Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We both agree that one of our highlights of the trip so far has been the roadtrip from Cairns to Darwin, we seen some amazing sights and it really gave us an insight into the real Australia. We started out on Saturday morning with a German girl called Kath and a young dutch lad called Sebastian, Kath picked us up in her 4 wheeled drive and we spent the first hour playing tetris with all the luggage!
Our initial plan was to drive from Cairns down to Townsville then across the highway via Mt Isa but whilst we were at the petrol station Kath got talking to some locals who all advised that if we were to go to Normanton and across the Savannah Way it'd be a much shorter and more scenic way, so we got the map out, looked up the route and all agreed that we'd give it a go.
The first few hours of the journey we were leaving Cairns so we drove through city, rainforest then out past all the sugarcane fields. About mid afternoon the road got emptier and the view became bush land, we had to be on constant alart for loose cattle, eagles (feasting on roadkill) and kangaroos.
The first night we set up camp just outside Normanton having driven roughly 700km. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, we hadn't seen another car for hours so when we pulled into the campsite and seen other people we were overjoyed!
After a very stern warning from the caretaker not to set foot in the water because there was not only freshwater cocodiles but he'd spotted a saltie in there a couple of days previous, we set up the tents (well away from the waters edge!) Soon after we set up the sun went down and we huddled around a campfire, ate our dinner and marvelled at how beautiful the night sky was. I'm not sure if I've spoken about the stars before but they really are spectacular when you are in the middle of nowhere. There's millions of them and I think it's the milky way you can see, so we sat there and star gazed.
On Sunday we got up early, had some breakfast and hit the road again, we stocked up our supplies in Normanton and got back on the Savannah Way. This is the part of our journey where we seen the real outback of Australia. The road became a red dust track and the greenery became more sparse. It was amazing, we pulled up and took lots of pictures.
Down this part of the road you bearly see any other cars so when you pass one you all wave like crazy at each other! We had to stop a couple of times to let cows and other wildlife cross the road and we stopped at every roadhouse to fill up with petrol. It was funny driving through the "towns" because on the map they look like they might be quite big but you arrive and there's a sign saying "Welcome to ..... population 200" and it's just a petrol station and a few houses dotted along the road.
That evening we wild camped because by this point we were hundreds of kilometres away from civilisation and the sun was starting to set. We drove through a creek that passed over the road and found a rest area where someone else had already set up camp. This wasn't the first creek we'd had to drive through that day and all of them had big signs warning you not to cross on foot because of the crocs. So we set up the tents and because we were wild camping there was no water, no toilets and absolutely no showers! So to get a wash we had to walk down to the creek, quickly fill a bucket with water and then run away before the crocs could get us!
That night I was terrified, I awoke to hear a cow being eaten by a croc, it wasn't pleasant and then I started to think that the crocs might walk up the hill and eat me! I spent half the night on alert whilst Davie slept soundly beside me!
In the morning we woke up (noone had been eaten!) just in time to see the sun rise, again very beautiful. We had our coffee and got back on the road. This part of the journey was really rough, the dirt track was corrugated and there were loads of dips, crests and creeks to drive through so we were being thrown round all over the car.
Mid morning we finally hit a sealed road, we almost got out the car and kissed it, we have never been so happy to see a road.
During that day the surroundings changed, everything got a bit more green and we seen more and more trees. In the afternoon we hit a fairly big town called Katherine, here we got our first bit of phone signal in days an there was even a Woolworths supermarket!!!
From Katherine it took another four hours to reach Darwin so by the time we arrived it was dark, we were all hot and sticky and we all absolutely stunk!!! But we all had an amazing adventure and most importantly we'd survived!!
- comments
Lisa Donkin Omg you guys, how amazing!! However, have either of you seen Wolf Creek? I would have been crapping myself xxxx
Lauren Neither of us have seen Wolf Creek...thank god! Maybe it's something to watch when we get back to the UK...