Change of plans

 29/05/2012
  Having spent the last few days travelling roughly south along the Burkes and Wills highway, we have reached the east west Flinders Highway and turned left at Cloncurry. We will be heading east for the next couple of days. We have been along this road a couple of times in the past and it hasn’t got any less boring! The whole area is very flat and scrubby with sparsely wooded areas of eucalypts and acacias.
 After re-supplying at Cloncurry we drove over this vast prairie to Julia Creek, a small town we have stayed in before. We have pulled into a campsite in order to do some washing and get ourselves scrubbed up after 3 nights free camping in the bush.

 30/05/2012
  Still travelling east across this monotonous plain, we have clocked 260K of it today, that being the distance between Julia Creek and Hughenden, where we are tonight. The town of Richmond was the only respite on this boring  journey.
 The reason we are doing this part of our journey is to get to a little known part of Queensland called Porcupine Gorge which is just over 70K north of Hughenden and is said to be well worth a visit. We plan to go there tomorrow but things may change as Jane has developed a raging toothache. If it doesn’t clear itself up we may have to make a dash for the nearest big town 250k away, Charters Towers.

  31/05/2012
 Our planned route has taken a temporary detour as we are now a 3 ½ hour drive out of our way. Jane’s toothache is no better and the nearest dentist is here at Charters Towers. We phoned from Hughenden this morning and got an emergency appointment for this afternoon and so hot footed it across the 250Kto arrive for a 2- 45pm appointment. At least the journey east wasn’t quite so boring as the previous 500k as there were some little bends, a few small hills, trees and some creeks to look at. We also travelled over the great dividing range.
 The upshot of it all is a fractured tooth which needs treating after a course of antibiotics. So now we are stuck until Monday when the tooth can be fettled.
 We are on a decent enough campsite on the edge of town so we will stay for perhaps 2 nights and head out somewhere bush for 2 nights before returning here on Monday.

 01/06/2012
  It’s exactly one year since we left Perth on our travels and of course we needed to re-insure our van. Surprise surprise it cost exactly the same as 12 months ago, no inflation here! We filled up with diesel and it was cheaper than a year ago, good news but I can’t see the tooth bill being cheap.
 Today is officially the first day of winter but as we are in the tropics it’s classed as the dry season. You wouldn’t know that as it’s raining all over Queensland and chilly with it. Just a blip we are told!