We in for another long day today, leaving Calliope early and driving all day. There is not much to say about the long road trip days so I will point out a couple of Aussie oddities. They call potato chips crisps down here while chips are the french fries you get at McDonald's. The Aussies also really like chicken flavoured chips. Don't laugh they are great and I thing we are addicted to them now.
I have said it before and I will say it again, I like their trucks here. They are virtually all small, like my Nissan but much better outfitted for camping. Though most have snorkels I have talked to a bunch of locals with their trucks and many of the snorkels are just for show (fakes!). All of these camping Utes also have antenna on their bumpers. They are really big into CB radios for chatting with each other while tooling around in the outback.
CB radios may seem retro to us but the music down here is also retro. As Andrew puts it, "These guys are still stuck in the 90's". I have to agree and maybe say "Stuck in the 80's". Another thing that has struck me is the number of girls wearing high waisted cut-off jean shorts al.la. Daisy Duke. They are everywhere. If that is not retro I do not know what is!
One fact Harold willk find interesting is the number of Nissan X-Trails down here. They are everywhere, and new ones too boot. They are still selling down here and are obviously very popular!
One thing they do have over us is their school busses. All of the school busses are up scale diversified style busses. No old yellow school busses for these kids. They all ride around in air conditioned comfort!
Ok, enough Aussie observations for now. Mear the end of our day today were were trying to navigate to a supposed good site. The GPS took us off the highway onto a dirt road. Immeduately we passed over a small creek with an concrete base the water is designed to flow over when flooding. The road was rough, the road sketchy and we jscrapped going over. Immediately we stopped, said "What the heck!!" and turned around to go back to the highway. Just then a guy came riding by on a dirt bike and asked if we were lost. We explained that were were sort of lost and looking for this campground. The guy advised us that there actually was a campground but it was 4km further down the rough road and not the best place. He was heading down the road to check one of his dams and, if we would wait a couple of minutes he would lead us back to his place were we could stay. Well, wondering if we were going to be chopped up and boiled in his billy, we followed him about a km into his farm. Turns out he rents out some little self contained units to migrant workers during harvest seasons (vegetable farming is big around here). The farmer, whose name was Lawrence, set us up next to a unit, made sure we had electricity, hot and cold running water, shower access etc., then we all went over to his house to meet his wife Zorrie, and the dog Nancy. We spent an hour visiting and taking politics and farming issue before we retired to our place for supper. What great luck and a wonderful place to stay!
Posted with Blogsy
That van is so friggin cool!
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