Tablelands to Georgetown

Our travels have begun, and we’re now officially members of the great Road-Warrior / Nomad Community!

We were fortunate enough to get a nice sunny day for our first day of travel – which we very much appreciated after mostly rain for the last few weeks. (…months…years…iykyk!)

Kurrimine

We decided to spend the first few days after leaving the Farm, having some by-the-beach downtime – basically just wrapping our heads around the fact that we’ve finally made the leap and are now officially on the road full time!

We also wanted to be able to have time in familiar surroundings to see how Molly-Dog would adjust to being very much out of her routine; as she has never come travelling with us before.

Additionally, if we realized that we had forgotten something integral to the trip, we would be passing back by the Tablelands on our way to Pinnarendi Station – so we’d be able to veer off course, back to the Farm – if needed, to get the elusive whatever!

Our time at Kurrimine King-Reef was glorious as always.
Wellll -for the most part…

Right after we arrived, we got the bus set up and the power connected, and then took the dogs for a wander around the place, so that Molly in particular could get her bearings.
We had ordered a takeaway lunch, so incorporated picking that up with taking them for a walk.

We were standing waiting for our order when the lady from the next van over, that we had met on our way to going for a walk, came rushing toward us to tell us the bus was on fire!!

The Tall One took the dogs leads, and the Short One ran full pelt (as much as a fat ole granny can) in the direction of our bus.
On arrival, there was smoke pouring out the window, and some wonderful knight-in-shining-armour had punched out the kitchen screen, and yanked the flaming timber sink cover out the window, along with a few other things that had caught fire.

The bus was unlocked, the source of the fire/smoke found and dealt with, and every single hatch and window was thrown wide open and vents turned on to extraction mode.
To say the adrenaline was running high was an understatement!

The place was mostly unscathed with the exception of everything being engulfed in smoke.

We were soooo incredibly lucky as the outcome could have been thoroughly devastating – with our new chapter being over and done with before it even properly began.
We feel sooo bloody fortunate!

What happened was this: somehow the electric hotplate had been jostled on, so when the electricity was connected, the hotplate began to slowly heat up.
The glass stove cover was down, and the wooden sink cover was on top of the glass cover, so it went unnoticed in the busy-ness of getting the bus settled in place and habitable.

Whilst we were on our short walk, the hotplate finally reached full heat, and that heat eventually reached a temperature at which the glass stove-top cover shattered, which then exposed the wooden sink cover to the radiant heat, which in turn then started to burn.

Yep, we were very very veryyyyy lucky….

We have since disconnected the electric element as it isn’t something we like to use anyway, but still make very sure that checking the stove knobs is a top priority every.single.time that we stop.

Kurrimine to Pinnarendi

We were really looking forward to going to Pinnarendi as we’d never been before, but had heard a lot of amazing reviews from friends and strangers about how wonderful it was, so had booked our spot some months earlier to make sure we could get in when we wanted to.

This drive was also going to be the first time that we were going to be trying Mabi on a new medication that might settle her a bit during the driving.
Mabi loves to go for drives, but for some unknown reason, she has never sat or laid-down in the car other than when it’s stationary, which means that we can’t drive for more than about an hour, and she needs long rest breaks before the next drive. This also exacerbates her Addison Disease symptoms.

Thankfully, we didn’t come up with anything that we had forgotten and needed to go back to the Farm for, so we were going to be driving straight through; but still had plans to pull in for a while to at least one Rest Stop on the way, for us all to have a wander and a stretch.

We set off after packing the bus up, and within less that 20 minutes of being on the road, Mabi did something she never has before….
She sat down and stayed seated for the better part of an hour!

We were ecstatic!
One of us may even have cried a little..

We had our rest stop at the free-camp area at Mt Surprise Creek, but didn’t stay too long as Molly was being a bit of an over-excited noisy twit.

Molly is the exact opposite of Mabi, on travel days.
The minute that we are mobile, Molly falls into a coma and sleeps until food – or us disembarking the bus – wakens her. She only rouses to change position, or have a drink, on a rare occasion.

Pinnarendi turnoff was easy to find and well sign-posted, and whilst the road in is currently quite corrugated, Henry handled it well, and we went very slowly so as to not jostle the bus around too much.

There were a lot of others waiting to check-in when we arrived, but the process didn’t take too long as Nadine (one of our Hosts) has it down to a fine art, and we were allocated a lovely spacious site close to the amenities.

Once we’d been for our obligatory wander around with the dogs, we set up their fencing, as we’d booked for 3 nights and wanted to not have to have the dogs leashed the whole time.
We have setting up and packing away of the fence down to a pretty fine art by now, and it only takes us around 20 minutes to have it all sorted.
We think it’s one of those things that are very worth having along for the trip.

Everyone working and living at Pinnarendi are very welcoming and a wealth of knowledge, whilst they’re always very busy with checking people in or making coffees and meals, they’re never too busy for a bit of friendly chat.

Their little onsite shop has shirts and souvenirs, family made jerky, ice creams, meals and takeaways.

We didn’t attend one of their meal nights, but have heard rousing reports of how brilliant they are, and it certainly sounded like a happy, enjoyable affair.

Of note:
– the sunsets and sunrises were lovely.
– the amenities block is a stable theme, which is quite cool.
– there are many nice walks to be had, and 3 dams in total to enjoy.
– lots of rusty machinery and art to enjoy
– a communal fire pit is available
– laundry: $5 each for the washers and dryers – clothes lines available

We will definitely head back and visit again.

Pinnarendi to Georgetown

The drive was really lovely, through red dirt and beautiful granite and basalt rock formations, and stunning vistas from the crest of the Newcastle Range.

This route – the Gulf Developmental Road – is part of the Savannah Way, a renowned adventure drive that stretches across northern Australia, connecting Cairns in Queensland to Broome in Western Australia

The road was quite decent, even though much of it was single lane from Mt Surprise through to Georgetown.

Georgetown

We rolled in to town with our fingers crossed and not much of a plan other than trying to find some Dot4, for Henrys particular lil gearbox.
Rookie error meant we somehow left without any – even though we thought we’d bought some.

In a lovely stroke of luck, it was the same price at the Georgetown Roadhouse as it is at places like supercheap, in larger metropolises!
Thankyou RoadHouse for not ripping us off.

We will of course pay a premium for fuel when we fill up before we leave here though, as the price at the pump today is 205¢/L.
Also – the bread price is a wholllllllle other matter…..! ‍

We’d landed for the next two nights at a nice lil caravan park in Georgetown called Goldfields Caravan Park.
It’s a mix of long term, worker, donga and traveller sites.

The amenities are nice and clean, and the camp kitchen / laundry perfectly serviceable.

Each late afternoon, Park Staff light a fire in the communal fire-pit, and there is a standing 5-6pm byo happy hour invitation to all whom are staying at the park.
We didn’t attend the first night, but after meeting a few nice folks throughout our second day there, we decided to attend on the second night.

It was a nice vibe, and we all sat around chatting, laughing and sharing stories for about an hour, before heading back to our own places to make dinner.

We found Georgetown to be a really sweet little place, and the locals we encountered were all lovely and friendly
As always, the Visitors Information Centre was a nice spot to pop into, and taking a walk down to the river was very pretty and enjoyable.

We would happily stay here again.

Until next time – happy travels, and make the moments matter.