Roadtrip Katherine to Cairns: ...Move along, nothing to see here.. (Nov 24 - Nov 26)

We left Kakadu the next day and started our long journey to Queensland via Katherine. We stopped just outside of Katherine for the night at a free camp site and met up with a couple from the US who we had met previously in the McDonalds in Katherine. So we had a nice evening sitting around the fire chatting about travelling and such. We had a pretty late start again the next day and made up for it by driving until about 11pm at which point we stopped at a random truck stop and made some delicious burritos. The truck stop was pretty cool, both in terms of awesomeness and temperature wise, it was the first time in OZ that I had to wear a sweater and a hat (because we were in the middle of the desert). The burritos were amazing, but to cook we had to shine the lights from the car on our stuff which attracted every bug in the area so we had to fight the bugs from our plates but it was worth it.

Another car pulled up after a while, it was a typical Australian tuned up litter box of a car, with blasting dub step pouring out of the windows. This pretty small dude jumps out of the car with a tiny dog and approaches us. Robert was fiddling with something at the back of the car and the dude offered to help. So he takes him back to his car and gets a head torch and explains that he is on his way to Darwin (Sidebar: Darwin is about a 20+ hr drive from where we are) from Sydney! After I heard this and gave the guy a look over, it was obvious that he was some sort of drug runner, I would guess meth or speed. He then told us that he was going to make it to Darwin the next day! Which is entirely possible considering there's nobody on these roads so you can drive as fast as you like. Anyway, this was just a funny character to meet in the middle of no where.

After dinner we chilled out and just looked at the stars for a while, it was a completely clear night so you could see stars all over the sky. Unfortunately there was a large truck idling in the truck stop (a truck at a truck stop...you don't say....) so it kind of ruined the atmosphere a bit, but still quite awesome. It was also fun to watch all the road trains go by, with all the lights and they are going so fast (at least 140 for some of them) it is really quite impressive to see a truck pulling 3-4 trailers booking it down the highway at night.

The next day we drove for around 11 hours (Sidebar: there is nothing but desert between Katherine and Townsville) and ended up in Townsville, which is the next biggest town south of Cairns. It said in the lonely planet that it has a vibrant night life, which we saw upon arrival. It is always funny arriving in a city after a few days on the road, the amount of people is always a shock. Unfortunately for us, it was the weekend and all the hostels were fully booked. So we decided not to party that night (..yes we were still going to go out after 11 hrs of driving..backpacker life), as we had no proper bed to sleep in. We searched for any free camp sites in the area and the best we could find was a Bunnings (like Home Depot) that allowed caravans and camper vans to stay over night. They did have a sign explicitly saying NO TENTS, so obviously I set my tent up right underneath the sign and we had a nice early night so we could escape before any security guards or patrons arrived. One lady from one of the caravans parked there gave me a look in the morning and said "it says no teeee-eeennnntttssss"....to which I replied..."Yes good morning to you too *big smile and wave*".

The drive up to Cairns was spectacular. Beautiful rainforest and tree covered mountains the whole drive. It was a ridiculous change from a few days prior when we were in the middle of the desert. This is one of the reasons I like OZ so much, such a varying landscape, but unlike New Zealand it is spread out over a much larger area, which is good and bad. When we arrived in Cairns we immediately booked for 5 days in a very nice and clean backpackers just to stretch out and relax for a while. We definitely chose the right one too, this place had free pancakes on Saturdays, free internet, and the beds were slightly bigger than a single so I could actually sleep on them properly. I don't think I can stress enough how amazing it was to sleep on such a heavenly bed, it's the little things sometimes.

Peace & Love