb, Rita, Ed, Nancy and Tony on the banks of the Staaten. Rita is doing a great job of hiding her apprehension at having corned beef for dinner.
 
And the bush has friends to meet him and their kindly voices greet him

In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars

And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended

And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

Sunlit plains we had indeed as we travelled across the well-graded road north and west from Chillagoe. And the bush sent many furred and feathered friends to meet us. For Tony and I, the personal vision splendid was of the feathered ones.

Yellow-tail cockatoos as well as the red-tail flocked and fluttered along the way with eagles, hawks, parrots, jabiru, brolgas and other heron. Then a brilliant moment etched itself into our memories.

A red-tail cockatoo swept from the right and a yellow-tail from the left to soar in front of Isabel’s windscreen. Our vision splendid was of cockatoo wings extended in a feathered escort of black, yellow and red.

Banjo Paterson’s stirring poem about Clancy of the Overflow often springs to mind when you roam the byways of our big country. We all know that bush life was never as romantically bucolic as painted by Banjo but something in those four lines captures the essence of Australia beyond the artifice of cities and towns.

Each letter of the lines was cast in bronze and set on the walls of the foyer of the Sydney Morning Herald’s palatial high-rise at Darling Harbour. Banjo and Henry Lawson were regular subscribers to The Bulletin, that fine magazine published by Fairfax but sent to the grave by the internet.

I am saddened it is no longer fashionable for Australian children to learn of the great explorers, pioneers, entrepreneurs and adventurers who carved the foundations for modern Australia. I understand some of the literary works revered by earlier generations might be dismissive or paternalistic in references to our indigenous people. I understand too that the old bards might not fit easily with the teachings of devotees of multiculturalism.

If we are at pains to preserve Aboriginal heritage, however, and to be inclusive of the cultures of our newer immigrants, it should not be done by burying Banjo.

Rita and Ed, our US travelling companions, said sadly similar educational philosophies were erasing American history and folklore from their nation’s classrooms. Kiwis are also having much of the last 200 years pushed out of their schools.

Such was the campfire talk, briefly, at Staaten River, where Rita was a little more concerned with what we were cooking for dinner. Banjo would have approved. Corned beef.  She had not eaten corned beef since the days of her childhood when we mother had boiled the meat until it was grey and tasteless. Cabbage had the same treatment. I recalled my grandmother crucifying corned beef and cabbage with equal enthusiasm.

Rita kept her misgivings to herself until we ate and she pronounced herself delighted with the salt beef roasted in a camp oven on the open fire.

Barb and Phil, who made up our party, had recommThe bush sends friends to meet him and their friendly voices greet him

In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars

And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended

And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.

Sunlit plains we had indeed as we travelled across the well-graded road north and west from Chillagoe. And the bush sent many furred and feathered friends to meet us. For Tony and I, the personal vision splendid was of the feathered ones.

Yellow-tail cockatoos as well as the red-tail flocked and fluttered along the way with eagles, hawks, parrots, jabiru, brolgas and other heron. Then a brilliant moment etched itself into our memories.

A red-tail cockatoo swept from the right and a yellow-tail from the left to soar in front of Isabel’s windscreen. Our vision splendid was of cockatoo wings extended in a feathered escort of black, yellow and red.

Banjo Paterson’s stirring poem about Clancy of the Overflow often springs to mind when you roam the byways of our big country. We all know that bush life was never as romantically bucolic as painted by Banjo but something in those four lines captures the essence of Australia beyond the artifice of cities and towns.

Each letter of the lines was cast in bronze and set on the walls of the foyer of the Sydney Morning Herald’s palatial high-rise at Darling Harbour. Banjo and Henry Lawson were regular subscribers to The Bulletin, that fine magazine published by Fairfax but sent to the grave by the internet.

