COVID TO THE LEFT OF ME COVID TO THE RIGHT

 Listening to THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER Banjo Patterson 1890. 

 Heaps of versions of this on YouTube cos it's brilliant. I have a version by Fred Hollows from 1991 that I have no idea how I got, but it's the best! Find this version and bang it on and turn it up, you'll see.  Err sorry you might notice it's a poem!

Digits don't tick.

The digital clock on the oven next to the sink blinks from 5.54 to 5.55. Hmm. It's another late afternoon in my budget room behind the Caravan park. I'm lying flat on the bed looking at my toes and considering my options or rather, wondering what my options may be after the six o'clock news. Behind me the sun exploits a gap in the faded curtains and throws a rectangular beam across the peeling asbestos wall. The beam steals silently along the wall in a slow race with the clock before slowly diminishing and suffering nocturnal oblivion. Precious leans contentedly on her side stand in the twilight just outside the door. Her old single cylinder heart lays cold and idle after pumping out over nine thousand kilometres since we left. Aaaarrr...bloody covid...will Darwin be open from Friday? If so what will Western Australia do with their border? Hmmm. Clearly free travel is gonna be messy or not possible for a while. How long's a while? Back to South Australia and quarantine or wait..hmmm...the clock keeps blinking...not ticking.

 Another day in the Motel.

The Motel.

 The keys never fit right or open the door

neighbours footsteps bangin straight through the floor 

noisy old aircon blowin warm all night

  filthy old flouros flickerin sad yellow light

The lino's lifting and the kettle won't whistle

 no plug for the sink and the taps only dribble

ancient old cutlery 'n scratched plates on a rack

  see through tea towels and a mug with a crack

Faded old curtains always leaving a gap

sticky old microwave 'n worn out door mat 

the bed springs are saggin from thousands before me

seventy bucks a night always a vacancy.

Dean

Listening to BOMBORA The Atlantics 1963

Awesome Aussie surf music. Just guitars and drums!

One of the finest surf songs ever. Jeez I wish I had rhythm.

Jump on YouTube (now OK!) and find the original

 Cinesound Surfing Special film made way back before MTV and way cooler. 

 Down and west from Cape Tribulation.

I ride alone back out of the Daintree winding my way through curve after curve. I catch breathtaking glimpses through the forest of green panoramas stretching out to sea, stealing my concentration from the technically demanding road. There has been rain and I take it

steady all the way to the ferry. I stop off at the post office at Mossman and post the tiny tent back home. Farewell wee friend. The wind picks up as I head southwest and I smile as I swing through the marvelous curves on the winding road up to Mount Molloy and on to Mareeba. After Mareeba towards Atherton I can see mist amongst the hills far ahead and hope it's just fog. It's beautiful country and a delight for motorcycles but as I enter the mist I find it's rain. My vision is severely impaired through the misty mess and all I can see is the occasional vista of stunning green ranges as I slowly wind along ridges and tip toe through slippery hairpins. Aaaar what a waste you mongrel weather. My Dad did his military training around here during the second world war and the humidity and rainforest must have been like visiting the moon after spending all his life in the frosty Clare Valley. Unfortunately the rain and mist is relentless and I finally surrender and dive into Maccas in Atherton. I'm dripping wet so I sit outside under the verandah checking the weather on my phone as I gnaw on some sort of expensive cardboard round thing. Six percent chance of rain, hmm right, the rain gets heavier as push my tray of alleged recyclable crap into the Maccas bin and wobble back into the mist.

 I'm over it as the six percent chance follows me 

on and on past Ravenshoe, Mount Garnet, and all the way out of the mountains.

 The moment I pop out onto the plains heading west the rain completely disappears. I start

OK where'd the rain go?

to dry out but my brain can't link the fact that half an hour ago I was miserably abusing all weather forecasters and their total lack of skills and now I'm warm and almost dry. I arrive in Mount Surprise and erm...it's not quite how I pictured it. Hmm not much here. Marianne had pointed out a flash caravan park on the web for me but I can't seem to find it. Well it's getting late so I head into one of the three parks and find it's the one I've been looking for...buuuut those photos on the web might be a wee bit old perhaps? I ignore the instructions for the camp ground which is just a dust bowl down the back and set my tent up on the grass next to the sixties style pool near the ancient toilet block. It's quirky...the old people running it are lovely and there are native birds, miniature ponies and an emu as pets. As we move further away from civilisation the younger people in the flash 4wds with kids are disappearing and the park is mostly full of grey nomads again. 

Welcome to Mount Surprise van park!

