Cairns to Darwin Road Trip - Day 1

I began my 4 day road trip by catching the 4x4 coach from Cairns. There was 11 of us and Alan the driver. Alan was a true Ozzie, an ex-ringer (or cowboy) & always wearing his cowboy hat, so enthusiastic and proud of his country. He started by playing some Ozzie tunes for us. He played a song called 'g'day g'day' it sounds like it should be from a monty python sketch, full of lines like "how you goin', well strike a light". He played this tune each morning and it stays in your head all day! By the end everyone just sang along with it. After the tunes Alan passed a microphone around the bus for everyone to introduce themselves.

The youngest in the group was Morgan at 19 and the oldest, his uncle Uno at 57, both from Switzerland. A real mix of ages.

So, I said goodbye to the rain forest and East coast and off we went. The first stop was Mount Surprise where we all helped to prepare lunch, then Russell made an appearance with some of his mates; pythons, carpet snakes and loads more, they got passed round and he gave an interesting talk about snakes and how to deal with the poisonous ones.

After that we drove through the Gulf Savannah country which attracted lots of people during the gold rush and towns sprang up quickly. Not much left of them now though. One the way we passed flocks of red tailed black cockatoos and loads of galahs. It was a long drive to our overnight destination at Croydon, an authentic outback aussie pub. During it's hayday Croydon was one of Queenslands biggest towns, with 40 pubs. Now, The Club Hotel is all that's left, along with a new, small supermarket.

After checking in to our rooms (mine was next to the room that must never be opened because of the ghost - wished I'd never flippin' asked about it!) we went for a swim at Lake Belmore, a fresh water hole then stopped on the way back at a peaceful lookout over Croydon to watch the sunset.

One of the locals was having his birthday bash at the hotel that night and we were all invited. I thought the bar would get packed, considering it's the only place for miles to go out, but it didn't. That evening, the locals didn't really interact with us. I tried to make conversation but they weren't interested. The only person that wanted to chat to us was a big aborigine lady. It was strange, they get bad press here, yet my experience of them so far has been ok. The aborgines sat seperately from the white locals, although they spoke and I didn't see any animostiy from either side, it was clear they didn't mix well?

As it grew dark the pavement out the front went black, as I looked closer I could see it was covered in a thick layer of insects... stink beetles. They were everywhere, the rush of them only lasted a few hours then they slowly dissapear to a bearable number although I was still finding them everywhere the next morning - even in my bag and clothes! They don't hurt you but if you squash them they flippin' stink!

Also cane toads everywhere. They're a real pain in Oz, introduced in 1935 to help farmers by eating the sugar cane beetle. No research was done on the toads, and it later transpired that the beetles were active during the day and lived on the high part of the sugar cane, the toads were active at night and stayed at the bottom of the sugar cane - so they never even see each other! The cane toads have no preditors in Oz and are poisonous to all the indiginous animals that eat them. So they're slowly making their way across the country and killing crocs, snakes, lizards, birds and domestic pets.

Back at the party outside the back of the hotel the jukebox played loads of country and western tunes. All the kids knew the words and was obviously what they'd grown up with, not chart stuff.

Stopped to look at the termite mounds