It's hard to remember the brutality of it but yes, just 70km from here in Normanton it was HOT and before that in Cloncurry - HOT. Winton - HOT. Longreach - (pretty) HOT.

Dry and hot. Not a drop of moisture in the air hot. Walk out and hang out the washing come back in and need a shower hot. Long for a shopping centre just to get into air-conditioning hot. Jude all red in the face, get out the water sprayer hot. Flies sticking to you hot. I think maybe you get the idea (tho most of you are apparently suffering in the rain somewhere south of me). Here in Karumba, under the shade of the palm trees with a cool breeze washing over me, Jude playing contentedly with his cars and with free internet ;-} I am like the proverbial pig. Big, big thankyou to Jayson and Gail for piquing my interest enough to come here.

Still we must go back to the hot weather so I can fill in the missing miles between here and Muttaburra.

We arrived in Longreach on a Sunday just after midday (so everything is closed) after following a road from Muttaburra which the local I spoke to said was 'really good now except one spot where the bitumen is a bit chewed up'.

As you may have gathered from a previous missive, its not always wise to take a local's opinion on roads as the same as what yours would be…Nah, most of it was really good but that bit of chewed up bitumen went for about 20km and was rough as guts. The real shame of it for me was my 2 year old son saying 'Mummy, there's a road over there that isn't bumpy' and when I finally concentrated on what he was saying I looked over and saw they had graded a strip running along the side which was as smooth as. Thanks Jude.

We spent our 5 nights in Longreach free-camping a few kilometres out of town which was a good thing cos there were lots of things to spend money on. We started off with a visit to the Station Store where Jude cried for 50 minutes of the 60 minute show cos the men yelled at the horse for being naughty (it was part of the show of course) and there was no way to get out until the show finished - joy.

Half an hour later we were heading off on our ride in a Cobb & Co coach but despite my concerns because of his earlier misery Jude loved every minute, especially when they got the horses to break into a gallop on a dirty, dusty road outside town.

The next day we went to The Stockmen's Hall of Fame, saw another show (no yelling this time!) and wandered around for an hour or so at our usual hectic pace as set by Jude in any museum etc.

A drive to Ilfracombe to walk along Machinery Mile (a 'mile' of old cars, trucks, tractors etc) the next day was a real highlight with Jude managing to make the whole distance himself and lots of fun climbing on those machines that still had floors and looked relatively safe!

Lots of swimming at the heated Longreach pool with Jude doing his swimming teacher proud by still remembering how to swim after 4 months without getting into a pool. It was great finally reaching Longreach after all our travelling because it was a major place name on my list.

Onto Winton where my nephew Ricky lives (Hi Ricky!) and a special treat in itself - was it the Outback Festival that was on while we were there? Or perhaps the Trucker's Reunion that overlapped? No, it was getting to sleep in a house with air-conditioning of course! So much room to prepare meals and not having to pack up all your toiletries after every shower. LUXURY. Still, not enough to make me want to find a house to live in but nice for a few days.

The Trucker's Reunion was actually really cool with a parade that came past our door of 87 trucks plus some other stuff. As you can imagine Jude was stoked and everyone was tooting and waving at him.

After 3 nights in Winton it was time to move on and the next night found us in Crocodile Dundee country at the Walkabout Creek Hotel (aka the McKinlay pub). A couple of refreshing ciders and a chat with the folks doing the roadworks up & down a 300km stretch of road was a nice change.

Next day we wandered around Cloncurry and stocked up on supplies and bought ourselves our mobile broadband tho of course we don't need it here!

That night was spent about halfway between Cloncurry and the Burke & Wills roadhouse and it turns out the long line of red light I could see after sunset was not Mt Isa as I had concluded it must be but actually bushfires which is what I first thought it looked like but dismissed as not possible (apparently Lawn Hill National Park which is a bummer for the park and all the people who had it on their itinerary but made me feel slightly better about the fact that I couldn't get there in my van - does that make me a bad person?)

The highlight of the drive was of course the stockmen mustering along the road and just to really bring out the differences of today just the other side of the roadhouse was a chopper doing the same thing (very skilfull flying but the cattle seemed to go all over the place, not like the neat line along the side of the road with the 5 or 6 horses in charge.)

Not much to say about Normanton, nice little town with a massive statue of a crocodile which is supposed to be life size but I find it hard to believe (and hope there aren't any more out there that size if it is true) and a neat little library and tourist info place but still so hot that we made fast tracks to the coast where we were rewarded with the cool breezes herein mentioned.

Since being here we have done not much of anything (read walk on the beach, swim in the pool, photograph the exceptional sunsets) except visit the Barra breeding farm and let me tell you if you come this way (or Mt Isa, Burketown, Richmond) to fish and you catch a barra it is probably down to these people. And for all of you who think (like I did) that I am somewhere remote and far-flung, tell that to the other 100,000 people who come here every year!

Hope your weather gets better and your own adventures continue as planned. xx