Introducing Frankie and the Tramp

Hey!!  Thanks for reading my blog!!

Typically, I’ve left writing my first post until the very last minute, so I apologise for the hurriedly written finger dribble full of grammatical errors.

Brief overview:

Who is Frankie???

Frankie, aka ‘Frankencruiser’, is Ben’s pride and joy.  He made it himself.  I would describe Frankie as three Landcruisers all rolled into one ultimate Landcruiser that has consumed Ben’s every thought, waking moment and wanton desire for the last year.  I dread to think how many man-hours Ben spent working on Frankie.  If I had to guess, I’d say, at the very least, it would be 1000 hours.

Ben describes Frankie as:

“H2J105 Landcruiser wagon chopped into a dual cab with alloy canopy.  1 HD-FTE Engine & Auto Gearbox Conversion, Saliara dash, door panels and power windows fitted.  Triple battery setup, drop-down fridge slide and drawer system in the canopy.  2″ suspension lift, 33″ mud tyres.  Bull bar, UHF, front bench seat retained to seat 6.”

Frankie is kitted out with every bell and whistle you could possibly need for a 5-week trip to Cape York.  In a future blog, I will go into more detail on the setup, but for now, I’m trying to get this damn blog started so I can sleep.  (I’m super worried that I won’t keep up to date with the blog, and Ben will be able to say, “See!  I told you you shouldn’t have wasted money on a domain!!!)

Who is the Tramp???

The Tramp, or tramper, is our Camper Trailer.  She is an Eagle Cheyenne hard floor, an off-road camper that has a queen bed and two sets of bunks.  Ben and I had a very heated discussion about her name.  He seems to associate ‘Tramp’ with ladies of the night.  On the other hand, I thought it was a very clever mix of the words ‘camper’ and ‘trailer’ that had the benefit of meaning “to travel from place to place, trudge, plod, stamp, trample…”.  In the end, I won.  Frankie and the Tramp had such a nice flow to it that I ignored the fact that some people associate her name with that of a woman with loose morals.

Who are we???

We are a family 6 leaving in about 8 hours to venture off to Cape York, Australia.  In the family, we have:

Ben:  Ben is the voice of reason and a hands-on, practical family member.  He works like a galley slave 18 hours a day and never stops.  It is pretty difficult being married to someone so motivated and hard-working.  It makes days when I want to slob really awkward, as it is hard to fully relax into a slovenly stupor while someone is racing around me doing 6 million jobs.

Kylah:  Kylah is our eldest daughter.  Her nickname is “Killjoy Kylah, the Rule Following Dictator”, which she wears with pride.  Kylah is exceptionally sensible.  I think it’s her way of rebelling against me (me being the opposite of highly reasonable).  She is very dependable, and despite her hatred of small children (too messy, too noisy, too unpredictable), she is like a little mother hen to her siblings.  She has been gifted with the most beautiful voice and spends most of her days singing to the menagerie of animals around our place.  (2 mini horses, a pig, 2 dogs, 6 chickens, 3 ducks and some fish).

Jazzy:  Jazzy is our second eldest and has the kindest heart of anyone you’ll ever meet.  She is the only daughter I have who LOVES babies (takes after her mumma!!) and is very social (also after her mumma!!).  She has been known to be prone to the odd whinge here and there (unfortunately also taking after her mumma) but is usually a delightful child.  Her passions are ballet, sewing, anything crafty and writing scripts.

Rohan:  Good grief.  Where do I start?  If you follow this blog, I’m sure you will get to know Rohan in great detail, as I’m sure many of the posts will be about his misadventures and bull-at-a-gate personality.  He is hilariously funny, incessantly demanding, and so full of knowledge that the endless list of animal, geographic or political thoughts that spew out of his mouth constantly will drive you to want to pour hot wax in your ears.  He is continuously dirty and often injured. Rohan’s passions are anything and everything, so long as he can do it RIGHT NOW.  He has a massive case of FOMO (fear of missing out), so he happily involves himself in everything he can.

Isabelle:  Isabelle, or Diddy as we call her, is our youngest child.  She is super independent and as vain as a peacock.  It is not unusual for her to wear 6 different outfits (all styled differently, of course) in one day.  Her bravery and courage surpassed my own at about age 3.  In fact, if Kylah isn’t home to feed the animals, I have to get Isabelle to do it, as I’m scared of the horses, and she isn’t.  Isabelle also LOVES to clean – a trait not inherited from me (or Ben).  She is constantly tidying up after me and often surprises me by vacuuming and mopping the floors while I am out (she is 6!!!).  She is still figuring out her future destiny and has told me she wants to be either a cleaner or a princess.

Me:  Me, me, me, me, me.  I just read back through my descriptions of everyone, and they are as much a description of me as it is of them!!  I can’t help it.  When I start typing, I never know what will dribble out the end of my fingers.  Hmmmm…. if I had to describe myself, I’d say that I am a cotton-loving, polyester-hating woman who does not like to be more than 2 degrees outside her comfort temperature. I’m all about comfort.  Comfortable clothes, comfortable shoes, and my comfy “huggy pillow” that is as long as our queen bed (unfortunately for everyone else, I’m insisting on hauling it to the Cape with us despite a lack of space).  I don’t like insects or bugs on me or near me, and I have a supreme ability to nap in any moving vehicle no matter how uncomfortable (although I have negated the need for me to be uncomfortable in Frankie by buying a seatbelt pillow that I have nicknamed my Snoozy Woozy).

So there you have it.  A brief introduction to Frankie, the Tramp and all of us.  I plan to use this blog to keep you all up to date with places we are going and things we are doing.  I will also describe, probably in great detail, the lengths I go to to make sure that my camping experience doesn’t push me too far out of my comfort zone.  Packing food, clothes etc., for 6 people for 5 weeks is a logistical nightmare, so I’ll also describe all of my ingenious tips that I have either come up with myself or shamelessly copied off someone on Pinterest and then tried to pass off as my own.