I am saddened it is no longer fashionable for Australian children to learn of the great explorers, pioneers, entrepreneurs and adventurers who carved the foundations for modern Australia. I understand some of the literary works revered by earlier generations might be dismissive or paternalistic in references to our indigenous people. I understand too that the old bards might not fit easily with the teachings of devotees of multiculturalism.

If we are at pains to preserve Aboriginal heritage, however, and to be inclusive of the cultures of our newer immigrants, it should not be done by burying Banjo.

Rita and Ed, our US travelling companions, said sadly similar educational philosophies were erasing American history and folklore from their nation’s classrooms. Kiwis are also having much of the last 200 years pushed out of their schools.

Such was the campfire talk, briefly, at Staaten River, where Rita was a little more concerned with what we were cooking for dinner. Banjo would have approved. Corned beef.  She had not eaten corned beef since the days of her childhood when we mother had boiled the meat until it was grey and tasteless. Cabbage had the same treatment. I recalled my grandmother crucifying corned beef and cabbage with equal enthusiasm.

Rita kept her misgivings to herself until we ate and she pronounced herself delighted with the salt beef roasted in a camp oven on the open fire.

Barb and Phil, who made up our party, had recommended the camp oven roast after tasting it cooked in that style by son-in-law Ian and grandson Ro. Our declarations of its wonders might have been influence by beer and wine but a triumph it was.

Next morning after Ed spotted a couple of crocodile eyes in the Staaten we headed for Normanton. The road wasn’t too bad but deteriorated after we entered the Shire of Carpentaria, where they apparently do not have enough money for graders because they spend so much on signs saying “Rough Surface”.        

Encounters of the Ford kind
“Have you got half a million in your pocket?” asked barefoot Tom Prior with a gap-toothed grin. “You can have that if you do.”

He gestured towards a bubble-wrapped red-trimmed white 1970 XW Ford Falcon GT 351c, built in Australia and arguably the best muscle car in the world in its time. It was his open garage among more than 30 classic veteran and vintage Fords. Remains of hundreds more were just outside.

Above the bubble-wrapped gem a sign wired to a rafter said: “ Motor- Cleveland 351, 4 main bearing crank, TRW forged flat top pistons…4v heads, Medelon single groove stainless steel valves, triple valve springs, Viking 100 cam, intake manifold Strip Dominator, Genie extractors, heads intake manifold and extractors, port & polished & bench flowed …. 9in diff 3:1, 4 speed top loader. Dyno-tuned to 675 hp.”

Music to the eyes of anyone with a mechanical bent, I was assured.

Tom is the BP agent in Chillagoe. Tucked away in a side street, a couple of bowsers are surrounded by a Ford fancier’s paradise.

Old cars and trucks gleam despite the dust, the sheen aided by Tom’s welcoming sign in red capitals “SLOW DOWN TOO MUCH BLOODY DUST”.

Tom Prior, 75, was the general carrier for Chillagoe from 1957 until five or six years ago. His old favourite workhorse, a dark blue 1946 V8 Super Delux coupe ute, has pride of place in his collection of preserved Fords. (SEE PICTURE ABOVE)

“She hasn’t been tuned for 35 years but I bet she’ll tick over first start.” It did. So, apparently did every other machine in his collection, including a 1942 Ford ex-army truck that he swore was brand new.

We only went to seek out Tom because Phil liked BP fuel. We drove around the back, wondered if we had come to the right place, saw a couple of bowsers – then our jaws dropped. Millions of dollars of restored Ford cars and trucks. Finally Tom appeared. By that time the boys were looking at a couple of vehicles – and Tom started talking about his life-long love affair with Fords.

They were the only vehicles to have out here in the west, he asserted. He found out long ago nothing else was tough enough. The only reason the other brands were going was because there was bitumen.

He patted a 1958 green 18cwt Freighter. “You’d drive around Australia in this in top gear. In the next couple of years I’m going to drive it around Australia.”

Signs of Tom’s adulation for Ford are everywhere. “Ford trucks are built stronger to last longer”.  And “Old Fords never die. They just are cheaper to service.”

