Twice now we have stopped for longer periods and stayed with generous friends, once Darwin and now in Broome. Twice we have spilt from the car, initially with whatever was in hands reach, pillows, keys, books and shoes and then slowly adding more as things are pulled from the trailer. We create little piles of …
Continue reading “Gnylmarung, Dampier Peninsula, Western Australia”
Song lyrics keep ringing through my head. There’s the one about six days on the road and making it home tonight, but the main one is from Neil Murray. In his song ‘Good Light in Broome’, he tells the hard-bitten story of a bloke struggling through his life, limping from one disaster to the next …
A few moments in time from Alice Springs… She sits alone in a simple chair. She is outside her home, a grey aluminium oblong with the word ATCO in faded grey letters on the side. It’s raised from the ground by some bricks on each corner. Paint chips away. She has tried to soften the …
Florence Falls in Litchfield National Park are twin cascades that crash into a beautiful pool of dark rippling water, a reservoir of cool relief in the heat of a Territory afternoon. The change in climate from the arid, sun-baked campsite to this green sanctuary is stark. It’s only a short walk, but it’s another world. …
Continue reading “Litchfield National Park, south west of Darwin”
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 …
I was once told that there is a bit of money in the art of creating names for products, especially pharmaceuticals. Normally a word never seen before, the successful naming of these products appears to lie in the skill of indicating some of what the product can actually do. ‘Panadol’ is often seen as a …
Thanks to the modern vernacular, the word awesome has been slightly diluted in its meaning so now it can describe a reasonably warm afternoon in the middle of winter, a good run from a champion filly, a new single from Beyoncé or if my kids are to be believed, Cristiano Ronaldo’s hair. But it’s only …
Change comes in all forms. We are told that we are resistant to it, it can be unsettling, we crave routine while there are some who thrive with or that we need change to grow. We actually live within change – we can pretend we have order and control but often in life it’s the …
We find ourselves camped on a private property near the tiny hamlet of Watsonville on the Atherton Tableland. It’s beautiful, jagged granite country with white, dusty soil mixed with an assortment of rocks and boulders that dominate the landscape. The rocks are everywhere, including angrily jutting through the surface of the ground, the perfect unexpected …
We are staying in our first caravan park of the trip. The park is small – you can walk around it in about four minutes and has the distinct feel of the good old days. No kids club, no big waterslides, no silly wi-fi. It’s lovely actually. Looking around the parks population, I think statisticians …
Big Country