Friday 7th August 2015

Another fresh but beautiful morning on the Tableland.

Well today we meet Tom and Pauline and start the real adventure up the Cape. Mal settled down to post his BLOG and catch up on his emails. We are so inefficient that by the time we did a bit of this and that, had morning tea which lasted an hour, helped a little unpack some boxes and finally drove out the gate just after 12 O'Clock.

We went to Woolworths, topped up the fridge and had a bite on a park bench before meeting Tom and then a little later Pauline.

Their new Golf pop top off road caravan with slide out end beds has great looking suspension and looks really good - so we take a deep breath and get moving.

Fuel in Mareeba is a bit of a pain as the Caltex hiflow diesel pump plays up and Sue and Mal have to refuel at the Shell across the road.

We lead off and run through to Mount Malloy where we find a corner of the crowded campground for the night. It really is a good spot next to the creek/river and we have a small campfire and after lamb chops we sit and chat.

The road is noisy when large B-Doubles thunder down across the bridge but mostly it is quiet.

Saturday 8th August

A dog barks and a rooster crows, some bush birds join in to herald the daybreak. A camper door slides open as someone searches out the loos - Mal lays half awake reflecting on the past few days - mainly the Tableland - what has changed??? It eludes him for awhile and then the mist clears and he sees what it is.

The shaggy overgrown narrow lanes of the past have been whisked away by by lawnmoving wielding neat freaks, the lanes have been turned into relative motorways and everywhere the yuppie rich stamp their clean cut view of life on the once magical land of my youth.

We left a few minutes after 9am and headed North up through the ranges - it is a beautiful run with rugged mountains and smooth bitumen road. We then hit the range and snaked our way up and down onto the Lakeland Plain - We stopped at the Palmer River where Wendy and I ordered hamburgers for lunch, but when they arrived they had cabbage rather than lettuce, so from then on in we called them cabbage burgers. We did not stop to test out the menu this time, but Mal did wade the creek where he figured the old road had cut across and up the steep bank.

We took the road to Laura and the last of the bitumen before the gravel road commenced after Laura.

The first run through to the Hann River was rough and we stopped to check what had broken or fallen off - everything was fine except for the cushions falling in disarray onto the floor.

We drove on over the numerous corrugation, watching the passing parade of termite mounds, grass trees and droughtmaster cattle.

About 4.30pm we lobbed into Musgrave Roadhouse and set up camp.

In the evening we met Lorraine and Mark who hail from Mulimbimby. He is a plumber/swimming pool builder and she is a nurse. They came over for drinks and we had a great evening.

Pauline suddenly turned up with a dream pot meal for the six of us. Corned beef, cheese sauce, potatoes and vegeies. Everyone was blown away - it was a magical moment.

We retired to their van later to wash and wipe up and have a cuppa before we retired to bed. Sue finally got to wear her summer PJ's, but it was still a cool night.

Sunday 9th August

Roosters, roosters, roosters - no football match here, just birds.

But as soon as the sky was light in the East, vehicles were moving, making an early start. Unlike us sleepy heads.

Well the day was a disaster - it started with Mal crowning himself and drawing blood on his forehead -

Then Tom could not get the camper roof down,

Then the roof collapsed and broke the winding mechanism.

Then Sue ran over the spare clean air filter.

Then everyone had a melt down

Then Tom, Mark and Mal worked at fixing the winding mechanism

Then finally the roof was fixed enough to let them sleep the night in the camper

Then we all sat down and had a drink.

WOW what a day.