Friday, September 28, 2007

Map Not To Scale

When we woke up the following morning, neither of us were really keen to get moving right away knowing that we had 7+ hours worth of driving ahead of us. We had a look at the map and decided to make the drive a circuit and go north to for brekky and continue home by driving south east to Gympie.

carnavon gorge 087

While we were planning our route, we watched in as the families around us were breaking down there camping operations. I've camped quite a bit stateside and there is something to be said for the Australian take on it. A site for a family of four generally consists of several tents including the two story one that rises off the back of the 4WD with a special tent for the solar shower. I've seen kitchens with sinks and ovens, toy tents filled with all of the kids playthings and tarped eating areas that are bigger than my living room. The funniest part is to watch them break it down like trained worker ants; everyone has a job and the whole thing comes down in 15 minutes flat.

It was getting to be late morning and we had to start driving. After a minor incident with *someone* backing the car into a tree, we started down the long dirt road dodging cattle in our hatchback to return to civilization.

carnavon gorge 100

We had breakfast at the only restaurant in Rollerston. It was an experience; the town was a post office/gas station/corner store, church & the cafe. We were the only people under 60 in the restaurant; we had stumbled into a congregation of the caravan retirees that inhabit campgrounds all over the country.

carnavon gorge 065

The drive was gorgeous to start: rolling hills, iconic country Australian farms, paddocks filled with livestock and wildflowers, but after a few hours you've seen one windmill, you've seen them all.

Note to self: nothing is ever as close as it seems in Australia.

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