A 1928 Model A with a polished timber tray has a label saying the engine and chassis were built in Canada for British Colonial distribution and the body built in Australia. It has travelled 780 miles since restoration.

A gleaming red and white 1965 Shelby Mustang sits opposite a brown Pilot sedan from the late 40s. “Look at the size inside this,” said Tom proudly opening the front door of the Pilot. It is roomy, I agree. He opens the back door with its rope interior handles. “You could hold a dance in here.” I nod enthusiastically.

The sign on the Selby Mustang says 10,000 were sold the day the iconic car was launched on April 16, 1965. Another 11,000 were ordered. Within a few months Ford dealers were almost stampeded by buyers wanting the sporty car.

Mustangs were the only Ford to outsell the Model T. The Mustang car club is the biggest in the world.

Rita and Ed from San Diego, on their second day in Australia, were wandering around with their eyes glazed. We were shaking our heads; they were starting to wonder if they had stepped into another world.

“Do you think he will actually sell us some fuel?” said Rita anxiously after close to an hour.

By then the boys had their heads inside a 1958 Ford F8000 powered by a supercharged Cummins. The truck had done million and a half miles, said Tom, 90% of it in rough conditions and “look, there’s no play in the steering wheel”. No play in the door hinges either.

A Ford Jeep, left hand drive and in A1 nick, and a Ford Blitz were nestled near the F8000.

Tom had used the F8000 hauling for Dillinghams mining when they were on Fraser Island. “They had a mine on the Palmer River up here too and I used to cart gear back and forwards for them.”

A couple of acres of rusting old Fords are the other side of the fuel pumps that finally came into use to poke into Isabel, Narelle and Thelma. Tom didn’t have an electonic record of each tally so he wrote it in biro on his hand.

“People say I should write a book. But all this.” He waved his hand at the garage and wrecking yard. “That’s my book.”

He sold us some fuel for our bowser-less journey of close to 600km but not much else was for sale. Tom, a widower who says sadly he lost his wife a couple years ago, said he had sold a few things a while back but he won’t part with anything anymore, despite overtures from fanatical collectors.

We had been told the top road we were taking from Chillagoe to Karumba was pretty rough with bulldust and rutting.

“The road to Karumba!” snorted Tom. “I drove it a couple of weeks ago. It’s like a highway.”

We were out on the highway a couple of hours later than we expected and still talking about Tom when we turned south at Dunbar station. Actually, we are still shaking our heads about that encounter of the Ford kind.

West through surprisingly interesting Chillagoe and across the top towards Kowanyama was the route chosen for our little convoy out of Cairns. We wanted to explore less-used northern route to Normanton rather than take the well-trodden Savannah Way path through Mt Surprise and Croydon.

Back in San Diego, Ed and Rita have an awesome motor home that they love to jump aboard and escape into deserts. They had done a trip around western Queensland with us a couple of years ago and were game to come back to join us again, this time hiring a vehicle from Cairns at the embarrassingly excruciating price Australians charge for 4WD motor home hire.

We dubbed their little high-top home Thelma Toyota and introduced her to our Isabel Isuzu and Barb and Phil’s Narelle Nissan. Isabel led out of Cairns and through Mareeba. We kept Thelma in the middle and Narelle brought up the rear, with Phil on the CB singing snatches of Convoy and reminding Ed to keep left.

Mareeba to Chillagoe is The Wheelbarrow Way. In May every year people race wheelbarrows along the 140km, most of which is sealed.  This year more than $460,000 was raised for charity. Fit Bucks set a team record is 7 hours 15 minutes and the solo section was won by Chris White (no, not the Maryborough Chris White of joinery fame – he’s wacky but not enough to do 140km in 14 hours pushing a wheelbarrow.)

Piles of marble rock slabs weighing about 30 tonne sprout from quarries as you close in on Chillagoe. The industry was started in the 1980s and the marble sent to Italy for processing. Polished local marble slabs create in impressive entrance to The Hub, where the Chillagoe information centre tells you about cave tours, history, marble the local sights.

