Having driven up the Bruce Highway to Cairns we decided to return via the Great Inland Way. We thought that this would give us a gentle introduction to driving longer distances, and meeting 'road-trains'. How wrong were we!! For us, it has been like being in the Outback, although this is not technically classified as such - long, straight roads that stretch into the distance, red dirt corrugated roads, and single track bitumen, but more of that later, and no phone or internet signal for a few days.

One of our first stops was a place called Innot Hot Springs. There is literally nothing there except the caravan park, the thermal pools, a pub and a shop/cafe/gem store which does fantastic homecooked pies! The water comes from the billabong, where it emerges from the ground having been heated deep down in the earth's crust. We were warned that the sand would be hot but, as I was removing my burnt foot from the creek, I explained to Bob that I was not expecting the water to be SO hot!! And no Health and Safety signs in sight! However, the pools were lovely, once the water had been cooled to a decent temperature. It was quite funny because we couldn't actually get in the two hottest pools, and enjoyed the coldest one. We got some very weird looks!!

The first night we were there the pub had a powercut. No panic, this was obviously quite a normal occurrence, so we ventured back to Winnie to be amazed by the fact that people were lighting campfires everywhere - it was still 24 degrees at 8pm and they were sitting round fires?!!! The next day was our wedding anniversary so we decided to stay put. There was a very tatty tennis court with no run-back whatsoever, cracks and a net that needed a winder. What with that and our old balls we managed to have a very creditable knock and then collapsed into the thermal pools. Dinner that evening was at the pub with full power. Bob, however, ended up having his 3rd choice meal as they'd run out or couldn't cook it how he liked!! We just had to laugh!

Then we ventured into the Undara National Park, which is volcanic, to see the famed Lava tubes. Wow, you would never have known these tubes existed. They were formed by lava flowing into a water course. The top of the flow crusted over, while the lava continued to flow underneath until the eruption ceased. Then a tube was left underground. The tubes have been found because a few collapsed, many thousands of years ago, when the ground was still covered in rainforest. The rainforest fell into the tube and has survived in its own ecosystem and now marks the entrances to the tubes. Well, we weren't expecting these tubes to be the cavernous expanses that they were. I won't bore you with any more facts but we learnt an awful lot about volcanoes and their associated geology. We also leanrt the difference between kangaroos, wallabies and wallaroos (we didn't even know that they existed!) but, if we weren't sure, to call them a Macropod - they all belong to this family, meaning Big Foot! So they're all Macropods to us now, lol, in fact one bounded across in front of us while we were having lunch at Charters Towers. I thought kangaroo, Bob thought wallaroo so we agreed on Macropod! The National Park Centre was also very quirky and unexpected, having its reception, bar, bistro and some accommodation, in 1930's railway carriages that had actually been used on the Brisbane to Townsville line!

We were then told about the walk we could do around the crater rim of a volcano, with magnificent 360 degree views. We dutifully followed the directions and ended up on our first red-dirt road. These roads become corrugated, due to their gravelly nature and the way the tyres bounce, and Winnie was being shaken about as these roads are really for 4WD only. We slowed to a crawl and covered the last 8km painfully. The bikes on the back became covered in the famed red dust, which we now know is potassium feldspar - impressed?! However, when at the top of the crater, we were literally walking on the rim with drops either side, but the views were amazing. You cannot tell from the photos just how far we could see!

And now for the roads. It is not driving as we know it. The main roads are generally long and straight and you can go for miles without really having to do anything. There is little traffic coming towards you, in fact you wave to each other when you do pass another vehicle, and little behind you. I drove Winnie for 90 minutes the other day before a car came up behind me. So, it's not at all like battling with the M25, changing lanes, watching other cars, speeding up, slowing down - it's easy, constant speed, straight driving with time to look around and take in the scenery and wildlife. We watched emu's crossing the road with their 6 babies, and could stop and take photos! However, this all changes when the road changes to single-track bitumen. They do this to save money on roads that aren't particularly busy. You basically drive down the middle and, if something approaches head-on you make a decision. If it's a car, or another Winnie, then you slow down, move half off onto the red dirt, wave at each other and pass slowly by. However, if it's a road-train you move off the bitumen completely, stop and wait for it to pass. These road-trains are ENORMOUS - like 3 or 4 of our biggest lorries all joined together and driven by one big, powerful lorry. Bob spoke to one of the drivers at a rest stop, and he reckoned his truck and rig weighed 51 tonnes without even carrying a load. Another one we saw filling with diesel had passed the $400 mark and was still being filled when we pulled out!! But the funniest sight we saw was a boat - we came round one of the few bends and saw a distant shape on the horizon. As we approached it, it became obvious that the lorry was transporting a boat - in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near any sea, a boat!! It had an escort car ahead warning the oncoming traffic of a wide load. Unfortunately we had to follow the escort car, boat, two road-trains, a car and a caravan for nearly two hours as no-one could pass it, but at least we can say we were in a convoy!!

We also stumbled across Australia's smallest pub, in a road-house (similar to our service stations but with more facilities), and camped for the night at Fletcher's Creek, the largest free camp in Queensland. We are now at a place called Capella, blink and you'd miss it, especially on a weekend, or Monday, when everything is shut! However, it has the most amazing Olympic size swimming pool which, for some strange reason was the only thing open on Sunday! It was lovely to swim up and down and escape the 28 degree heat, and we only had 2 other people for company! Capella also had a painted lamppost trail giving a potted history of the area and several steel horse racing memorials. Such a weird place!

So Australia continues to stun, contradict and amaze. We are in awe of such a beautiful, vast country and have seen so little of it. Next stop? The gemfields of Sapphire, Rubyvale and Emerald. Will we make our fortune?!