At this stage, I have ZERO followers on my blog. I’m not even sure how you allow followers (I’m still wearing my blogging V-plates).  So my disclaimer that I do not receive any freebies for my opinions on Eagle Campers or Landcruisers should be no surprise.  All thoughts and reviews of products I’ve bought are 100% my own, and no financial gain has or will come from them.  So you can rest assured that after I use my she-wee tomorrow and then blog about the experience, it will be a completely honest review.

Thank you for taking the time to read my finger dribble!!

B xx

Day One

Day One
Well, we made it out of Sheldon…. barely. Frankie and the Tramp are all set up in a free camp spot just North of Gympie (or a mere 2 hours from home), and Ben is currently digging a hole for Isabelle to poo in. Welcome to my world for the next 5 weeks.
The day didn’t go as planned, but we are nothing if not flexible. At about 11pm last night, Ben decided that Frankie was carrying too much weight at the back. No amount of “She’ll be right” could sway him, so we delayed our departure this morning for Ben to install airbags under her rear. There was drilling, welding, making brackets, fitting things, taking wheels on and off, fitting shorter axles, and fitting longer axles…. all in all a good 10 hours of Ben lying underneath a car working while I fannied about trying to look busy so he wouldn’t ask me to help him.
So far, nothing exciting has happened. Isabelle lasted 30 minutes in the car before going to the toilet. Rohan fell asleep as soon as the car started moving and briefly woke at 10pm, when we arrived at our camp spot, to demand dinner. After inhaling his dinner, he promptly fell asleep, leaving me to wonder whether he actually woke up or was his subconscious demanding food on his behalf. Jazzy is allergic to one of the trees here at Bauple and has already drenched one of her hankies.
Jazzy’s hayfever is a nice lead-in for me to talk about one of my brilliant camping ideas (of which there are many, but I’ll try not to bombard you with too much brilliance all at once). As most of my offspring, and Ben, are cursed with allergies to all sorts of things and constantly require some kind of snot rag, I imagined the trip would be spent with me frequently screeching, “Whose tissue/hankie is this?!?” (I hate snot) To alleviate this problem, I decided everyone would have their own coloured hankie. I enlisted my little seamstress, Jazzy, to whip them up for me, and now, if I see a handkerchief lying around, I can immediately determine who the owner/culprit depends on its colour.
I envisioned we would make it halfway to Cairns today, so I am totally unprepared for this Southerly cold. We are all in bed at the moment, freezing our buts off. I’m going to leave it there for today as I want to get to sleep.
I was separated from my huggy pillow last night (she was packed in Tramper), and I slept terribly. I am soooo excited for our reunion tonight.
Thanks for reading!!
B xxx

Jazzy is sewing hankies.

Eating dinner at 10pm in Bauple.

Day two – Homesickness Sets In

My day started at 4:30am when Rohan slithered into my bed and clung to me like a frozen clip-on Koala toy. When he had suitably defrosted (from stealing all of my body heat) his instinctive drive to ask for food set in, and he began squawking about breakfast.  Torture.
I wish the day got better from that point, but after 11 hours of driving, we are now camped in a petrol station next to a refrigerated truck that is making a LOT of noise. You can all fill in the blanks. My bum is numb from sitting, I am wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday, and I miss my creature comforts.  Whinge. Whinge. Whinge.

This part of our journey is mainly about getting from A to B so I don’t expect it to be brilliant. Tomorrow we arrive in Cairns so hopefully I’ll have much more to report on than numb bums and snotty kids.
With all that said I thought I’d share with you a few more of my brilliant camping hacks.

Food:

I have made about 2/3 of the meals we will need & they are either vacuum sealed (I can’t spell kryovac) or ready-to-go meals in “dump bags”.

Despite sounding disgusting dump bags are my ingenious idea to save on food preparation. For the days when I will use the Dreampot, which is a thermal cooker, I have saved time by putting all the ingredients in a little bag which I then froze.

You can see from the picture that everything is chopped up and ready to go & the dump bags even contain homemade stock paste and spices.

Any potatoes used in the dump bags had to be parboiled first, as raw potatoes should not be frozen.

I also made up dump bags for things like scones, muffins & bread – all of which can be cooked in the Dreampot!!

Here is a super yummy lasagne I made in the Dreampot.

The Dreampot works by holding food at temperature for up to 12 hours. So this morning, I put a stew on before we left freezing cold Bauple, and it was nice & slow cooked, ready to eat when we arrived at the petrol station at 9pm tonight.

All our food has been carefully packed & planned to make sure we have a really balanced diet while we are away (and to ensure Rohan doesn’t starve to death – a deep fear he holds).
Clothes:

There isn’t too much to say about clothes. Everyone only has about 4 different outfits & I’ve eliminated pj’s (for everyone, bar me. I love pj’s). So the kids are sleeping in fresh clothes each night, which they will pack the next day.

The clothes are packed in tiny Globlite travel organisers that fit nicely in one of Frankie’s drawers.  We are all wearing neck to ankle clothes to protect against the sun & bugs.

I’d better get off to bed. I have a huge day ahead of me tomorrow, napping in the car & passing Ben his water bottle frequently, so I’d better be well-rested.

Hopefully, I’ll have more exciting things to write about in the coming days!!

Take Care,

B xx

Day 3 & 4

We made it to Cairns!!! Thank goodness!!!!! I am well and truly over free camping.

