Listening to BEDS ARE BURNING Midnight Oil 1987
Hmm love the opening rhythm, dumna dana dumna dana. From the great Diesel and Dust album. Wow 1987, so much seemed possible then and so much different stuff has happened since. Can't think of another band pushing their message with such great songs and words and then kinda drifting away so much...lead singer Peter Garrett tried the if you can't beat em join em with politics and found that when you join em you become them. Oops.
 |
| The tiny tent brand spankers at the Isle of Man 2014. Precious the DR is looking pretty sharp back then as well! |
Gimme Shelter
I've had my tiny tent a long time. I remember shelling out the extra cash for a good one at Snowies many years ago thinking it's money well spent. It's stood up to nasty weather at the Isle of Man, a mega thunderstorm at the White Lake in Mongolia, and numerous sites through the USA, Central America and South America. It's never once looked like leaking, breaking or letting me down. Stubborn little bugger.
Buuuut every time I put it up it gives me the shits, it's just too small!
It fits me...or, all my stuff, not both. So my my stuff stays out under the crappy little vestibule where I have to climb over it to get in, which winds me up, or on the bike driving me crazy finding stuff or keeping stuff dry. And then you have to get dressed outside...not a good look for old blokes. So when the main pole broke while camping at the tip I had mixed feelings...at last...erm...my dear old friend. When I arrived back in Cairns I went on the hunt for a replacement tent as the pole isn't repairable on the road and I'll post the old tent back home. Hmm. Anaconda sold out, nothing in BCF, and the Camping store near the caravan park I'm in only has crap ones. Aaaargh the perils of tent snobbery. I hit the net but nothing anywhere nearby...shit. I really need something. OK back to the camping store, hmm quite the choice. Fifty bucks for the two, eighty nine for the three and ninety nine for four man, oops sorry four person...oh dear...really...hmm...how can it be possible to make a larger tent for almost a quarter of the price my old one cost ten years ago...gulp...well...I can guess. I really want the four person so I can have friends around but it's not DR size and I'd have to sit on it while I' m riding. Do it...I reach for the three man noting it even comes in a nifty little tote bag with carry handles, which makes the whole deal feel even sillier.
I head to the counter, wack it on the card, and walk out with a new tiny house...wish me luck...I'd better check the weather forecast... daily!
 |
| Hmm, got the lot including windows no less... but nothing about ants... |
Doing Time.
I hate wasting time...having said that I do it a lot. I'm back in the van park in Cairns and I seem to be a week earlier than I'd planned. Bugger, that's worse than being late. As I'd hooked up with the other two lads and they were only planning to get up to the tip and back as quick as possible and as I've just been going for it since I left Adelaide and haven't really had a handle on the date, I'm now running early. (That's a very long sentence Deano) Hmm what to do, can't stay here. Got a new back tyre, fitted a new air filter and even washed my clothes so they're all the same shade of orange from the dust. There's a guy in the unit next to mine who sits and smokes on his front step all day long. Not sure what his story is. Every time I head out I have to step over him as he's always there...always. Gedday mate how are ya, yeh nah been better 'n y'self? Late one night I went out for the customary old bloke leak and there he was, in the dark, on the step...alright mate, yeh nah just waterin the horse is all, all good. Creepy. Hmm, I really gotta get out of here or I'll be taking up smoking and joining him on the step.
Time
How do you waste something,
that never runs out.
never speeds up
never slows down
each day the same amount
It's life that we're wasting
let's give ole time a break
make the most of all moments
make every day great
Dean
 |
| My air filter after visiting the tip. Chocolate cake anybody? |
I'm a Captain Cook fan. Boring huh. Ah well you've read this far hang in there. A genius from a poor background he rose to become possibly one of the greatest cartographers and explorers of all time. Two hundred and fifty one years ago in 1770 he was off the coast of Queensland mapping the coastline for the first time. His ship the Endeavour, hit a reef off Cape Tribulation (his name) on 10th June and was severely damaged. He nursed his ship further up the coast to what is now known as Cooktown and carried out repairs before sailing back to England.
OK new plan, it's one hundred and forty kilometres in the wrong direction but let's head up to Cape Tribulation, burn off a couple of days, try out the new tent and erm...take it easy?
 |
| Daintree ferry heading back to pick up another load of nature botherers including me. |
Tropical paradise, the real deal.
It's been a long slow winding ride through the Daintree rainforest. After lining up in a long line of vehicles, mostly fully loaded 4wds, at the ferry over the Daintree river we've hardly hit sixty kilometres per hour since we've crossed. Just a super slow conga line through the beautiful forest. I stop at the last place for fuel and am warned everything is booked out further ahead. Hmm, well, I'll go to the end and give it a go. Just before Cape Trib, about a kilometre before the bitumen ends, I head into the Cape Tribulation Camp Ground. "Sorry we're full". But I just need a tiny patch of grass. Er Ok you're on a motorbike. OK you can go in the Palm ground which is just grass, twenty two dollars a night. Perfect cheers. I ride through beautifully manicured grounds packed with campervans and caravans with kids running everywhere, mums sipping wine, and dads comparing the size of their erm, trailers and suspension length. I get to a large empty oval size area which obviously hasn't been developed yet and park up. I dismount, remove my helmet, walk back a hundred metres through a small grove of forest and...wow...tropical paradise. The calm blue sea stretches one eighty degrees end to end splitting the horizon with a pale grey sky. A beautiful curved sandy beach is perfectly bookended by the cape at one end and jungle at the other and its edge is scattered with coconuts fallen from the palms growing amongst the fringing rainforest. No matter how long you stare it just doesn't seem real...for twenty two bucks!