An old thick-walled bank vault is an odd adornment in the open air art and raw marble rocks that decorate the ground around The Hub, which has an absorbing depiction of odd early mining ventures by tough and ambitious mining entrepreneurs.It also tells of Chillagoe’s geographical wonders, crated when a subterranean upheaval tossed an ancient Great Barrier Reef out of the sea.

Hundreds of limestone bluffs, exposed coral reefs and extensive cave systems have trapped evidence of almost mythical creatures long gone the way of the dodo.

Three cave tours are on offer at Chillagoe, two in the morning and one in the afternoon.   We skipped them for various reasons – claustrophobia, crooks knees, time and “all caved out” – but it seems they would be well worth factoring in if you had a bit of foresight about visiting Chillagoe. 

Six dollars a vehicle bought us the right to camp at the rodeo grounds where the basic amenities and showers were fine. We had really only thought of Chillagoe as a pit stop but it is worth a lot more than that.

When Ed and Rita had come through customs at Cairns the night before the X-ray of their luggage showed up an enormous bottle. “What’s that?” said the customs man.

“Tequila,” said Ed.  “I’m planning to make margaritas for my friends.” The custom’s man took another look before nodding approvingly: “Looks like you’re going to have fun.”

So at the Chillagoe rodeo grounds before dinner on our first night we toasted ourselves in margaritas. Ed makes a sensational margarita. He also makes a big batch. We slept well.

Next morning we visited the intriguing balancing rock a kilometre down the track, took photos of us all pretending to hold it up and decided to fuel up the bowser-less run of almost 600km to Normanton. That’s when we met old Tom and his Fords. And that’s another story about why Chillagoe is not a pit stop. 

PICTURE ABOVE: Nancy, Rita, Ed, Phil, Barb and Tony wave for the camera at Chillagoe.

 

Barb and I didn’t intend to get our hair wet when we went for a swim at Ellis Beach caravan park a few minutes north of Cairns. Nor did we expect to find waves and lose sunglasses.

Ellis caravan park is beautifully ablutioned right on a golden crescent of sand skirted with palms. In winter King Oscar would have been lost in admiration of the snug fit of travelling homes.

A couple of days earlier over a civilised lunch at Port Douglas we had said a fond goodbye to our Cape York travelling companions, Heather, Ross and Troopy Trailer, and readied ourselves for a rendezvous for our Savannah Way party.

Our US friends Ed and Rita were flying in from San Diego and hiring a 4WD motorhome at the excruciating prices Australians charge for such vehicles. Tony’s sister Barb and  her husband Phil drove up from Maryborough with their rooftop camper and everything including the kitchen sink under that.

We introduced Isabel Isuzu to Narelle Nissan and about the time Ed and Rita were boarding their first flight we were indulging in the famed Sunday afternoon $1 oysters at Ellis Beach (above - Barb is behind the lens). About the time they were taking off from San Francisco we had a dozen oysters and a couple of coldies each under our belt and Barb and I were in the surf looking at each other in dismay.

The wee waves of Ellis are deceptively strong. We should have figured that out from the murkiness of churned-up sand in the water. I tumbled under. Barb was so amused she didn’t see the next one and went under herself, surfacing minus her prescription sunnies. We cast around but it would have been easier to find a hula dancer in the Antarctic.

Five minutes later we were astonished when Barb almost tumbled under again, put her hand down and came up with her sunnies. Phil wandered up the beach with his fishing line, absorbed the news and asked Barb if she could go and flounder around further down the beach to see if she could come up with the lure he lost.

We mulled over our schedule for the trip because Barb had been sent an email from two sources announcing that Mars would be close to Earth in about 10 days and would appear enormously big, almost as big as the Moon, in the night sky. We thought it would be great to see that one-in-two-thousand year event in a clear outback sky.