Let me just explain my past experiences with free campsites before I launch into a description of my recent experiences.
When Ben and I have travelled with the kids in the past, the free campsites we have stayed at have been some of our favourite places to stay. Whether we were in the middle of the desert in the NT staying under what looked like a dome of stars or camping on the banks of the Murray River in Victoria the free campsites were always clean, picturesque and relaxing. We used to use a book called Camps 5 that listed all of the free campsites around Australia. As the updated Camps 9 book is $49.95 (too expensive and bulky), I was excited to find a $7.99 app called Wikicamps. It’s easy to use and lists free camps, caravan parks, points of interest, day-use areas, etc. What’s better is that people using Wikicamps can add comments about the site so the information is constantly updated.
Armed with Wikicamps, I was sure our overnight stops on the way to Cairns would be as lovely as the ones we’ve camped at in the past. WRONG!!!
The free campsites along the Bruce HWY between Cairns and Brisbane are absolutely disgusting (well, the ones we looked at/stayed at anyway). They are minefields of human waste and rubbish and smell like a giant sewer. I don’t understand. Why don’t people dig holes?!? Or use the toilets???? Even some day-use areas had piles of human waste everywhere (complete with the brown stained toilet paper sitting next to it). It’s enough to make you vomit. Rubbish is everywhere. I’m sure that Qld has lots of picturesque, waste & rubbish free campsites off the highway, but when you have 2000km to travel in 2 days, you don’t fancy driving 20km from the Bruce to find a nice spot (although I wish we had of!!).
We don’t pay to stay in caravan parks because we never know where we will end up until late in the evening. Ben will say to me at about 7pm, “I’ve “I’ve got a few hours left in me”. I then open up my Wikicamp app and investigate all the places we can stay for free. Generally, we’d pull up between 9pm & 10pm, sleep (or try to sleep) for 8 hours, and then get back on the road nice and early. Caravan parks  will charge us upwards of $90 a night. It’s usually about $40 or $50 for the site, including 2 adults. Then they charge $10 or $15 per extra kid!!! That is a steep charge when you are only spending 8 hours somewhere.
Currently, we are staying at the Coconut Resort (Big 4) in Cairns. We are spending two nights here, and I wish it was longer. I don’t mind paying $90 a night here because it is so lovely. The kids are entertained; it has the BEST water park and playground I’ve eI’veseen, the most giant jumping pillow in all of Australia (or so they claim), and so many activities for the kids to do. You could spend a week here, and the kids wouldn’t be bored.
The kids have been busy writing in their diaries, watching the outdoor movies, swimming, playing in the playgrounds, annoying the crap out of each other, annoying the crap out of me (and probably Ben), whinging for food (mostly Rohan) and spending their pocket money.
My mum ever so kindly gave the kids some spending money for the trip with the instructions that it could not be spent till they reached up North. Consequently, as soon as we arrived in Cairns yesterday late afternoon, Rohan began rabbiting on about spending his money. This lasted aaaalllll night and picked back up early this morning. At about 8:30am this morning, he finally wore me down, and I sent him off to the gift shop here at the Coconut Resort so he could spend his money on a grossly overpriced plastic snake. In a bid to encourage more reading (which has the added benefit of them being quiet whilst doing so), I’ve told the kids that they can earn money by reading books on their Kindles. So far, Jazzy has read the entire Peter Pan book (original version), and Rohan is halfway through the book “Lion”” by Saroo Brierly. I regret my decision to give them more money as I imagine this trip will be spent with Rohan either frantically reading or relentlessly badgering us to spend his money. Anyway, I’d best be off. Kids want to go for a swim, so I’m going to slob by the pool and read a book. Ben is spending quality time again with Frankie, who still needs some tweaking to stop the 6 million alarms she is fitted with from being so sensitive.
Thanks for reading!!
B xxx

I’m catching up with one of my besties, who I met while living in the Torres Straits.

Picture of one of FrankiFrankie’srs. You can see the freezer in the background (with a drop-down fridge slide), and my Dreampot nicely snuggled in the bracket Ben made for it.

Keeping up to date with their schoolwork.

Ben spends the morning under Frankie (I swear he loves her more than me 🙄).

Kids are about to go swimming.

Reading my Kindle while watching kids in the pool & minding Rohan’Rohan’sr snake.

Day 5 – Brace yourself for TMI

We are still in beautiful Cairns!!! Our stay here has been extended for several reasons, which I will explain.

