West2East Challenge Day 9: Tobermorey to Boulia – 258km
The sunshine this morning is exquisite so I’ve taken myself of to the most sunny spot of Tobermorey Station Roadhouse to write my blog this morning. There’s no mobile reception here and we haven’t had any contact with the rest of the world for over 24 hours so traditional pen and paper is my weapon of choice for most of my trip!
We’re off to Boulia today – which I’m told is the home of the ‘Min Min Light’ – a ball of light which has been known to appear and even follow cars down The Outback Way and then simply disappear! How wonderful!
Boulia is a town which stretches nearly 62,000 sq. km in size in Central West Queensland and has a population of just 600 people! In comparison, my hometown Uckfield is 25 sq. km and has a population of 24,000! Mindboggling comparison! This isn’t the smallest town population-wise that we’re going to visit either! I’ve mentioned it before but I really can’t get my head around the space here, everything is so open – I wonder what it’ll be like when I get to Surfers Paradise!
We’re back on the dirt road today and it’s a short day – truly a short day! We’ve probably only got 5 hours of driving which is a welcome relief to the group but particularly to Adrian, Wozza and Eddy who had already driven the rigs nearly 4,000km from the Bailey Australia factory to our initial meeting point in Perth all those days ago! Everyone’s pretty excited to get to Boulia in good time and in daylight so we might be able to relax for a little while! We’re not ‘doing’ very much per se, and sitting in a car or driving is pretty easy I think, but after 9 days it’d be nice to stretch our legs for a while!
The roads are endless red again today but I swear I’d never get tired of looking at them! We’re on Developmental Road for this bit of our journey and arrive at Boulia without any hiccups. In fact, there have been no hiccups so far – touch wood! The caravans are still coping fabulously under such pressure. So far they’ve travelled 8,500km with quite some more to go too! We’ve covered the majority (I hope!) of the off-roading and so far the only casualties have been to a cupboard hinge and latch and a drawer in the kitchen has come off, but considering the quality of the road surfaces we’ve been on, I think that’s a result! We’ve got to remember these are prototypes and are not designed for off-roading so the fact that the caravans are in such good condition at this stage in our journey is a real testament to the craftsmanship which has gone into the design and manufacture.
And we’ve done it! We arrived in Boulia in daylight! A quick hoover up of the vans and we’re ready for a relaxing afternoon! Dinner tonight is at the local restaurant called the Australian Hotel which is exactly what you’d expect from an outback restaurant! There are 3 options on the menu – crumbed sausages, crumbed steak or crumbed fish! Being that we’re in the middle of The Outback, I’m thinking the fish might not be the freshest so opt for the sausages, which was an interesting decision retrospectively! They’re showing the final of The Voice here and we’ve got a killer game of darts on the go, so life is good! Darts get a little competitive between…well, everyone actually! Good fun had by all!
Bedourie is our next destination and will also be Simon, Adrian and Gina’s last destination before they leave the tour to return to Melbourne. We’re nearly there and it’s such a shame to lose 3 of the team and I’m especially sad to lose my Aussie Buddy Gina who’s had me in stitches over the last couple of weeks! She’s such a fantastic, fun and enthusiastic person and definitely the kind of person you’d want heading up your Marketing department! Still, a few more kilometres to go and I have an idea brewing…it’s Gina’s 30th birthday in a few days so maybe we can throw some sort of Outback party…I wonder whether we can buy balloons in The Outback? We shall see when we get to Bedourie!
But for now it’s off out into the desert again – see you in 200 km!
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