Waking up in an open paddock as the sun hits the horizon, the air is warm and still with only a lingering taste of dust from the previous hot, dry wind is a blessing we always look forward to after a stint in the city. Birds are about their business chirping endlessly and cattle can just be heard somewhere in the distant scrub. It’s that magic time when humans seemed subdued by nature, there is no mechanical sounds, no voices or radios. We’re in our Happy Place.
Today we have close enough to 500klm to travel, say six hours with a break, so wakening early for a breakfast of scrambled eggs with Truffle cream cheese accompanied by a Nespresso coffee (now that breaks the sounds of silence and nature), this is a good thing as we will be on the road by 8am. Todays road proves to be generally in pretty good condition, however, there are roadworks happening in about a dozen locations, each with automatic Stop lights where you can wait for over five minutes with no traffic approaching form the other direction. Frustrating!
We are on the road to the Atherton Tablelands and slowly hills appear and we begin some ups’n’downs, always a little more up than down as we start to climb. The road takes us past The Lynd, a place we have never visited but has somehow caught the imagination of Evi. The Lynd is about 4Klm off the Gregory Road and sits on the Kennedy Developmental Road, so we detour to visit this mystical place. Ah, the grandeur of it all, a lone Service Station boasting three fuel pumps, a small takeaway food shop, toilets and a small house to the rear. There is a outdoor seating area under the shade of a lone tree, shrub really, and it is to here we gravitate to share our one our Ham and Cheese Toastie, simply because we felt bad stopping here briefly and not spending anything. Evi is crestfallen!
Continuing on our travels we soon come to a major intersection where we finally join the wonderful Savannah Way that takes you from Cairns on the east coast to Broome on the west, a 3,900klm adventure trail. But, back to our journey, we turn eastwards as the Savannah is the main artery along the Atherton Tableland. We follow this until hunger gets the better of us (half a Lynd Ham and Cheese Toastie just doesn’t cut this hungry activity) and turn into Ravenshoe township where Evi has found a “Gastro-Pub” on TripAdvisor. I always get a bad first impression with the word “Gastro”, especially with a capital, however, stomach quivering in anticipation we pull up out side the Ravenshoe Hotel (points for naming originality). The pub was built 1927 and is claimed to be the highest hotel in Queensland at 915 metres. Now to the Gastro…. food was more than acceptable, but we really didn’t give it a great test as we opted for a couple of steak sandwiches. Next time!
Interesting journey, full stomach (and bladder after a beer) and feeling a little post-lunch weary all added to feeling of “are we there yet” as we meander across the tableland towards “Ringers Rest Campground” about 6klm east of Mareeba. Ringers is part of a cattle property and has set aside about 40 acres to camping. Many travellers leave their caravans here while they travel Cape York with tent or swags rather than drag the rig across a long dirt road. It’s the end of the dry season here and it shows as even the trees have a hard time producing a green leaf. There’s not many camps occupied and we score a dry, dusty but shaded site in a back corner within a stones throw of the big communal firepit.
We set camp, have a quick look around the place, a short afternoon power nap and awake to the smell of smoke and noise of activity around the campfire. Invited to join the afternoon gathering (it’s Happy Hour), we are warmly greeted as we pull up our chairs and settle to watch one bloke, from the Czech Republic, cooking 3 chickens skewered by a fencing star picket which he occasionally turns above the fire then douses the chooks in beer. Interesting technique we think. Three chooks, must have a large family eh! Once cooked to his pleasure he procceds to chop them up onto a platter then walks around the perimeter of the gathering giving one an all a piece, and it’s bloody delicious! Why? Because he felt like! Love Wringers Rest!
Australia. Dust, Fire, Flood & Pandemic 