Firstly – Frankie, Ben’s pride and joy, seems to not be as perfect as he hoped in the steering department. Since anything less than absolute perfection is unacceptable, she is having a new power steering thingy put in today before we head off.
The other reason is a tad bit embarrassing. You will notice in my blog that I will spend a disproportionate amount of time/word count discussing the amenities in places we have stayed. This is because when we travel, most of my thought process is concerned with adequate places to rid myself of waste.
You see, while some people have a phobia of snakes, spiders or sharks…… my aversion lies within the claustrophobic walls of public restrooms. The very thought of them makes my palms start sweating, and all rational thought flees my mind (if it was ever there, to begin with – Ben says no). I am so consumed with terror that generally, as an act of survival, my body quickly withdraws whatever need I had felt that had caused me to want to use them in the first place.
Generally, I am super proud of my body’s ability to hold in the face of unkempt bathrooms. I don’t even have to try or suffer any discomfort. The need just vanishes. It certainly makes life a lot easier. However, I may have overdone it a bit on our 2-day journey from Brisbane to Cairns. The restrooms were so gross that I think I relieved myself only twice in the two days.
Consequently, by the time we arrived in Cairns, I was very, very sick. A quick trip to the Cairns 24-hour medical centre confirmed that I was suffering from a severe bladder infection brought on by holding on too long. I am now on antibiotics and recovering nicely. The Coconut Resort we are staying in has sparkling clean amenities, so I am quite happy to stay here a few extra nights. Ben even took me shopping to buy a camp toilet to cart around with us so this does not happen again.
I do have a Shewee. What’s a Shewee?? I’m so glad you asked. A Shewee is a device that should make urinating for women as easy as it is for men. It’s like a little cup that sits over your ‘you know where’, and then the wee is supposed to flow out of the attached tube making it as easy for females to piss anywhere as it is for men. Unfortunately, my body elicited the same reaction to the Shewee as to being confronted with public toilets. Need withdrawal.
It seems that the only cure for my terror comes in the form of top-shelf vodka. Once my blood alcohol level reaches a certain point, my fear of public restrooms becomes obsolete, and I will happily go anywhere. While I am quite open to spending the entire trip under the influence (it may make dealing with Rohan and his appetite a little easier), Ben doesn’t think it’s an ideal solution (bloody killjoy).
Anyway, enough toilet talk.
Cairns at the moment is raining and wet. As Frankie is in having a new power steering thingy fitted, we are stuck at the caravan park with kids who are driving me insane. Rohan is arguing with anyone and everyone. He does have brief periods where he stops arguing with people to whine about food. Yesterday, the arguing and whining clashed, which resulted in a tantrum of epic proportions. SOMEONE USED THE BUTTER KNIFE IN THE JAM JAR!!!!! This led to total contamination of the entire contents of the jam jar and had Rohan beside himself with grief/rage/anguish/desolation. This event has led him to question everything. What else has been contaminated with the vile sludge, we refer to as butter? Is the vegemite safe? The pecks paste (anchovette spread)? He concluded that the only safe condiment is honey, as that is in a squeezy bottle. Peanut butter has been ruled out by proxy because its name contains the word butter. No amount of explaining that it does not contain butter will placate him, as he believes that some elaborate scheme has been concocted between Ben, myself and Kraft to trick him into consuming butter disguised as peanuts.
Jasmine has been further enraging Rohan by detailing every little thing Rohan does in her journal. She watches him like a hawk, then as soon as he loses the plot, slowly picks up her pencil and begins, “Dear Diary, Today Rohan said/did…..”. I feel so sorry for our neighbours. The noise level emanating from our campsite would rival that of a rock concert.
Anyway, I’d best be going. Kids want me to watch them in the pool, and I’d better get them out of Trampy before they rip it apart or our neighbours file noise complaints.
Tomorrow we are heading off to Maytown (provided I am suitably recovered from my bladder infection)!!
Thanks for reading.
B xx

Farewell Sweet Mobile Reception!!

We are off!!!!  Currently driving out of my sanctuary, Coconut Resort, and heading into the land where smartphones are useless (except for playing Candy Crush) & Dr Google can’t help you win arguments.

I’m pretty sure there is a ticker tape parade going on behind us as we exit, but I’m not game to look for fear. I’ll be overcome with an urge to jump out of our vehicle & join them.

Rohan’s pre-dawn enthusiasm for life & the females of the Davis clan’s penchant for sleeping in, result in full-blown screaming matches every morning, enough to rouse the whole caravan park.

I’m super glad Kylah has joined us. She gets in & does all the jobs Ben nags me to do (like ensembling bunk beds – although I maintain my arms aren’t long enough for that task!) & she can also help with marriage-saving jobs like directing Ben as he reverses Frankie to hook up to Trampy. Every time I am forced to do that job (direct Ben as he’s reversing Frankie), I feel us inching closer & closer to the big D – divorce. 

Jazzy had the deepest fear of all bottom bunk dwellers realised last night. Isabelle wet the bed. The top bunk!!! Right above poor Jazzy. Jazzy was so distressed, rightfully so, that I don’t know how I’m going to coax her back into bed tonight.  Just makes things more interesting I suppose….

I’m starting to get car sick from typing this as we are driving so I’ll bid my farewell now & have a ton of updates (hopefully positive) to share next time we get mobile reception.

Wish me luck!!!!

B xxx

Kylah directing Ben. Me being very helpful by staying away & playing on my phone.

Maytown and the Palmer River

I’m not sure if you could tell from my last blog posts, but I was slightly apprehensive and a tad less than excited about our upcoming trip. Ben had forewarned me that Mareeba would be the last place I would be able to get telephone/internet reception for a few days so I used this opportunity to call my boss to ensure there was no pressing need for me to return home immediately. Unfortunately, all was good, and there was no imminent crisis that warranted me to quickly hop on a flight home. Bugger. I tearily switched my mobile off as we drove away from Mareeba. Then the strangest thing happened. I began to relax in a way I hadn’t relaxed in years.

