Day 43 - Weipa to Musgrave Roadhouse

It was moving day again.  Pack up went well, we r really getting the pack up down pat! Before leaving we filled Charlie and all the jerry cans.  Weipa had reletively cheap fuel at $1.66, so everything was thrown at it to make it to Cairns without filling up. A total of 120 litres all up for $200!  Road going out was good, but you can tell when you go from Rio to council road.  Once you move to the council maintained roads they result in a more boat like motion than a road with corrugations in the middle of the ups and downs to fill in the gaps.  

Further south we started to head up on roads we had travelled on before.  Compared to when we went up it has had some work done.  The corrugations were mostly gone with a few small ones already started to come back.  The grader however took the corrugations away but introduced rather large rocky outcrops which make quite a bit of bounce if you hit them.  We thought that we had escaped the worst of the road.  

That was until the the last 65 kms.  It was still what we remembered, bounced, gouged out, rough and with plenty of bull dust to boot.  We got into Musgrave around 4pm, a total of 360 km into a shocking head wind.  Used nearly a whole tank of gas through all the day.  We were all rather nackered by the end of the day.  Setting up tent was all from memory, we were just moving in slow motion with all three adults feeling lack luster.

 Camp in Musgrave station

After a few liquid refreshments and a quick chat with our neighbours, dinner was once again pulled together fantastically by Katie, sausage hotpot.  Clear skies meant a nice warm meal would be good as we sensed the chilliness building in the air.  Nothing like down south I know but we have certainly aclimatised and got used to shorts and tee shirt weather.

Chris tried something new, jam roll in the camp oven, with the boys "helping" in the preparation of the dough.  We had the fire going and in it went.  We were chatting to our neighbour Gary who had joined our fire.  He was very quite about the camp oven activity.  It turns out that he was actually Victorian Camp oven champion.  If fact he was champion 3 years in a row.  So no pressure Uncle Chris!  We, including Gary, agreed that it was a great desert. This was visible by the disappearance of the whole thing within 15 minutes of it coming out the oven.

We were all in bed by 9:30 even with the camp fire.  Travels continue tomorrow, south, closer to that chilly weather!