Driving to Undara

The short driving day turned out to be more than we bargained for!

We left Croydon just after 9 after we searched the few shops for pins to add to the girls growing collection. The landscape had a lot more trees as we headed towards the east coast we crossed some really huge dry river beds. The Gilbert River was at least 60m across. The Etheridge river was at least 100m across of dry sand which got us talking about the volume of water that must go through these areas in the wet season.

Again the road chopped and changed between two lane and single lane which reduces the road to the width of a driveway. Not a problem unless someone is coming the other way. We had this a little more often today compared to yesterday. We also had a near miss with a Wedge Tailed Eagle. We've seen a few but they usually fly away long before the car gets close. This one skimmed across the windscreen before flying away. It gave us one hell of a fright.

As we drove along the wind picked up a few times which kept us on our toes keeping an eye on the caravan for any sign of sway. At one point we could feel a worrying amount of movement but the van seemed steady. Then I saw the tyre. By the time we stopped the rear passenger side tyre was pretty much shredded and all the shoulder areas were slopped. Not the best place to stop. We got the kids out of the car and Joe got to work. About 2 minutes later we had a tour bus stop to make sure we were ok. About 10 minutes later a lovely couple travelling with their caravan pulled over to lend a hand. Rob and Cheryl were great help and made the job much quicker. As it turned out they were also heading to Undara so we looked forward to catching up with them later.

Once we were all done we made our way 10 minutes down the road to a little town called Mt Surprise. We found where we could get a new tire on the rim but the guy had finished up for the day and wasn't home. So we continued to Undara. Thankfully duel highway the rest of the way. We suspect it was going on and off the edge of the road that brought about our predicament.

We got to Undara and set up. It's a very unique caravan park with train carriages turned into cabins, reception and restaurant. We found two Tawny Frog Mouth owls just outside the caravan door and red tailed black Cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets flying around.

We soon spotted Rob and Cheryl not far away and went to say thank you again. They said they had been helped out the night before after blowing a very unusual fuse and were just paying it forward. And so will we.

After missing out on a couple of activities we had planned for the day we decided to have dinner at the restaurant. It was a great spot! We had dinner inside one of the converted train carriages which the girls got a huge kick out of. The meals were good although it was all a bit pricey but we expected that.

We hope to make it back here one day and do the Lava tube tour and see the extinct volcano in the national park. For now the plan is to get to Kuranda tomorrow as planned and get our spare tyre fixed first thing Monday.

They say you haven't seen outback Australia if you haven't blown a tyre. I guess we did it right!Read more