The wonderful thing about having such low expectations of a place is that you are almost certainly guaranteed to be pleasantly surprised (unless you are staying in a truckstop, no matter how low your expectations – it will be a million times worse!!) so as we drove through the picturesque countryside I stared out of my window marvelling at the beauty – something I never normally do.
We stopped next to a beautiful billabong and had some lunch, which was ham and salad sangas I had pre-made the night before.
Our destination for the day was a campsite on the Palmer River, not too far from Maytown. Maytown isn’t actually a town – anymore. It’s the remnants of a thriving gold town that existed from the 1870s to the 1940s.
I was a bit dubious as we drove up to Dogleg Creek Campsite, where we were planning to stay for 2 nights. It seemed dusty and barren and void of any shade, water or beauty. We drove along the banks as the dry creek merged into the Palmer River. It was certainly beautiful but didn’t seem to me to be ideal for camping. I finally piped up with “let’s try another campsite shall we???” Ben agreed, and we began to look around for somewhere to turn around which is no easy feat when Frankie is pulling Trampy. Ben sighted a little place next to the river where we could turn around and drive in. “How about we stay here?” Ben suggested. I looked up from my map and saw that we had pulled into a nice sandy, flat area next to the flowing river. There were plenty of trees around, and it was totally isolated. Paradise.
I was quite excited as we set up. The water was clear; it was peaceful and completely untouched. To reach the area you need serious 4wd equipment and a lot of know-how. So it limits the amount of traffic the area receives and those that do come, are generally responsible campers who know how to dig holes so as to not contaminate the place with human waste (from what I’ve seen). Yep. 5 paragraphs, and I’m discussing the bathroom business again. I’ll briefly say that there are no amenities here so you need to use more primitive methods.
It took the kids about 30 seconds to get in the river apart from Rohan, who was having a meltdown. He was concerned that Isabelle was going in the river in the nude and worried that her bum might contaminate the water. This meltdown lasted a good 45 minutes until Ben finally calmed him down by convincing him to make youtube videos of bush skills. He busily set about making a fish trap out of sticks and vines whilst I had to sit very still and record him. His fish trap turned out to be a bit of a dud (I couldn’t find the right materials) so after another 10 minutes of inconsolable crying I convinced him it would be okay for him to make a fish trap using a water bottle for his youtube channel. So he set about making the video with Ben while I patiently filmed it. I must admit. It’s bloody funny. It’s a ripper of a video. He was quite pleased with himself as he was watching it back, but then Jazzy piped up with “Do you realise that Isabelle is running around naked in the background?” More tears. Naked Isabelle had spoiled his swim and now his video. Ben reckons we can blur her out with the right technology, but I’ve got a better idea that I’ll follow up on tomorrow. It involves using Ben’s phone to film the video playing on my phone and using a little leaf to hold over Isabelle, as she darts to and fro in the background in all her glory.
His trap caught a fish. I’ve got an awesome pic of him holding it up with the fish inside. Unfortunately, Isabelle is grinning wildly in the background – still naked.
His next bush skills video is of him trying to start a fire next to the river using steel and flint or as Rohan likes to call it – his primitive fire starter. I have about 10 minutes of footage of him making sparks but failing to get anything going. Mind you, he is certainly able to fill the 10 minutes of footage with not-at-all awkward babble about why his primitive fire starter is not working. Very Steve Irwin-esque. I gave him some matches.
We ate our dinner (dream pot Beef stew – I will try to link the recipe) around the campfire then roasted marshmallows. Ben told the kids all about the stars and local geology. Rohan listened, mesmerised by the number of facts he was learning and would be able to spew out when presented with a person in need of knowing facts. Jazzy and Kylah didn’t even pretend to be interested. They were both engrossed in their Kindles. Don’t know what Isabelle was doing but I’m pretty sure by this stage she was clothed.
After dinner, Jazzy and Kylah put the younger two to bed for us. Ben and I spread a picnic rug beside the fire and snuggled together under the dome of stars. It was absolutely magic. The sand around us glistened as brightly as the night sky due to it being peppered with silica, or as Isabelle called it, fairy dust.
Our second day on the Palmer River was just as good. We woke early. I prepared a cake to cook in the dream pot, and we set off exploring Maytown. There isn’t much left of Maytown. The cobbled sidewalk is pretty much the only thing that stood the test of time. At one stage this little town hosted 3 different pubs, a courthouse, a police station, a post office and numerous shops. Now, apart from the sidewalk, there are just stumps where the buildings had been and plaques telling you what had been where. Everywhere you look, there are pieces of the past just lying on the ground. Bits of old bottles, from a time when glass was 3/4 of an inch thick, old-fashioned nails, horseshoes and bits of pottery.
The graveyard was fascinating. We spent a great deal of time walking around the graveyard with the kids reading the headstones. The kids were shocked that most of the graves were occupied by children and babies. It really makes you appreciate the time we live in where having to bury a baby/child is much less of an occurrence than it was during the late 1800s.
We also visited some of the old mine sites and the kids climbed all over the old, rusty machinery.
I probably appreciated this step back into the past much more than I would have a week ago as I had just finished reading a book about the Gatton Murders. It’s a true story about 3 family members who were killed in Gatton in the 1890s. Yes, I realise that Gatton is a looooooong way from Maytown, but the lifestyle and values of the people were very similar. Whilst reading the book I was transported back in time and my fascination extended to envisioning the same types of workers struggling to survive in this harsh climate.
Returning back to our campsite in the early afternoon Ben and I hand washed all the clothes, using water we carried up from the creek (did I say we?? I meant Ben). The kids made friends with some children at a campsite a couple of hundred metres away so Ben and I were able to enjoy some quiet time again while the kids used their new friend’s canoe.
Dinner was DELICIOUS!! We cooked marinated lamb steaks on the fire (Ben bought a fire plate!!) and had them with a brown rice and quinoa dish. I had a “dump” bag (refer to earlier blog) with veggies, onion, stock etc., in it, and I cooked it up with brown rice and quinoa. The combination of the rice dish with the lamb was sensational!! Who said camping food was boring or bland???
Tomorrow we are heading off to Coen. Ben says we probably won’t get there and will have to stay somewhere along the way. My expectations are again quite low. Apparently, there are a lot of billabongs, but you can’t swim in them because of crocs. There are also a lot more people up that way so there will be fewer opportunities for Isabelle to air her differences.

Thank you for reading!!

B xxx

The day it all went to shit

Yesterday morning, our last morning on the Palmer River was supposed to be a quick breakfast, then an early pack-up so we could move on.

Unfortunately, the best-made plans sometimes go to shit.

For the purposes of this blog entry, I’m going to rename one of my offspring Bob, to protect the pride & esteem of a particular child who may or may not be embarrassed by today’s events.

It started in the early hours of the morning. Poor little Bob was coughing a lung up & not sleeping at all. Eventually, one of Bob’s coughs turned into a massive vomit that covered the top bunk, sheets, blankets & all. Bloody brilliant.

In the commotion that ensued after the vomit, Bob’s Kindle fell from the top bunk & hit poor old sleeping Kylah on the head, just above her eyebrow, leaving a massive lump.

Rather than packing up, we spent the morning washing everything & waiting for it to dry.

