Wrong way

I popped over to the amenities this morning and who should I bump into was Katie, a RN I used to work with. I knew she was somewhere nearby as we seem to be criss crossing each other on our trip. I haven’t seen her for about 6 years. We had a lovely chat before we left for Longreach and she and her family were heading out to see the fossils. 

When we got to Longreach we weren’t that happy with the campground so went into see if the caravan parks had any room. No room left at the inn. There was a huge music festival at Birdsville last week and the 10,000 campers are flowing back to the more settled areas and it’s really really busy everywhere.

We had a bit of a rethink and decided to drive onto Ilfracombe 40km away. Bob said he was only staying in Longreach to please me and I didn’t really mind as we have been there before. Ilfracombe didn’t have any room left either. Next town is Barcaldine. Neither caravan park had any room left. So what to do? I had a look on the camping directory app I use (Wickicamps) and found a paddock on the edge of town with vague instructions as to how to find it. $15 a night, Simon will collect money after work. So we picked a spot in a bare paddock and hoped we were in the right place. The road in my blip is not the road to take. I walked in a few hundred metres and decided it definitely wasn’t suitable for a caravan. It runs along the side of the paddock but there is another proper road to use. 

Low and behold Simon arrived about 5.30 delighted to see us. He had only started receiving campers this week due to the overflow in town and hasn’t got himself setup yet. All good. What do we get for our $15. A private paddock in a quiet street. Happy campers. 

We have decided to reroute our trip and will head east towards the coast tomorrow. That’s a benefit of not having any plans until next Sunday when we are due to visit Bob’s brothers. 

We had a frost last night. A bit unexpected.