Thursday March 26, 2009 (diary)

I slept like a log last night and am fully refreshed as I wake up this morning. At first daylight (at 6.15 AM) I am on the road. When traveling inland driving at night is a great hazard because of the kangaroos. I have hit a few over the years and unless you have a "roo bar" fitted (in front of the hood of the car) a collision with a kangaroo can cause major damage to your car. Unfortunately I can't fit a roo bar on my Mercedes Vito. Apparently it interferes with the proper operation of the safety air bags. So I always try to get away in the morning at first daylight.

The 100 km stretch between Barcaldine and Longreach is especially hazardous. A few years back I counted just on this road segment over 100 dead kangaroos lying on the road. This morning is good however I only see two carcasses lying on the road and smell the stench of another two hidden in the grass on the side somewhere.
The next kangaroo I see is a white one, painted on the red tail of a QANTAS Jumbo jet. Longreach is the birthplace of QANTAS (Queensland And Northern Territory Air Surfaces). To commemorate this fact QANTAS has a permanent Museum here with several planes, including a retired Jumbo jet, on display.

In Longreach I fill up with fuel at the Caltex station (first one on the left in town) which also has a nice clean cafe attached I should check out sometime.
Then on to Winton (190 km NE of Longreach), where I briefly stop and buy a new straw hat which I quite like.
Next stop another 175 km along the road is Kynuna for my regular poached eggs and mug of coffee. But before I get there I run into an area with locusts, thousands of small grass hoppers sitting on the road. It will take days to clean the car again and these bugs leave a very peculiar not very pleasant smell behind when they dry.

I really love driving through this vast flat landscape, it is like traveling through an ocean of land. I find it enormously exhilarating and inspiring. It opens the windows in my mind, blows out the cobwebs, fills it with fresh air and always revitalises me with lots of new energy.
It is in this way similar to the best part of my Cruise two years ago when steaming from Phuket to India : three days of nothing to see but the Indian Ocean all around us, flat as a mirror. Absolute peace, just wonderful.

It is almost unbelievable that only 6 weeks ago all the land I travel through now was totally flooded. Now everything is fresh, clean and wonderfully green. There is still water in most creeks I cross and in sundry incidental depressions everywhere.
I reach Cloncurry at 1.30 where I do some food shopping. Al the road so far has been flat and straight, but the next 100 km to Mount Isa is all twisting and turning through low rocky mountain ranges. Very nice, but tiring to drive through, especially with the heavy traffic of 50+ metres long road trains. I overtake five of them just within this hour.

At 3 PM I arrive in the Isa, tank up and finally head onto the beautiful new 190 km long road to Camoweal (right on the Queensland - Northern Territory border) where I check in safe and sound at a quarter to 5. Another 900 km done today. I enjoy a few cold beers in the bar and a wonderful meal of beef saussages, like you only can have here in the deep outback cattle country.

Friday March 27, 2009 (diary)

I am woken up at 4.30 in the morning by my neighbour in the adjacent Unit, who obviously wants to have an early start. I get up too, go online, have a shower and shave then breakfast, but as it is still pitch dark outside I lie down again on my bed for a brief snooze. At 6.30 I wake up again as the first light appears. I take off immediately and after just 5 minutes drive arrive at the Northern Territory border, meaning I go half an hour back in time (6.05 AM).

Just like yesterday I am driving on a straight road exactly due west, and within 10 minutes or so I see the sun rise above the horizon behind me, blinding me through my rear view mirrors, which I duly adjust. My car's long elongated shadow races ahead of me on the tarmac, but it knows that it can not possibly win this race, as I gradually am bound to catch up with it.

It is once again a wonderful day, sunny with a clear blue sky. But I get mixed feelings as the morning progresses. There are hundreds of tiny (sparrow size) birds up and about and many seem to enjoy sitting on the road surface. Too late they become aware of my rapid approach and many hit my car, up to maybe a dozen, most of which surely get killed immediately.
Every time I hit one of these small birds I feel deeply sorry for it, but unfortunately there is absolutely nothing I can do about this.They fly in clusters very erratically and in all directions. Perhaps it is partly because I have a strong tail wind, which means that the birds (like airplanes) take off against the wind and straight towards me.

I have a kind of dog whistle mounted on the top of the roof of my car. This is supposed to alert animals ahead of me early enough to get out of the way. This does appear to work well with medium and large size birds, like the eagles, hawks and crows, who feast on the kangaroo carcasses lying on the road. But it does not appear to alert the smaller birds, neither do the larger animals like cows take any notice at all. There is a rather expensive ($500) electronic gadget available too, but I have heard of no positive report about this.

I arrive at the ThreeWays Roadhouse (25 km north of Tenant Creek) at around 9.40 AM and have a brief stop.

Last year I had here the most marvelous savoury mince on toast. It is still on the Menu so I have it again, wonderful, with a hash brown and grilled tomato on the side.

After my meal I head north along the Stuart Highway a 645 km drive to my end destination Katherine where I duly arrive just before 4 PM. Hardly any small birds are on the road on this entire stretch thanks goodness (do they only come out early in the morning I wonder ?)

I book a room, as always, in the Katherine Motel right in the centre of town and am persuaded by the staff to have a meal in their Bistro tonight. I had lunch here years ago with my son Jeroen but have not tried it since then.