We set off from camp at about 10am & managed to go back 3 metres before getting completely bogged in the soft sand. “Get out & dig!!!” Ben commanded. The kids delighted in digging in the sand for about 30 seconds (I didn’t even make it that long!). The next hour was spent digging the wheels out, placing recovery tracks under the wheels, moving 50cm, digging the recovery tracks out again, digging the wheels out again, moving another 50cm and so forth. Over & over & over.

We made it out of there and went about 3km up the road before needing to stop for lunch & a quick dip to wash off. We were now half a day behind schedule.

Back in the car, we all piled & began the long journey away from Palmer River. We didn’t have a considerable distance to cover, but you must go painfully slowly on many unsealed & corrugated tracks.

Poor old Bob was knackered. Between the coughing, vomiting, washing all the bedding (yes, Bob helped) and digging out the car, he was a walking zombie. It took him about 3 minutes to fall asleep in the car.

All was going nicely on the drive. We were finally on our way & everyone was happy. I was just about to drift off into a peaceful slumber when I felt my right leg get really, really warm. Bob pee-ed on me!!

Ben stopped the car & we dragged Bob out, who continued to sleep (& pee) on the side of the road in the long grass. We had to strip car seat covers (thankfully, underneath the car seat cover, the seat is leather), strip me, strip Bob – wash everything with what little water we had left.

Because of this incident, Ben decided that instead of bush camping tonight, we would have to go somewhere with facilities where we could use a washing machine & refill our water (hoorah!!!!!!).

After a good 30 minutes of cleaning up, we set off again.

This time we managed to get about 100km before disaster struck again. Frankie wasn’t happy. Something was wrong with her. So we stopped again, this time near a crocodile-infested creek (just so we could torment the kids with water they could see but not go near).

Ben got Frankie going after a while, but not without another disaster. Poor old Bob had kicked the end off his toe. I happily pulled out my first aide kit (which Ben was adamant was overkill & full of stuff we wouldn’t need) and made a big show of using various “essential” items in the kit while fixing Bob’s toe.

On we went again. This time we made it to our destination, Musgrave River Road House. The grassy sites & clean amenities were a welcome change. Kids all showered, ate their spaghetti Bol & had an early night.

Ben & I sorted the washing out, then meandered over to the pub (yes, we left our sleeping offspring in Trampy), where we enjoyed our first taste of alcohol for the trip and discussed our upcoming plans.

Today we are on our way to Coen for lunch, then Archer River Roadhouse for the night.

I realise I haven’t put many useful camping tips in, so here are some of my best ones so far: Dress like a beekeeper – this will ensure you are not constantly annoyed by or ingesting flies. The only part of my exposed skin is my hands & if I had known in advance how crazy the flies would be (in certain places), I would have bought cotton gloves with me. The mesh net I bought from BCF & it fits over my hat. It isn’t the most attractive look, but hey – I’m not trying to impress.

Another tip I have (to ensure maximum comfort in the face of uncomfortableness) is my “tail saver”. My tail saver (I coined its name) is a piece of memory foam shaped like a wedge with a hole where your tailbone sits. I don’t have a lot of fat on my bum & get a really sore tailbone when presented with hundreds of km of corrugated roads. Yesterday when I was stripped of it (due to it being contaminated with urine), I realised just how uncomfortable the journey is without it. Poor Ben & the kids don’t know what they are missing!! (My tail saver is another of my “essential” items that Ben said was a waste of space.

The kids don’t have iPads or DVDs to occupy them in the car (we are so old school), so they’ve made do with Kindles, Karaoke, the family beatboxing and oldies like “99 bottles of beer on the wall”.

Thanks for reading my blog!! With all the shit that went wrong yesterday, we still made it through the day with smiles (actually, I momentarily lost my smile when Bob pee-Ed on me).

B xxx

An example of the number of flies one can attract here. Ben attracts 10 times as many!!

Kylah’s injured forehead.

Broken down.

Bee Keeper get up

Coen

Today has been blissfully uneventful and probably my favourite day so far.
After leaving Musgrave Station this morning, we travelled to Coen where we intended to get fuel & pies before heading off to our next stop.
We pulled up at a free campsite called ‘The Bend’ to eat our pies and fell in love. We are still here now. It is a lush, green campsite nestled by a flowing creek filled with spring water that has trickled down from nearby mountains. It is completely secluded so Isabelle had a wonderful time airing her differences in the creek while the rest of us looked on in total envy.

Coen has mobile reception (wahoo!!!) so Ben and I have been glued to our screens a fair bit this afternoon while the kids swam and played on the banks of the creek. Ben assured me that this particular creek was not Croc territory so I tried hard not to worry about one of the kids being eaten alive by an archaic monster (the internet was an awesome distraction!!). Dinner was chicken stew with brown rice & quinoa, and then we toasted marshmallows and had a family movie night. I promise to start putting the Dream Pot recipes on one of these days – so delicious!!

Pretty boring day to read about but one of the best days of my life (it totally has to make the top 40 anyway).

Because today was so void of adventure or shenanigans, I thought I’d share a bit more about Trampy, our camper trailer.

Trampy is made by Eagle Camper Trailers, and I believe they refer to her as ‘Cheyenne’ (Trampy is a much better name – I don’t know what they were thinking!!). With a family of 6, we are pretty limited in options, and this trailer suited us perfectly. Ben can set her up in about 5 minutes on his own. Please don’t assume that if we pitched in and helped him it would take less than 5 minutes because truth be told we get in the way and make it longer. Trampy is a hard floor trailer so no one needs to sleep out in an annexe. It has a queen bed that pushes back, and then the sides fold out to reveal two sets of bunks. There are two large drawers inside and 4 cupboards. The kitchen swings out from the tail and has a 4 burner gas cooktop, sink, drawers and fold-down bench. On the outside of the trailer, there are numerous cupboards, toolboxes and a fridge slide. We have two fridges. One is used as a freezer and is mounted in Frankie, and the other is used as a fridge and is in Trampy. If we wanted to set up the awning or annexe at the front, it would take an extra 20 minutes, but generally, we have just found shady spots and haven’t needed to do so.

