Four Days on the Road to Townsville

It is just over 1300km from Brisbane to Townsville, and much of that stretch has been described as 'famously uninteresting' in at least one guide book we have with us. So we were lucky that we travelled in a shit-heap of a van which made our journey far more remarkable!

The van had been 'affectionately' named Basil after the plant of the same name that lived in the van with us for a few months and also after Basil Fawlty, on account of the tendency for the thing to break down at the smallest sign of pressure. Breaking down was in fact the van's speciality, and we had spent many times the original cost of the rust bucket on repairs over the last few months. Knowing this, we had tried to limit the driving to a couple of hours a day in order to give him a bit of a break, but now we had a long distance to travel and not much time to do it in. The first day was fine, stopping at a caravan park overnight a few hundred kilometres from Brisbane overnight, but the fun began half way through the afternoon when Basil decided it was too bloody hot in Queensland, and that he'd had enough. So with many breaks and a decidedly sluggish pace, we made our way to the closest town of Gladstone to let him have a nice long break. But even with this rest and a fresh radiator of coolant, we hadn't even made it to the edge of town before he started protesting again, and we accepted that we were spending the night there.

Luckily for us, the nearby yacht club had excellent food in massive portions, so after having our dinner and taking away the leftovers (which lasted us each another 2 meals) we retired to the still smouldering van for an early night. On the way back we noticed a warning sign close to where we had parked. We had seen plenty before – warning about spiders or snakes – but this one told the tale of a terrible blight on the local community: vicious kamikaze magpies. Even the Aussie birds are out to get us!

The next day we continued driving through fields of ripe sugar cane and yellow grass, watching the landscape slowly change from the green of New South Wales to the dusty tones of much drier Queensland. Mountains sprung up, blue and hazy in the distance, and then seemed to approach as we continued on, turning greener as we neared and disappearing into the distance as we passed into new countryside. More signs warning of the proximity of the elusive koalas appeared at the sides of the road, and plenty for the cattle which dotted the fields that we were driving through and occasionally spilled onto the road. But rather than wildlife, it was the bloody van which dominated our attention again that day. Guzzling water, belching steam, and grumbling all the while. We made it a little under 400km before we had to stop to give it a 4 litre drink, and then plodded onwards again, ever wary of the temperamental temperature dial.

Finally, after consuming what must have been close to twenty litres of water, we pulled into Townsville, an industrial town nestled below a huge red rock escarpment. Now my only hope is that we can find an honest mechanic!