Day 59: From one BIG state to another (30/07/12)

Today we were going to enter the Northern Territory – not strictly a state, I suppose, but more a state of mind. BIG. The first thing we noticed was that the road train warnings had gone up to 55 meters. I’m not sure what happens at the border with Queensland, where they only warn of a puny 53 meter length. Perhaps the driver throws a lever and an extra 2 meters of truck appears. Perhaps the Queensland traffic inspectors were issued with dodgy measuring tapes which had shrunk a little during transit in the South China Sea. Perhaps Northern Territorians are affected by mass astigmatism which makes objects seem bigger than they really are. We don’t know and we may never find out. As long as we respected each other’s rights we would get along fine, whatever their length. Their right to use the road, and my right to scurry out of the way at their coming.

Joke and Dirk in the Northern Territory. I should have cropped this picture, but left it to convey the BIG thing...

Lots of do's and don'ts. The observant reader (or should I say the nit-picking one..) will note that the sign says road trains can be up to 54 metres in length. However, we had just passed a sign saying 55 metres maximum, so I will let my story stand.

Another BIG was the 130 kms speed limit. I found that to be a bit intimidating, really. Here I was, toddling along at a sedate 80 kph, moving up to 95-100 when I forgot to concentrate on the need for new oilfields to be found to cater for my little car’s drinking problem, when a 130 kms sign would flash by. It acted more like a reproach than as a restraint, in my opinion. It reminded me of what a truckie-turned-grey nomad told me in Mt Isa. “In my trucking days,”  he said, “we used to call caravans ‘aluminium roadblocks’!”

BIG also were the distances. 261 kms between petrol stops at Camooweal and Barkly Roadhouse. And all of that was over the Barkly Tableland, an area into which you could drop several Tasmanias and still have enough change to create yourself a giant cattle station.

BIG country

Hearing other people talk about their dual 90-litre petrol tanks, made us feel quite inferior with our single 60-litre one. So we had a little insurance against thirst.

Even in this relatively arid landscape there are flowering plants everywhere

The cattle, surprisingly, were more the regular model (in shape, rather than size) in contrast to the Brahmin cattle we had seen all over Queensland. They congregated around the big bores which we passed with a regular monotony. That, of course, is a characteristic of bores, they are usually monotonous, and as such present another hazard to driving in the Territory.

We worked strenuously at keeping one another awake until we finally got to the Barkly Roadhouse. As usual there was great activity here, grey nomads, backpackers, truckies, and Poms and Swedes manning the counter. For all its isolation, Barkly Roadhouse “only” charged $1.87 per litre for petrol, our second highest to date.

Barkly Roadhouse

We drove on, deciding that we would push on to a free camp 70 kms short of Three Ways. This camp was named 41 Mile Bore. It had a huge area, enough to host about 5 times as many caravans as were there, so nobody needed to sit on another’s doorstep. Unfortunately, nobody explained that to the 4 French backpackers who parked their vans right next to ours. Grrrrr! Grinch! Grrrummpphh!

Our spot at 41 Mile Bore.

Outside it's the Northern Territory - as exotic as you can get for a Tasmanian. Inside it's home and it's afternoon tea time.

The Bore of 41 Mile Bore. There's a brother bore on the left, but I found this one more imposing. Both bore were dead bores as far as I could see.

Our innate reasonableness took over, however. We had parked close to the only functioning barbeque which they needed because of their lack of gear. They were reasonably quiet, probably because their van sound system could crank out the doef-doef music only very feebly. And their chaotic antics brought to mind the fact that we had offspring who have acted in very similar ways..... We tried to understand their particular French patois, but only managed 1 word in five or less. Merde!

A bushfire we had eyed apprehensively long before we got to 41 Mile Bore, turned out to be satisfyingly far away according to folk who were travelling east. With the wind solidly from the south-east we did not expect it to bother us overnight. What it did do for us was to drape a 50 km or more smoke plume across the setting sun. Bingo, another spectacular sunset!!

Watching the sun sink INTO the ground was quite spectacular!