Today’s camping tips are going to involve packing. We were very limited in space so every item was scrutinised to determine its usability and need. Generally speaking, everything I “needed” to keep myself comfortable and therefore not grumpy was declared essential and packed. We then worked out what to put in the space that was left after all my essential items were safely tucked inside Frankie and the Tramp.

The kids and Ben have camping towels that resemble shammy that people use to dry cars. They are small but super absorbent and dry really quickly. They each have two, and they are all colour coded so we know which one belongs to who. I have a towelling robe (to wear to the showers) a towel, and one of those hair wrap towel thingys. Plus, a spare towel in case my main towel gets contaminated (thank God!! One was contaminated with urine so definitely a good move). It really isn’t fair but as I keep saying to the kids when they complain “It is hard work and really painful being me. I don’t want you to grow up as dependent on towels and pillows as I am.” See. I’m doing them a favour.

Socks are also an item that is colour coded. Everyone has their own colour socks to make it easy to tell who belongs to which socks. In fact, everything is colour coded. Down to the kid’s pencil cases and pencils. I wrapped coloured tape around the bottom of each set of pencils, and now when I see a pencil lying around on the ground, I know exactly who to yell at (Rohan).

Anyway, I’m not really inspired to keep writing tonight. I’m a bit sleepy as a result of my lazy day, but I felt compelled to write something as I won’t have internet reception till next Tuesday and didn’t want to disappoint my 7 fans/followers of my blog.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Eliot Falls and Fruit Bat Falls where we are going to spend 4 days doing the telegraph track. I’ve heard it’s serious 4wding. I hope my tail saver is up for the challenge.

Thanks for reading!!

B xx

P.s. I’ll try to take some videos of river crossings for you, complete with commentary from Bob!!

P.p.s I’ve added some pics of today along with some pics of Frankie & Trampy. Can’t be bothered writing captions so please feel free to imagine your own!!

Here is a pic of the front of Trampy. Ben pissed off the stone guard it came with & added an extra toolbox to house jerry cans, gas bottles & tools (which were previously attached behind the stone guard). He then needed to make a vent on the fridge cupboard door as the new toolbox covered the original vent. You can see the new vent sitting just above the Eagle.

Falls-ing in love with Cape York

I must admit, I really knew very little about Cape York before this adventure. Having spent 2 years living on Horn Island, I am very familiar with the Torres Straits islands and have visited Bamaga, Weipa & Seisa but apart from that, I had no idea about the surrounding countryside. As I said in a previous post, my expectations were very, very low. I was imagining disgusting heat with no chance of a cool respite in the form of swimming (too many crocs) and muddy, humid, mosquito-infested swamps. I imagined Ben dragging us from swamp to swamp forcing me to look at different flora & fauna then getting annoyed when the interest I feigned wasn’t at an appropriate level of enthusiasm. So far there has been none of that. The closest we’ve come is when Ben launched into a description of a carnivorous plant he found, and I actually found it quite interesting (I will include a picture of it).

Instead, we’ve been spending our days going from stunning waterfall to stunning waterfall in areas completely devoid of crocodiles and mostly void of mosquitos.  We left Coen at the crack of sparrows fart on Saturday morning to make the loooong journey to our next campsite. The campsite was a mere 180km away, but it took us about 6 hours due to bad roads, road works and stopping for children to pee. On one of these stops, we think Rohan’s most favourite toy, Dipliosaurus (not sure if that’s how you spell it) fell out of the car and is now lost in the wilderness.  Rohan has been stricken with grief ever since poor old Diplio left us and is constantly upset. Like the little schemer that he is he has been using our pity to extract lots of extra things out of us. Ben tried to cheer him up by letting him drive Frankie; I slipped him an extra bit of carrot cake; the girls are all being exceptionally nice.  Don’t know how long this favourable treatment will need to go on for though.
In order to get to our campsite, we had to do our first creek crossing.  The creek we needed to cross was approx 60m wide and full of brown murky water. With absolutely no regard whatsoever for personal safety, Ben got out of the car and stomped all through the creek to determine the best route to take when we drive across. I was torn. Should I stay in the car, safe and dry and out of reach of crocodiles, or should I get out and cross the creek so I could film Frankie driving through? Obviously, I chose the latter. Who can resist when there is a chance to get a viral Youtube video? I pulled off my shoes and went barefoot through a clear part of the creek then climbed up the embankment, which jutted out beside the brown water and did the rest of the crossing in mud and dense grass. After a great deal of deliberation, and stomping, Ben finally got in the car to drive through the creek.  I filmed it, but it is no viral youtube video. It’s hardly entertaining at all. Should have stayed in the car. I will post the video, but Ben would like me to point out that there is an error in my commentary. When I say “Oooh! Looks like Frankie is struggling a bit!!!” I am wrong. Ben said she did not struggle at all. He was just taking it easy for reasons that I did not care to pay attention to.

