ATGANI at large

By the time we left Nitmiluk NP at Katherine, we’d decided to try to boost Australia’s ailing helicopter industry (prices indicate no chance of failing).  In keeping with this endeavour we took a helicopter flight in Kakadu and intended to take future flights at Kununurra, Mitchell Falls and El Questro.  If anything does possibly go wrong, you won’t be reading about it here! But long before that, I had my way and we proceeded to Maguk campsite (pronounced McGook to…

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As we gleefully left the Isa, there was heavy and unseasonal weather crossing northern Australia from west to east.  A perfect opportunity to bypass Camooweal, to forsake Queensland for the Northern Territory and, at the same time, to drive through the rain band.  Along the way, we encountered various timid souls, their demented eyes glued to the BOM app, hunkering down for the onslaught or altering plans so they stayed on the major highways, and generally demonstrating “no ticker”.  We,…

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Vera Lynn’s signature tune was being hummed by a WWII nurse video apparition at the Mt Isa Underground Hospital exhibit.  The Japanese threat was keenly felt here and the Isa was a major staging post and strategic point in our northern defences.  At one time, the Yanks had 1500 large trucks stationed here, involved in massive 12 day convoys to Katherine and Darwin.  The threat of bombing was palpable and so it was determined that the hospital should be able…

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Something about the name Atherton Tablelands just sounds inviting.  We dragged ATGANI back up the range to Mareeba, stopped for coffee at the slightly amazing Coffee Business, a huge warehouse cum café which overflows with coffee (and tea) merchandise and lots of old coffee machines.  They were selling 20 different blends but we just had the “house” which was fine, and I had scones which they jammed and creamed-from-a-can for me (which wasn’t fine).  With scones, it’s definitely “by myself”….

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Townsville was where Lesley’s grandfather lived and we were able to locate his house.  It’s still there, in the best part of town, and currently undergoing a bit of a reno.  Another reminiscence ticked off.  But Magnetic Island was what we’d come here for, so we swiftly replaced the water pump (not worthy of commentary) and then left ATGANI with yet another auto-electrician and jumped the barge for 4 nights at Picnic Bay. (Just quickly, on auto electrics, I was…

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By now, we had Longreach in our sights.  Lesley lived there for a year or so about 60 years ago.  Her dad, Bill Fraser, was the Commonwealth Bank manager there, back in the day when Regional Bank Manager was both a real job and a big deal. So, she was indeed, homeward bound. But, as has become the norm, we detoured – to Roberta and Peter Donelly’s property, Dunraven, outside Barcaldine.  Connections never end in the bush.  Roberta is Roger…

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Mylinda Rogers is the scrap-metal-shiela and is an unqualified marketing genius, quite apart from her artistic ability with barbed wire and other scrap metal. And that is prodigious. We followed her sculpture trail for 200km of mostly dirt roads for most of a day because the sculptures require you to get out and look at them.  Most have hilarious little details built into them which a casual look would miss – and which, sadly, a photo misses too. Her initial…

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And I have fallen behind – it’s been many weeks since the last blog but we have been busy. We’d promised ourselves any number of times that that we wouldn’t race from spot to spot in an effort to see lots of “stuff”, to take a more measured pace along less travelled roads, but the chase is addictive and there is always more “stuff” to see.  So, some decompression was needed and Blackdown National Park provided it. As ever with…

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Or indeed for Opals or Emeralds.  The next part of our journey was to take us from Lightning Ridge (hence opal) all the way north to Roger and Lindy Lewis’s cotton and cattle farm at Comet, which is just outside Emerald (hence emerald).  Tish-boom!   Richard had carefully planned an itinerary (my input was to agree) and he and Trish duly arrived beside us at the Opal CP in LR before we ventured off to see what that metropolis had to…

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We are indeed back to covering ground.  In the last 4 or so weeks, golf on the Bellarine Peninsular was a big success (ie  I didn’t come last, thus avoiding the Brown Jacket), Rich & Rona’s wedding  in Whistler was terrific, 10 days travelling through the Canadian Rockies from Jasper to Banff was beautiful, a quick trip through Brisbane to have lunch with lots of old friends friends of long standing and to see Mardi worked well and then we…

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