We wondered why daughters Amber and Tasmin, who took a great interest in heavenly activity, had not notified us of this event. Tony texted them but had no response.

As Ed and Rita landed in Guam, we had sundowners on the beach and took bets on which wave would be the last big one before the tide turned. We convinced ourselves it was important to keep an eye on the tide to make sure it did turn. We wrenched ourselves away from the engrossing task long enough to call home. Tony asked Tasmin about Mars.

“Dad,” she said in the patient, condescending tone he used to explain facts to his children. She also used his words. “Just think about it for 10 seconds.” If Mars was that big in the sky the tides and gravity would be so upset Earth would wobble and probably shoot past Neptune.

“It’s a hoax. It does the rounds every couple of years.”

We thought about it and as Ed and Rita headed to Cairns we decided not to include the August Mars event in our Savannah schedule. The tide turned.

 

ABOVE: In Cooktown, Isabel unexpectedly meets her little Global Warrior brother Tommy and we meet up with Lee and Graham Meyers, heading north as we head south and west.

Some say there are no such things as coincidences, only the inevitable or statistical convergences. One of our favourite TV characters, Gibbs on NCIS, doesn’t believe in coincidences but then he’s in a line of work where a coincidence would make your senses perk up a little.

We were nearing the end of our travels on Cape York with Cousin Heather and her husband Ross but she was still ultra wary of crocodiles, begging Ross to step back from the water’s edge when he fished.

She was particularly alarmed by my story about a poor woman whose husband had been taken by a croc about eight years ago. He had gone to check his crab pot the night before they were due to drive back to Brisbane and never returned.

By the time we left Lakefield National Park she had, according to Ross, taken 3478 photographs of anthills and only one of a crocodile. It was a smudge in the water some distance from shore and not easily distinguishable as a croc.

She said all of her anthill photos, however, were special, especially the well dressed one on the Old Telegraph Track. “Maybe I should write a book about anthills,” she mused as Ross snorted. “I think people would love to know how they are made and what all the different architecture means.”

Near Cooktown we lobbed into a bush caravan park and relaxed. Heather loved the surroundings, made coffee and wandered off towards the river.  I was a little surprised to see her head off on her own.

Croc warning signs were everywhere and the next morning Tony mentioned that the owner had advised caution, saying “We’ve already lost one here. We don’t want to lose another.”

My ears pricked up. Sure enough, when we checked on Google we found that Heather had been wandering towards the fatal crab pot spot. Like Tony, he had been a Vietnam veteran and had lived close by to Ross and Heather's home in Brisbane. So sad and far too chillingly coincidental.

Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence and maybe statistical convergence led us to Tommy the next day. We were not sure if any more Global Warriors like Isabel were on the road in Australia. She was the second and the first had gone overseas but we knew All Terrain Warriors were about to swing into regular production.

In Cooktown Ross vowed he had seen another Global Warrior. You couldn’t miss that upswept arse, he reckoned. Sure enough we tracked down Isabel’s new little brother Tommy who had followed her off the production line at Yandina.

Two Global Warriors were on the road in Australia on that day and, with no knowledge of each other, they both ended up in Cooktown. C’mon Gibbs, that’s coincidence. Stuff the statistics theory.

Lee and Graham Meyers from the Sunshine Coast, formerly of Toowoomba, were heading north to the tip of Cape York in the Global Warrior labelled with a turtle and the name “Tommy”.

Tony liked their vehicle better. It was cleaner and had a more manly name than Isabel.

We spent a pleasant few hours comparing notes, drinking coffee and admiring what each couple had done in fitting out, personalising and modifying our respective Global Warriors.

Tommy had been fitted with 240 volts and a washing machine that was Lee’s prized possession. She wasn’t leaving home without it.

I wanted to put something about the Meyers on my blog but Lee said they hadn’t had to describe themselves as anything in their post-work era. 

“Graham is probably best described as a nearly old bloke chasing his dream of freedom without a deadline. Me? A traveller soaking up the beauty of the world, while trying to make sense of human activity.

