Kevin: After
packing up and rolling out of Carnarvon National Park bright and early, we had
our sights set on making it to Townsville.
If you've got your maps out, that's a hefty 750 kilometers to cover in
one day. Traveling at 110 kph, the
maximum speed limit on most stretches of highway, that's 7 hours of
driving.
On
a day like the one we chose, that would be pushing it. A lazy drizzle descended over the region as
we pulled out, making us thankful for the beautiful two days we'd had in the
park. But it made the going somewhat
slow early on, and despite our hopes that we'd outrun the rain, it never
happened. Instead, conditions worsened
gradually throughout the day. What we didn't
know initially was that we were heading into country that was already pretty
waterlogged from almost a week of the same slow, constant drizzle. It was becoming, in fact, the wettest (and
coldest) June on record where we were heading!
Our
route took us through large stretches of rural farm and cattle country, with
very few towns or signs of civilization.
During one patch with no petrol stations, we were looking forward to a
"town" on the map called Belyando Crossing. We knew it was a place to fill-up and
probably stop for a break and some lunch.
The rest area off the highway had a country store, caravan park, and a
couple of fuel pumps. We needed to top
off our tanks to make sure we could safely make it to the next town, Charters
Towers, over 200 kilometers away. The
petrol was $1.47 a liter though, so we only bought enough to carry us 250ks or
so. We even debated driving on a little,
to see if there were any other petrol stations in town. We put some gas in the tank anyway, and then
laughed when we drove on and realized when we saw the "Last Fuel for 200
kilometers" sign that we had already seen all of Belyando Crossing!
The
weather was making the roads a little treacherous, and at one point during a
desolate stretch of road we approached the scene of an accident. There were fire trucks, an ambulance, as well
as a few police officers. They told us
to stop while they took some pictures of the area. Ten minutes later we were off, driving past a
pretty terrible scene: an oversized
truck next to a mangled pick-up towing a caravan, which were both upside
down. We heard later on the radio
that a 61 year-old woman had died in the
accident, and her husband miraculously survived but was in critical condition
after being airlifted to the closest hospital.
We
finally made it to a place called Charters Towers, just 130 kilometers from
Townsville, when it started to get dark.
We hadn't seen much roadkill for a long time, so we figured it would be
alright to keep driving until we got to our destination. We got some more fuel and set out for the last
leg of our long journey, with dark and rainy conditions. About 50 kilometers out of Charters Towers, I
noticed the radio wouldn't turn on. The
headlights seemed dim too, and pretty soon we were on the high beams just to
see anything at all. We were obviously
losing our power, a pretty crappy thing on a dark and rainy night, nowhere near
anything useful. To add to all of this,
a huge road train (local term for a semi) was barreling down on us.
With
barely any lights left, it was really hard to find a suitable spot to pull
over; there were fairly deep ditches running along both sides of the road. Time was obviously running out to make a safe
decision, and a mild panic was setting in.
Finally we found a stopping lane on our side of the road and pulled into
it. A few minutes later we were on the
phone with roadside assistance (free with our rental agreement from Traveler's
Auto Barn). They would send a tow truck
from Charters Towers and take us back there for the night, since they couldn't
fix a broken alternator (the most likely culprit) at night in the middle of
nowhere.
We
pulled out the laptop and watched some pirated Friends episodes we picked up in
Cambodia. In just over an hour and a
half, the tow truck arrived. The guy's
name was Terry, who was awesome and really friendly. We got our expensive stuff out of the van,
took a few pictures of it being winched up for the archives, and hopped in the
huge truck. We chatted with Terry on the
way back into town, talking about how many accidents the weather had been
causing, as well as a local sports controversy we'd heard about on the radio.
He
asked us if we had thought about where to stay, and we told him that usually we
stay in campsites or caravan parks, and didn't know what to do in Charters
Towers. "That's all right," he
said. "I can just drop your van off
at a powered site and come get you in the morning." We couldn't believe it. And sure enough, we pulled into Charters
Towers and he drove us into a caravan park and put the van down at a powered
site. We later found out Terry was the
owner of the company responsible for picking us up and taking such good care of
us, which only makes him that much cooler in our estimation.
The
next morning he came back and jumped us so we could drive to the shop in
town. We tooled around during the day,
updating things and doing a little research at the local library. Charters Towers used to be a big gold town,
and now it's a tourist destination in its own right. We were surprised to see a map of town in the
Lonely Planet, meaning it had more than a few places of interest. The continuing rain kept us indoors though,
and by 4pm the van was up and running and we were back in the saddle, trying
one more time to make it to Townsville.
