Just south of Gregory, Qld

The first hint of trouble is outside the Hann River Roadhouse where we have stopped for a promised cold drink on the way from Cooktown to Karumba, a drive that will take us a couple of days. Sections of sharp, serrated corrugations have shaken us so much that both Eddie and Frank declare newly wobbly teeth.

After starting without protest all journey, the car turns over dry for several seconds before I stop and release the key. I crank it again, it turns over healthily but sounds like it’s missing something crucial. It’s not starting like this.

Without any real reason other than custom, I slightly shake my head and pop the bonnet. I stare under, and to my untrained eye, there is nothing that would suggest a problem, although what I’m hoping to see I am not sure.

Across the dusty road are a couple of blokes who seem to have stopped primarily for the access to a cold beer from the roadhouse and are drinking thirstily. They saunter over, dusty cracked toes in thongs that have moulded into the wave of their feet, and offer the requisite rhetorical question of ‘problem’?

‘You could pump it a bit’ says one, and presses a little black button several times on top of the fuel filter, a fitting that I have seen before but never realised what it was actually for. I cover this piece of learning with a knowing nod and a ‘give it a crank darl’ to my wife who is in the driving seat. Sandi looks at me confused, wondering why I have suddenly been inhabited by some dry old bushy, but starts the car and boom, she’s away.

We drop the lid (this old bushy is here to stay!), assume we might have a little fuel issue, and head into the dust.

We spend several days in Karumba Point, where I access the local RACQ. The mechanic has an exceptional economy of words, so I clumsily attempt to fill the space with dialogue that further confirms my lack of mechanical nous, but he thinks he may have sorted it. Next time we go to start though, same problem.

Eddie fingers his tooth, a pre-molar and avoids eating apples.

It’s time to do that thing I was hoping to dodge all trip – effectively walk up to a mechanic in a small town and hand them my wallet. I had visions of some little shed, much shaking of head, a complete rebuild of the vehicle from bottom up, a bunch of locals out the back all talking quietly and laughing while glancing my way as I realise I am victim of the week.

What I find is a young mechanic in Normanton who drops whatever he was doing that morning in a bid to get our car back on the road. Deano seems genuine in his attempts and is truly baffled by the intermittent qualities of the issue, so much so that eventually he just stares at the uncooperative motor and exclaims, ‘Why? Why? What the fuck is wrong with you? Why?’

After much of the day has passed, we conclude it’s a fuel problem combined with an electrical issue. Deano magically gets the car going, with a slight hitch. We can’t stop it until we get to someone who can perform some sort of alchemy on a solenoid that will bypass the electrical fault. The only tiny hiccough is that the alchemist is a bloke called Dale in Mt Isa, around six hours away. So, it’s in the car we go and down to the Isa, arriving a few hours before midnight.

Eddie says his tooth is getting even more painful. I should have got Deano to have a look.

Dale the alchemist turns out to be a tremendously nice bloke with a five-month-old baby and an almost compulsive need to offer helpful advice ranging in handy campsites in isolated parts of Queensland to the best butcher in town. He works his magic, we get some new parts for the fuel problem and within a day or so, we are back.

The whole process throws us onto a different route as we head back to where we came from. We are now camped on the Gregory River, about 20km’s south of the dot on the map that says ‘Gregory Downs’.

It’s utterly glorious. We come in covered in dust to an oasis of clear water, teeming with wildlife. Finches, willy-wagtails and wrens flit around chasing each other and the tiny insects they pluck from the air. Small fish that are almost opaque other than the dark stripes that wrap their sides swim in the clear, greenish water. Kangaroos appear on the opposite bank and drink from the river, lazily hop-crawling along the side of the waters edge. They scratch their heads and chests, and seem oblivious to us. The banks are lined with white paper gums, shedding their flaky bark in small sheets like mottled old newspaper, with branches high above us laden with the last floods debris.

We were planning on staying only a night, after the delays of the vehicle, but we have an unnecessary vote and decide to stay another night. The poll was redundant, we all new we would.

During the morning, Eddies tooth drops out painlessly as he is fiddling with the fire. It sits gleaming in the sunlight on the table, a pearl-like beacon showing that sometimes, what appears to be trouble is just life pushing you down a different track and often a better one.