How luxurious. Under the palms next to the spa 
and pool....not down the back in the dust.

The ladies in this camper are raising money to 
bring about awareness to breast cancer.

Breakfast at Mount Surprise.

Normanton.

It's another four hundred kilometres to Normanton which is comfy on the DR as long as the wind is friendly. Mount Surprise was pretty basic and as usual a little further along I find Georgetown a lot more interesting and the next town after that named Croydon is a gem. I have lunch at Croydon and am really impressed with the effort the town has gone to for tourists. There's well presented displays of it's history, decent toilets, and a busy café nailing everything people want. The countryside has been dry with stunted trees and tall grass roadside with just the occasional undulation and rocky range towards

Croydon is a great little place with a
finger on the tourist pulse.

the gulf and Normanton. A stiff wind blows up as I head onto the Bourke Development Road and arrive in Normanton. Hmm, it's not the prettiest place. The Purple Pub park has no vacancies so I book into the park I passed on the way into town. It's newish and carved into the local red dirt. An enormous helicopter pad the size of an oval is being bulldozed next door stirring up a wall of dust but fortunately the wind is favorable blowing most of the dust away towards the gulf. The facilities are nice enough with a cool Aussie style galvanised iron toilet block decorated with non PC signs to the delight of the non PC age nomads packing the park. The roads in the park are constantly watered exchanging the dust for 

Purlple pub in Normanton.

red paste making walking to the dunny in thongs a bit of an obstacle course . I pitch the tent behind a row of single units hoping to avoid some of the wind now blowing strongly from the southwest. All the units are full with roadworkers so it's the fifth night in the tent for me. Normanton is more practical than pretty. Although the extra long main street has a  few old classic buildings dotted about it is dominated by the Purple Pub towards one end and a large BP automotive tyre and repair business doing bustling service in the middle. Several small convenience stores along the strip pluck business from the passing travellers during daylight, while a smattering of thinly spread local houses, vacant blocks, a huge local sports hall and a bowling green promising new greens coming make up the rest.  

      The real main street attraction is the life size replica of Krys, the largest crocodile ever captured/shot in the world. 

The croc was 8.6 metres long and shot in 1957. (I love the way it's listed as captured...they shot it!) There's a bit of scepticism regarding the real size with most of the original photos being lost but whatever the true size was it must have been a whopper. 

That night I decide to walk the couple of kilometres from the park to the pub for dinner. Probably a wrong call. It's a dark lonely walk past closed businesses, all with mesh covering their doors and windows, very few passing vehicles, and wandering dogs on the forage. I'm mildly creeped out and glad to get back. The pub is expensive for a pretty ordinary pizza and after a windy noisy night in the tent, I'm happy to be on my way the next morning.

Apparently the road to Normanton is sealed 
and finished...they seem to have missed a 
couple of bits!

As the only camper you have to get creative
where you claim your patch.

Dust is a way or life up here. The watering is 
for the non locals.

When the baby boomers all disappear I imagine
the later generations will gather all non PC material
into a pile and burn it....

Till then enjoy!

The nomads have some trick machinery. This was
once a Nissan Patrol now sporting Chev V8 and
tandem axles.

You'd have to think that there was once something
on each side of this building!

Listening to SHADOWS ON THE HILL Troy Cassar-Daley 2018

Truly haunting and sad. Country nice guy Troy nails this.

A lot of people wouldn't have heard this...a lot should.

I hadn't, glad I have now.

Karumba.

Karumba is about seventy five kilometres north from Normnanton on the southern side of

the Gulf of Carpentaria. It's a fishing town judging from the number of large to enormous boats in driveways of the houses on the entry to the town and a nomad mecca judging from packed van parks. There's two Karumbas, Karumba and Karumba point about seven kilometres apart and both have several large caravan parks. I go on the hunt for somewhere to pitch my tent but all of Karumba Point is completely booked out and the parks in Karumba aren't keen on good camp sites. I get lucky and get a reasonably priced cabin and after five days in the tent it's a godsend. At last I can do some washing and catch up on some news on the tiny telly and even access some gutless wifi, woo hoo! Karumba's a pretty little place on mouth of the Norman River which is pleasantly landscaped along the banks and a great place to watch the sunset. The town only has a pub,

It's a box with a bed and a telly. Next
stage up from a tent!

a takeaway, some boat maintenance places and a convenience store in the servo. The road here is very good and easily accessible  for caravans and place is jam packed with nomads. Hmm. The wind that has followed me from Normanton finally abates and I spend a pleasant couple of days catching up with doing things you can't do camping...which is a lot! Each night the covid situation dominates the news and doesn't look good. Oh oh. With Darwin about to get shut down I might be in a whole heap of trouble. I need to move to a place a bit closer to civilisation with phone coverage etc in case I get stuck and have to wait for a while. I decide to head down to Cloncurry, about four hundred and fifty kilometres south down the Bourke development road. Hopefully it'll give me some options to get back home if it really turns to shit or still get to Darwin if it all blows over. 

