Aussie Roadtrip

In May, Bev and 3 other girlfriends chartered a yacht

from Hamilton Is and sailed around the Whitsunday

Islands for 5 days. They sailed through the day

exploring the many waterways and landing on some

of the islands and then tying up to a mooring for the night.

They had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the experience.

And yes in case you were wondering I was really pissed off

it was a girls only trip.

I flew to Airlie beach with a mate ( his wife was sailing with Bev) and we met up with the girls when they finished their charter. Our planned trip was to drive across and up to Darwin over about 2 weeks. Loved Airlie beach and would like to go back some time. From there we got a bus to Townsville that's about 4 hours drive up the coast. The next day we picked up our hire car and began our road trip.  We enjoyed Townsville too and one night there wasn't enough. Richmond was our 1st  destination where as you can see I took the opportunity to practice my A.I skills.  Dinosaur fossils are about the only interesting thing there. 

Our next night was at Julia Creek where there's not much but we had an interesting night at the pub. I thought my local , the Trout, at Canvastown  was "unique" but the Creek pub was a really unique experience.

The next day was on to Cloncurry where we went to the flying doctor museum. On to Mt Isa and did a tour of the mines which is a massive operation . The next day was our biggest drive of 660kms but we found driving really easy compared to NZ. Just put the car into cruise control and once into the Northern Territory set it at 130kph . Long straight flat roads mean bugger all for the driver to do.

Passing a road train needed plenty of free road . We were surprised at how few cars there were on the road. Quite a few grey nomads though. We spent the night at a truck stop at 3 ways where you meet the road coming up from Alice to Darwin. We tuned left here and shot down to Tennant Creek to have a look but again there is not much there. From there we turned around and headed north for our next stop at Daly Waters.

End part 1