Well - it 's been a while - since I left Townsville, all the way across Queensland and up the track to Darwin there is not much in the way of internet cafes or even fast internet. So no posts for a week. Let me summarise what the last week has been like.

Saturday - left Townsville early and had a good day, reaching Julia Creek via Charters Towers (big old fashioned country town, everyone in big hats and RM Williams boots and jeans), Pentland (see story below), and Richmond (fossil central, with a good museum and plenty of description about the fossils that have been found in the former seabed around there). Camped at J Ck and turned out to have pitched my camp next to a couple of retired ag scientists (well one was actually an ag economist) so we had lots in common and plenty to talk about.

(In Pentland, which is a tiny former goldrush and railway centre, the old bloke at the servo (dirt driveway next to the pumps) asked me where I had come from. Albury. Mmmm. Where are yer goin? Darwin. On that? Yep. Mmmmm. Youse are goin a long way. End of conversation.)

Sunday. On to Camooweal. This was another early start and involved a long stretch with no fuel (265 km - right on the edge of the T Max's range, so I rode a bit slower and carried a small reserve as well - not needed.) This was the first leg of the day, to Barkly Homestead. Then came Cloncurry, then Mount Isa, where I found an internet place but it closed in 10 minutes so not much use really. Beautiful hilly desert country, will post some photos of it later; then after Mt Isa rode on to Camooweal. My goodness, I ahave been riding across the Barkly Tableland all day, it is an enormous area. Not a lot happening in Camooweal on a Sunday, but had a beer at the pub then pitched the tent.

Monday. From Camooweal, went on to 3 Ways in the Northern Territory (just north of Tennant Creek) then a relatively short hop to Renner Springs. Arrived there early afternoon and rested before camping for the night. Perhaps the nearest thing to my camp at RS would have been to pitch the tent on the piano keys at the end of the main runway at Tullamarine Airport. The whole night, trucks and road trains thundered past a few metres from my tent!

Anyway, Tuesday came, and I rode up the bitumen to Elliott ( fairly desperate little spot) and just past there live our friends John & Trish at a big station called Beetaloo. I stashed the bike in some scrub just off the road, and Trish came out to the front gate (40 km of terrible dirt road, no good at all for a T Max) to collect me for a couple of days' rest. It was wonderful at Beetaloo, good to see friends so far from home and it is a marvellous spot for a break. Early starts there are normal - brekky usually at 6am. On Wednesday I interrupted my snoozing on the couch to go for a look around with John, and was treated to a wonderful sequence of helicopter mustering (his son in law Scotty at the controls, J and I watched from the ute) - John said they had been rehearsing it just for me for weeks, and I must say the recalcitrant cattle played their part wonderfully well...

Thursday was a big mustering day so we started with brekky at 5am (curried sausages). Then John & Trish and daughter Jane drove to Tennant Creek to pick up some new tyres for the wagon, dropping me off at the bike near the front gate. I rode on in fierce heat (40 deg) to Mataranka. Or as it should probably be called, Bataranka. I camped at the thermal pool a few km out of town and it is utterly overwhelmed by fruit bats (flying foxes). The whole place smells, no, REEKS of bats and their droppings cover the ground. Nasty. The pool though is still wonderful and good for my old bones at the end of a day like that.

Friday: the last lap! Katherine (quite a town nowadays, lots of new building and probably owes a fair bit of its prosperity to the nearby RAAF Base Tindal), then Adelaide River which is a lovely spot. There I visited to War Cemetery where there is a number of servicemen from WW2 buried, and also a memorial to all those whose bodies were never recovered in the Timor/Indonesia/Coral Sea area during the war. The majority of those were RAAF persons.

Finally, on to Darwin. Arrived here about 1pm, and on checking the emails the latest one is an offer for the T Max! How very convenient!

Will post again tomorrow, maybe some photos too. Now for some lunch!

I can hardly believe I've made it!