Ilfracombe

Thurs (18/7) - a new record. We were on the road at 7:38am! And off down the road west. On the way we encountered 2 huge 8 metre wide mining trucks that we got stuck behind for a while. I tried to take photos but they were videos that I can't upload to the blog (I pressed the video button when I thought I pressed the zoom button) - ho hum.

We passed through Barcaldine which is a fascinating outback township. It's home to the Tree of Knowledge which is a very sad dead stump in a cage with a long line of caravans parked in the street beside it. We didn't stop to add to its sorry distress. Instead we drove around the streets to get a feel for the town. Definitely worth another look next time we come this way.

We arrived at Ilfracombe (about 20km east of Longreach) at about 12:30. The caravan park is on the highway and we picked a great site at the very back, tucked away in a corner with a great view out across the vast expanse of brown flat country. We have booked in for 3 nights and will use this as a base to explore Longreach.

We had a rather hilarious setup that mimicked a script out of Monty Python. The site is not quite flat so we needed to "chock" one of the wheels of the van - which we have done before quite successfully. Somehow this time the van rolled of the chock, so we decided to hitch it up to the car and try again. Unfortunately, we didn't secure the hitch on the ball and as we moved the van it fell off - woops. So then we had to jack the bloody thing up so we could get the jockey wheel on and get it back on the car. You get the picture! Luckily, having picked a very back spot meant that we didn't entertain the entire park with our antics - just a fortunate few nearby.

I just wish I had photographic evidence. Anyway, all that wonderful extra time we had up our sleeves from such an early start got gobbled up with our course in "Site Setup 101 - How not to do it."

All was good in the end and we have a lovely site. We went for a walk around the town - which took all of 20 minutes and stopped at the home of 14,000 bottles and various other fascinating junk.

Then an ice cream from the general store, followed by a beer at the pub.

And then a dip in the warm artersian spa.

This is a very friendly and social park. We went to the happy hour in the camp kitchen where we were entertained by a country singer and the park owners doing a stand up comedy routine. Mike referred to it as the "RSL club for caravaners".