Fishing boat dock on the mouth of the Norman at Karumba.

Well stocked store in the servo, food and fuel, perfect.

The river bank in Karumba.

Lovely sunsets...long way to come for a sunset though!

Yeh Nah just move your boat into the sunbeam...cheers

Cloncurry

It's four fifty kilometres back through Normanton to Cloncurry. Despite warnings the road had a lot of single lane bitumen it wasn't too bad as road crews are refinishing the road and the small amount of single lane presented no problems. The weather is pleasant and the 

The Burke and Wills roadhouse.

wind favourable and Precious and I have a good ride bopping along to tunes on the blue tooth. The countryside for most of the trip is pretty ordinary, lots of flat dry open land with long sections of dead weeds and sparse vegetation. In some places the termite mounds are so thick it's like riding through an enormous cemetery of headstones. The Bourke and Wills Roadhouse half way along is an absolute oasis. It's packed with nomads and 4wds lined up at the pumps and the restaurant is doing a roaring trade. It truly is a pleasant place in the middle of nowhere although the long line for the fuel pumps makes me glad of my big fuel tank. The scenery towards Cloncurry improves as the countryside

Another day in the park. Every day the park 
packs full with people scrambling to deal 
with covid restrictions.

becomes more undulating and green and I'm easily knocking out the kilometres. I get stuck behind a three trailered roadtrain which is just too slow but not quite slow enough. Aaaargh let's do it. I put the spurs into Precious and we pop out into the wind and slowly grind our way past. Half way along I'm thinking "shit, this is taking a while" as Precious gets a little wobbly in the airwash from the trailers and my brain begins searching for options in case something appears the other way. Drrrrrrrrr come on baby. Finally we zoom in front with the driver no doubt pissing himself laughing wondering what took so long. We pull into town mid afternoon and check out the parks. One not so busy one is quite rude and offers me an expensive option next to the waste dump. Yeh nah. The other one closer to town is mega busy and totally booked out with the

Every day I wade through lots of this...

park owner out on the road trying to redirect a long line of vans trying to get in. Oh oh. I finally have phone coverage so I ring Marianne for some news on the latest covid restrictions while trying to figure my options.

 Not good!

 Darwin shut down for five days, South Australia hard shut down of borders, Brisbane, Perth and so on. Hence all the vans heading for lodging away from the border. As I'm chatting to Marianne the caravan park owner offers me a cheapish cabin and Marianne yells through the phone "take it!" 

                                     So I do...and here I am.

Listening to HOW TO MAKE GRAVY Paul Kelly 1996

Jeez how to you choose a Paul Kelly song...well you can't get it wrong!

If you're an Aussie you'll know of the people, pictured the places 

and understand the thoughts behind all his songs.

Reality Check

OK the facts. I've been here four nights. The room is cheap but it's adding up. In that time the situation has only worsened. Initially Marianne and I decided to wait till Friday to see if Darwin came out of lockdown smoothly as we have a lot of money tied up in hotel bookings and air fares for her. She can still cancel till Sunday and she's not big on taking risks. Darwin is looking OK so far but the rest of the country is now spinning out...great, it's a very unstable situation. South Australia has pulled a hard lock down on it's borders requiring a fourteen day quarantine for everybody and Alice Springs is locked down till Saturday as well. Both are between me and coming home. Western Australia, who have a record of keeping their borders shut may have it's borders locked for a while, which I probably can't wait around for. At the moment I might be able to get into the Northern Territory without quarantine and then I don't actually care which way I go. However there is no accommodation of any kind near any borders for the moment.  Hmm. There's always another time and pretty sure the other half of Australia ain't going anywhere. No hugey. I'm wasting life here but waiting is the smart thing to do.

 The shutdowns at the moment really highlight the present instability for interstate travel till we all get vaccinated. Which we all probably knew.

Hmm. Is what it is...I need something that ticks.

NEXT BLOG...I WISH I KNEW...I WILL HAVE TO APPLY FOR CLONCURRY CITIZENSHIP SOON!

ZOOM ME A COMMENT...I'VE GOT TIME TO READ IT!

CHEERS DEAN

LAP UNDER THE SUN