Oh to be here two hundred and fifty one years ago to see the Endeavour sail past.
 |
| This'll do, one small patch of grass please. |
 |
| Really...for twenty two dollars a night! |
 |
| You're even allowed to burn stuff at night! |
 |
| Just to prove that I can make food. Weet-bix, bananas and a muesli bar for a touch of exotica. |
 |
| And Captain Cook went back to England????? |
Three nights.
I stay three nights. The weather steadily worsens day by day with scattered showers drifting in and out but it kinda just makes the place more exotic. I luxuriate in the extra space of the new tent and as yet it hasn't leaked. I have a neighbour backpacker with a beautiful expensive Big Agnes tent. Hmm tent envy. She warns me to watch out for ants as they have eaten through the floor of her tent to get at her food. What the...wow, OK I'll keep my eyes peeled. Another night I have a new neighbour riding an almost identical twin to Precious. Sixty four year old Rob is from New Zealand and flies to Australia regularly to tackle our most adventurous roads, many several times! He owns four DR650s on each side of the pond and is an absolute mine of outback road information. We chat well into the night over pizza and the next morning he is gone again, off to tackle the tip again or any side roads he finds interesting. Hmm. I salute his skill level and experience. I note his excellent equipment including epirb, food, water bladder and bomb proof tent and feel a bit underdone.
Modern day explorers.
Each afternoon families arrive in the latest 4wds bristling with overloaded roof racks and towing big tyred mega optioned camper trailers. Bearded young dads fly into action assembling super complicated canvas replicas of home complete with coffee machines and flashing LEDs for every possible gadget. Mums resplendent in the latest Lorna Jane launch into creating exotic multi course dinners and have washing hanging within the hour. Barked warnings are ignored as the kids run free, finally out from under the parental helicopter. The next morning the machine fires back up in reverse leaving just a faded square of flattened grass evidence of their passing as the family heads off to annoy mother nature again. Every day I walk a kilometre along the beautiful beach and cut through the rain forest to the town. I get on a queue, grab a real coffee, a ham and cheese toastie, and veg out in the local open air restaurant. The restaurant is mega busy with packed tour buses and traffic going to and from local attractions and heading into the Bloomfield 4wd track. I was keen to have a ride up the Bloomfield track...but...I seem to remember back in the eighties the greenies stopped a paved road being made through Bloomfield all the way to Cooktown to protect the Daintree forest from development...which I kinda get. Hmm. Time moves on. Now it seems there might be less damage zooming down a paved road through the forest than digging it up with lines of 4wds!
Watching the mud spattered parade going in and out of the track I decide not to do it...nah...
 |
| Roughing it in the rainforest after battling mother nature. |
 |
| Ok who's next one at a time please...a Kombi...really? |
It's Thursday morning and time to go. Plan is to head over the ranges through Mount Molloy and Atherton and spend a night at Mount Surprise. I get up at six hoping to finally capture a photo of the sunrise but it's deathly grey and spitting rain. Ah well. Let's get this tent down. I launch into disassembling the multitude of pissy tent pegs and dodgy fibreglass poles, attempt and fail to neatly fold the fly and start rolling up the floor. Hang on...what the @#$%k. The floor's got some sort of marks on it...aaaar come on it's almost brand new...
I look at the tarp I always put under the tent and it's full of tiny holes! Aaargh bloody ants!
Hmm, luckily the ants have only just started dining on my tent floor after gnawing through two layers of cheap tarp. Wow. Obviously the ants like Chinese plastic. One more night and the tent floor would have been a colander...see what happens when you waste time...
...hmm, I wonder if ants ever waste time...
 |
| Boring (accidental dual meaning) shot of what ants eat in the Daintree! |
Listening to ! (THE SONG FORMALLY KNOWN AS) Regurgitator.
From the album Unit in 1997. If you're thinking Deano, what
the hell is this, well, this is a song I like but like
you, never knew it's silly name!
Smash it on ,turn it up, a great Aussie song is a
great Aussie song under any name or from any genre.
REALITY CHECK
I've put blogs together from all sorts of exotic places. Always found free WiFi and never needed a mobile phone to hotspot if there is none. The Stan countries, Mongolia, Turkey, Peru blah blah blah. Hmm. Here I am up near the gulf in Northern Queensland at the moment struggling...its the third day without phone coverage and I'm now sitting in the dark outside the caravan park office window, just to steal enough wifi to put together this extremely abbreviated post. Once again I'm finding so many Aussies on the road and infrastructure under pressure. Business is good I guess. Parks all full everywhere with no vacancy or if they do have a vacancy...maybe check why! (I'm learning!) Outback shops are running short of stuff as caravanners and truckers duel it out for narrow strips of bitumen between remote towns. My idea of a quiet lap is now more of a dusty queue. Hmm. Having the tent gets me in everywhere but...I'm in a tent...and, so far since the tip I've found no other motorcyclists and since Cape Trib no one else cheaping it out with a tent.
Maybe need a pay rise!
 |
| I only spent $89 to live like a homeless person... ...not sure if that's a win or just a different grade of homeless person. |
NEXT BLOG
ACROSS THE ATHERTON TABLELANDS AND UP TO THE GULF. THEN BACK DOWN AND AROUND AND BACK UP TO DARWIN...I HOPE! HANG IN THERE LITTLE DR!
APOLOGIES FOR THE SHORT BLOG AND THANKS VERY MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS. CHEERS DEAN
LAP UNDER THE SUN