Our campsite is called Canal Creek and is a short distance from the crossing and is next to a beautiful freshwater creek. It’s a popular spot for travellers due to its proximity to Eliot & Twin Falls. It’s not as densely packed as campsites down south, but still, we aren’t alone (as we have been for most of the trip – bar the truckstops and Cairns).  Setting up was an arduous task. Rohan by this stage had discovered his dinosaur toy was missing and was near hysterical. Isabelle needed to poo well before the shovel had been unpacked which threw a spanner in the works and Kylah decided that she had had enough and sprawled flat out, face down in the dirt refusing to budge. Jazzy was quite helpful though. I couldn’t find my fly net which led me to be almost as hysterical as Rohan…. it wasn’t good. Luckily Ben is unfazeable and plodded along doing all the work while Rohan and I frantically searched for our beloved items, Isabelle pooed, and Kylah slept in the dirt.
Thankfully my fly net was located, and I was able to relax without fear of inhaling a fly. After Ben had set us up and sorted us all out we took off to Eliot Falls. No, that’s not a typo. Eliot Falls is spelt with one L. Generally I’m not a big swimmer. I don’t like pools unless the temperature is hotter than 35 degrees. Even then, I’d prefer air conditioning to a pool as I hate the smell of chlorine. I’m not overly fond of the beach either because I’m scared of sharks, blue bottles and getting sand in my pants. The only place I truly love to swim is in freshwater. Eliot Falls is just that. Pure fresh spring water coming down from the mountains. It is without a doubt the most beautiful place I have ever been. The 4wd tracks and river crossings make it difficult to get to so it is in large part untouched by hoards of people coming in to destroy its beauty. We had Eliot and Twin Falls to ourselves, right in the middle of peak season!!

The falls go on and on for what seems like forever. They are surrounded by wattle trees and native plants and have clear little pools in between each fall. Some of the falls are big with deep pools, and others are smaller and have shallow waters. The smell of the freshwater is incredible and overpowering. You can almost smell the crispness in the air. We all jumped straight into the falls and swam around. Ben spent so much time under the actual waterfall that his hands and feet became soft and white again. Like a newborn baby’s. They almost could have passed for an accountant’s hands. I’m not sure how many of you have ever inspected Ben’s hands or feet, but his constant building and fixing have led to hands and feet that continually look dirty, even after he has washed them. I took a picture of his hands so I could remember them that way, soft and clean.

Back at camp that night we discussed tomorrow’s plans around the fire. Ben wanted to do the old telegraph track so that he could do a few more creek crossings (minus Trampy, who was staying at Canal Creek) and watch some people do the crossing at Shot Gun Creek, which is supposed to be the worst crossing on the Cape.
————————— Sunday ———————————
We left early Sunday morning to do the old Telegraph track. I found the soothing, rocking motion of 4wd-ing to be very conducive to napping so I can’t tell you too much about the actual track. I woke briefly to film a few creek crossings but then was lulled straight back into a deep slumber as soon as we were through.

We arrived at our destination, Gun Shot Creek, at about lunchtime. The kids and Ben went straight down to the Creek to get in amongst the action, while I slowly meandered my way down. It was on my way to the creek when I made the astounding discovery of a whole new subspecies of Bogan!! I’m no taxonomist, so this species may have already been discovered, but in case they haven’t, I quickly named them Fogans. For ‘Four Wheel Drive Bogans’ (my other option was Offgans but that doesn’t have the same ring to it).

Fogans are very similar to their cousins Bogans in that they both are really into cars, drink spirits from cans and congregate in big groups of testosterone-filled men (with the odd scantily clad woman here and there). Instead of the Ford/Holden arguments that Bogans are prone to, Fogans will argue about Nissans or Landcruisers (no argument really. Landcruisers are waaaay better). Whilst Bogans are concerned with making their cars go faster, look flashier or sound louder, Fogans are all about how tough their car is, how much recovery gear they have and how many war wounds it has.

In the creek, sitting just up from the crossing were a group of Fogans, seemingly blissfully unaware of the ‘Warning Estuarine Crocodiles inhabit these waters’ sign mere meters away. They all had their JB in a can & cigarettes hanging from their mouths as they sat in the cloudy, brown water and watched in fascination as 4wd after 4wd did the crossing.

I’m probably going to get told I’m wrong about this as I wasn’t paying too much attention to the crossing (the Fogans had me captivated) but as far as I can tell there are about 5 different ways to cross the creek. One is quite easy and is given the very honourable name of ‘Chicken Track’. This is the one you would take if you had 4 children and were secure enough in your manhood that you did not need to prove anything. The other crossings were INSANE!!! One was a giant slide, I’m guessing at a 75-degree angle, down into the water where you have to slide across the water and then try to make it up an equally steep muddy slope on the opposite side of the creek.

We watched on as one Fogan did this crossing; he made it halfway up the muddy slope on the other side before reversing into a tree (this was met with lots of cheers from his mates) whilst trying to get enough grip to get out.
Thankfully Ben deems Frankie far too precious for suck endeavours so we returned to our car to eat lunch and leave.
The afternoon’s activities involved visiting a place called ‘Fruit Bat Falls’. After seeing Eliot falls the day prior, I did not think it possible to find anywhere else on Earth quite as beautiful and magical. As is often typical, I was wrong.

Fruit Bat Falls was stunning and huge, filled with fresh spring water from nearby mountains. Again the water was so crystal clear and refreshing – absolutely perfect. We sat underneath the waterfall and let the water beat down on our shoulders, massaging them with force. Mine were kinked from napping at a weird angle in the car….. Ben’s were kinked from all the work he does. There were no kinked shoulders by the time we’d finished though. I really don’t have the words to describe the falls so I’ll add some photos at the bottom of the blog.
Back at camp, we had chocolate muffins (cooked in the Dream Pot) and lasagna (also cooked in the Dream Pot) and an early night.
—————————— Monday ———————————
This morning Ben took the kids on a discovery hike up Canal Creek. I had a big sleep in then pottered around making lunch (Minestrone Soup) and a Carrot Cake before plonking down in my cosy camp chair and reading my book.
The kids and Ben arrived back from their hike famished, and we ate our lunch before heading off for another swim at Eliot Falls.

Tomorrow we are leaving and heading to the tip. We are staying at a beachside campsite in Umagico. I’m trying to decide whether I ditch Ben and the kids and hop on the Ferry to Horn Island to visit all my old friends, or whether I do the responsible thing and stay with the family.
Tough choice!!
Thank you for reading!!
B xx

P. S. Pics are taking too long to load so I’ll make an album on FB & add them to the blog later.