Cairns(Tues) --> 2418km --> Alice(Saturday)
THE OUTBACK
The aim of going to the outback is essentially to see the big rock.
Said big rock is in Uluru which is 6 hours from Alice Springs which is 13 hours from Mount Isa which is 9 hours from Townsville (where I got the haircut)
So the first leg of journey is to head towards Mount Isa.
On Tuesday we left Cairns for Townsville then headed out of Townsville around 5pm after shaving out heads and drove west till the sun began going down. Camped at Macrossan bridge about an hour and a half out of Townsville.
Wednesday was the first proper day of driving towards Mt Isa but outback driving is nuts - cows just walk across the road and birds feast on locusts in the middle of the road. As we get closer the birds fly away and the locusts jump to get out the way but about 10 get caught in the grill of the Pajero! Lovely.
We ticked the car over to 5000km but just after we did, at about 4pm, the Paj decided to breakdown 64km from our end destination for the day, Cloncurry.
This time the radiator hose had gone so not such a big issue but we couldn't nurse it 64km without risking serious damage so had to call 'no dramas' Fred the tow man in Cloncurry to come get us.
When Fred had loaded the Paj onto his truck and we'd got in he couldn't start it! I joked "what tows a tow truck?" and in typical Aussie fashion he said "fuck knows mate" haha. Luckily he did get it to start and dropped us at Wagon Wheel Motel Cloncurry for the night. We had a wander round Cloncurry in the evening and got swarmed by hundreds of grasshoppers outside the motel. Biblical shit.
Had dinner and watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall before bed. Outback isn't so bad ;)
Thursday morning we mooched and heard that the Paj wasn't going to be ready till the next day (Deja Vu?) but got a cheeky surprise call at about 4pm that we were good to go and 'fuck knows' Fred had managed to get the parts from Mt Isa in time so we stocked up on water and grub then set off to make Mt Isa before sunset. This is what we saw as we got close - you can see the smoke coz it's a big mining town.
Friday morning our back left tyre had deflated quite a lot from 35psi down to 20. Not good. We knew that the back left tyre had a plug in it already but it was clearly leaking quite badly so we went to get the spare put on. No second hand tyres were the right size and we didn't want to fork out for a new one so just kept the plugged flat as the spare.
Set off at about 11am and got a solid 3 hours driving done before breakdown number 3 just before the Northern Territory border! This time we'd just filled up and broke down 1km out of a little village so we rang 'no dramas' Fred back in Cloncurry to ask if he knew anything that might've gone wrong. After we told him we were broken down again he said "you're fackin joking mate" and his suggestion was that I may have put Diesel not unleaded in the car.
We walked back to the village to find out that obviously I had not! Got a local mechanic to pull the Paj back to the village where he hoisted the Paj, found the problem (hand coil and fuel filter) and replaced it. Not v expensive and we were back on the road by 5. We were planning not to drive in the heat of the day (2-4pm) anyway so didn't lose too much time and made it into NT!
Pulled into a roadside rest stop for the evening where I was very grateful for my mozzie net coz there was shit loads of flies - not biting ones but just annoying buzzing ones that land all over your face.
Woke up at sunrise to get as much driving done as possible so were on the road by 6:30. Made it to "threeways" imaginatively named because the only two roads meet and one way goes to Darwin, one to Cairns and the other to Alice Springs and Adelaideto Devil's Marbles. We turned left off the road we'd been on for five days and continued towards Alice. Stopped for lunch at Devils Marbles where we clambered over the massive granite rocks and binged on the free wifi hotspot!!
Next stop was the most central pub in Australia (obviously!) where we chilled from 2-4pm, leaving the Paj bonnet open under some shade to cool off. From there we continued past the Tropic of Capricorn..
..And finally to Alice Springs! Got here in daylight last night as well :) Was so nice to have meat again rather than just pasta and sauce!
Free pancake breakfast this morning and Internet have set us up for the 6 hour drive towards the rock today!
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Route so far:
Sydney - Port Macquarie - Byron Bay - Nimbin - Surfers Paradise - Noosa - Fraser Island(bd) - Rainbow Beach - Airlie Beach - Cairns - Macrossan river - (bd) Cloncurry - Mt Isa - (bd) - Roadside - Alice Springs
Will keep you updated when I have signal xo
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