“I guess we are all the sum of our life experiences, and we use those to survive and to perceive. What we did to make a quid in our working lives is really obsolete after five years, I have found. 

“W. J. Holden once said ‘Cemeteries are full of indispensable people, but the world goes on to bigger and better things...’ “

Yes. We’d best get on with the dreams of freedom without deadlines, soaking up the beauty and trying to make sense of human activity. We have an election happening. That last part might be too hard right now.

We found Old Bill and one red lily flower in Lakefield National Park. The only thing they had in common was that they were both temporarily in Lakefield.

Old Bill Wright from Miriamvale came past our camp the morning after we set up on Saltwater Creek. At 81 he was a confirmed bachelor although he talked with affection about “the one who almost was”. She lived down south and they still kept in touch.

Bill had not long passed his test for the renewal of his licence to fly his light Jabiru plane but he was a tiny bit put out that the assessor had decided he now needed glasses. He was camped on his own about 500m away in the spot he had booked for the last 13 years for a two or three week fishing trip.

He has a fridge for a cold beer these days but still cooks what he can catch on the open fire. If the fish don’t bite he pops a steak in the pan.

A radio keeps him company. He had been listening to Macca on Sunday Morning on the ABC and had heard them talking about a bunch of old Massey Fergusons being driven to the Cape.

“They do it in all sorts of things you know.” We told him about the Posties on Bikes and told him we had passed the tractors the day before.

“My word. I wouldn’t have minded seeing them.” We were able to show him the photos we took (above and below) and he was delighted. Bill couldn’t remember why a bunch of blokes were driving tractors hundreds of ks to the tip. We were no wiser and neither was Google.

Bill, who had worked for years loading coal on to ships at Gladstone and loved it, believed in the simple life and he certainly was an advertisement for it. The mosquitoes, however, were giving him a hard time. They were the worst he had ever known them to be at his favourite campsite.  He had an amiable relationship with the crocodiles. “My word. There’s lots around here alright.”

He passed his pilot’s licence in 1962 but found planes a bit scarce. Cessnas were hard to come by so eventually he bought the Jabiru.

Bill thinks Australian politics are a bit of a mess but the trouble is people whinge too much these days. They had a roof over their heads, cars, boats and food. What more did they want?

He didn’t like Abbott, was a bit iffy about Rudd and thought the people had been too hard on Julia Gilliard.  “I don’t know why they had a downer on her. People just whinge because they want too much. They want better roads all the time but the roads are being done up all the time.”

Bill reckoned, however, the sooner they put a four-lane highway all the way to Cairns the better. That might be a bit of an ask but he lives not far from the highway and he reckons that in the last five years the traffic has increased four-fold.

The Miriamvale man’s attitude to life was in stark contrast to the silly red lily of Lakefield. We found famous Red Lily Lagoon late in the morning and were disappointed to spot only one flower and the impressively large and erect lily leaves.

It was more a faded pink than red. As we gazed it suddenly shed all its petals. We were startled. Then we read the information board that said the red lilies bloom only in the mornings and collapse at noon.

We spotted a solitary bud. We couldn’t wait to see if it would bloom the following morning. Hell, we had to make it to White Lily Lagoon just down the track in case it was planning to disrobe at noon.

The White Lily Lagoon blooms and leaves are not as pretty or impressive but clearly made of sterner stuff. They apparently take no notice of the clock.

We left Lakefield proclaiming that Old Bill could show the red lilies a thing or two about life.

Cousin Heather was mesmerised by the options for coming down into the legendary Gunshot crossing on the Old Telegraph Track.

Gunshot was like a clarion call for Cousin Heather. She and her husband Roscoe were travelling Cape York with Tony and I. She was coping better than expected away from the sterile environments where she had spent most of her working life as a chemist.