Saturday March 28, 2009 (diary)

I wake up just before 7 and am leisurely on my way by 8 AM. I have only less than 300 km to drive today.
Like always when I drive this final stretch of my journey I stop at Adelaide River, a small clean and attractive village about 100 km south of Darwin.
It has been the "retirement home" of the famous buffalo Charlie featuring in Paul Hogan's popular movie Crocodile Dundee. He used to live (quite happily with a female "soul mate") in a small paddock next to the Adelaide River Inn.

Ever since the mid 90s when I started to travel past here every year I stopped on the way to say hello to Charlie. In 2001 however I found the paddock empty. When I asked where Charlie had got to the reply was "Oh, he has moved to the bar now.......".
Rather puzzled I went over to the pub, and yes, there he was in all his glory, but unfortunately no longer alive. Nevertheless his memory lives on .........

Just before noon I arrive at the Mango Farm where my cabin is clean and ready to move into. I start unloading my car after this three and a half day 3,400 km journey. Apart from Kim and Andrew, their kids and their new addition to the family Roxy the dog, in the main house, I am the only one here at present. Others will arrive within the next 4 to 5 weeks to enjoy the winter here in Darwin. I am especially pleased to hear that Rick and his wife René will return to Australia early May. They spent last winter back in England, but find they can't settle down there anymore after so many years in the tropical Northern Territory. I am sure they will be happy again here.

Sunday March 29, 2009 (diary)

It will take me a few days to rest up after the journey and get settled in here. In the morning I watch the Sunday morning Insiders program on politics, business and sport on ABC TV and after that drive into Darwin and to the Stokes Hill Wharf. The drilling rig which was being repaired there last year has left, but there are now several small ships alongside, one of them from the Paspaley Pearl fishing fleet.
I have a seafood grill for lunch from the Portside Char Grill food stall. The owner remembers me from last year. She is most pleased to see me again. The food is as good as ever.

As I sit here quietly, eating my lunch, reading a book, looking out over the harbour, it occurs to me that Irene van Amsterdam probably too is looking out over the ocean, but right on the opposite side of Australia from her flat in Brighton (South Australia).
I give her a quick ring, but she appears to be out. Perhaps, having taken her for a drive while I was in Adelaide a few weeks ago, has broken the drought and she decided to go out more often now.

After a while I leave and drive on to Wanguri where my son Jeroen and his wife Lisa' have their home, to say hello and drop off some goodies Babette bought them. The house looks in great shape. We have a few beers together after which I leave. I am still quite tired and soon after watching the news on TV am in bed and fast asleep.

Monday & Tuesday March 30 & 31, 2009 (diary)

Now I have settled in I need to develop a regular weekly routine for my life up here for the next 6 months or so. Having thoroughly enjoyed the services from the Sunshine Coast Library I am eager to join a library here too. So Monday after lunch in the food court of the Palmerston Shopping Centre (10 km down the road) I set out to find the Palmerston City Library. It is a nice modern building with attached Cafe and very friendly staff.

A young woman called Tree enrolls me as a member. She recognises my Dutch accent and mentions she lived in Breda for a while, the town where I studied at the SROA (School for Reserve Officers in the Artillery) for 6 months in 1963 during my National service. Tree's dad was a professional officer in the British Artillery, stationed abroad at various places and it is quite possible that he and I unknowingly where involved in the same Nato exercises on the Artillery grounds of the Lüneburger Heide in the north of Germany.

The Palmerston Library is laid out in a (to me) new way. Its open plan area is divided into so called "Living Rooms", each containing all materials of a particular area of interest. There are also comfortable chairs to sit and read or talk with like minded souls. The "Top Shelf" space contains the Classics and award winning literature, my main interest.

I am just about to finish reading the last book I purchased before getting into borrowing books, which is A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. I had never read any of his work before and am very impressed. It is a wonderful, hugely intelligent writer with a vocabulary which regularly requires me to look for the dictionary.
So I immediately borrow two more of his books : Brideshead Revisited and the trilogy The Sword of Hour. Waugh lived and wrote about the area after WW1 up to and including his own time serving in the British army during WW2, which interests me greatly. Interestingly he took part in the same rather bloody fight in Dakar against the Vichy French as Roald Dahl.

Monday evening I play bridge with Mairead at the Arafura Bridge Club. There is a good turn up, 7 tables playing with most of the familiar faces present. Mairead brought our regular bottle of red which we drink in good spirit. We have a good time.

Tuesday I drive to the Casuarina Shopping Centre (in North Darwin) to have my first regular lunch back at Bar Zushi. They have several new staff I notice, have some of the previous ones left or just a day off ? I do some shopping including a foldable clothes rack. During the summer I went a bit overboard and bought a total of 15 new T-shirts, and it is good to be able to hang them up rather than put them in drawers.
I then drive down to the CSC (Casuarina Seniors College), to see what is on offer next term. I have done some Spanish and Photography courses here in the past which I greatly enjoyed. Term 2 starts from April 27 and I may enroll in a pastel painting course on Tuesday evenings. I did some of that 10-12 years ago and quite enjoyed it.

As I am in the area I decide to drive on to Nightcliff where they have a lovely public swimming pool right on the beach. The water is nice and a lot cooler than I anticipated, probably because there are two large shade cloths over the pool and there is always a breeze here which too cools the pool down. I do six laps and float around for quite a while after. I have some muscle pain in both my upper arms, but the swimming is probably doing them good. Funny as I get older I don't seem to mind very much the various aches, pains, deafness etc. that comes with it.