She wasn’t that keen on really tough 4WD tracks but she wanted to see the legendary Gunshot crossing on the Old Telegraph Track. She had heard the stories and seen the postcards. By the time we had lurched and crashed along the OTT to reach her bucket list item she had had 17 seizures.

Little Troopy Trailer, the ingenious camper trailer Ross converted from a Troopcarrier, needed seasick pills.

It was close to dark when we reached Gunshot but Heather was mesmerised by the options posed on the other side of the creek. In the stillness of the fading light she prowled the creek soaking up eeriness.

 It appeared no one had plunged more than 2.5 metres down the toughest option for a while.  Option 2, about the same depth but offering the solace of a little ledge you could bump off, had been in use in the last day or so.

The Old Telegraph Track is no longer maintained so some crossings have become even more challenging that they used to be before the bypasses were built.

The way to do Option I and 2 is to have a vehicle you can afford to write off, a dash of bravado laced with stupidity and the nerve to drive off a cliff to nosedive into mud almost three metres below. Then you need to be winched out.

We could see from the tyre tracks that a recovery vehicle had tried to winch out a 4WD driven by a couple of young blokes the day before. Apparently the bull bar came off but that was the least of their worries. They had been camped at Bramwell roadhouse working out what to do with their write-off and how to get home.

YouTube has some footage of the things they do at Gunshot, including one of a chap in a V8 who went up Option 2.  Option 3 is a fair but not-too-bad drop then a run up the creek and out. Around on the left side heading north is the chicken run around the side of the hill and down through a gully.

Gunshot is decorated on the north side with whimsical, poignant and acerbic memorabilia. Most are bits that have come off vehicles but some items have been cleverly crafted and captioned. A pair of boots dangles by shoelaces on a branch more than 5m from the ground. Who knows how?

We camp at Gunshot and enjoy the solitude and sounds of the bush before the first rumbles signify vehicles approaching. Four vehicles arrive – Tasmanians and South Australians. Despite our photographic pleas they all opt for the chicken run, declaring it not as bad as Palm Creek  further down.

Following batches of vehicles also crawl around the side. It is still fun but some day I would love to see someone tackle either Option 1 or 2.  

 

   

ABOVE: Crossing between Eliot Falls and Fruit Bat Falls.

Among my favourite sights in Australia are the spectacular green-fringed gorges and crystal creeks that triumphantly slash the red landscape. If it’s hot and you can swim in the fresh water so much the better.

Along the Old Telegraph Track you come across the occasional mud hole but most creeks are so clear you could see through to oil rigs somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean - if they were deep enough.

Stars of the OTT are Eliot Falls, Twin Falls and Fruit Bat Falls.

Eliot Falls  and Twin Falls tumble and twinkle close together about nine kilometres up the Old Telegraph Track from where it meets the junction with the northern bypass. It’s fairly easily accessible for 2WD vehicles from the south provided the creek crossings are not too deep after a big wet.

Eliot and Twin Falls were better than Fruit Bat, we were told. If you had time to only visit one or the other, give Fruit Bat the flick. That might have been so for whoever we were talking to but it was another lesson in finding out things for yourself.

Eliot and Twin Falls were indeed spectacular. Someone said you are not supposed to swim at Twin Falls because you spoil the camera views but some rather large white whales were blobbing about under the nearest cascade. To take scenic photographs one needed to duck in quickly between the departing and arriving pods of Mingaloo. Around the boardwalk we admired Eliot Falls.

About 2km from the bypass junction we followed a boardwalk to be invigorated by the sight of Fruit Bat Falls. We had not intended to swim and had not brought our togs but we stripped off to the limits of decency and plunged into the natural pool at the base of the cascading crescent.

Cousin Heather declared she was in heaven. Even Tony, the most ferocious frog you could find when it comes to dipping a toe in a swimming hole or the sea, ended up diving into Fruit Bat.

We sauntered off refreshed and looking for a place to camp. One thing led to another and late that afternoon we inadvertently found ourself at legendary Gunshot. And that, gentle readers, is another post.