Still in a shiver, I’ve watched the sun come up, unable to
sleep in the cold damp humid camper. The rest stop we laid up in was quite a
nice large park with a pond in the middle. Several different kinds of birds
scoured the ground in search of their early morning breakfast while a thick
eerie fog hung in the humid air. Enough is enough, I’m getting up and going to
have myself a bird bath over in the washrooms, grab my towel and go for a walk
in the early morning fog as the others sleep. Walking past the pond full of
vegetation and wildlife, my mind can’t help but realize that I’m now getting
into crock country, and my senses are on high alert, even though I know there
is little danger. A quick splash, wash and dry and I’m a new man heading back
to the camper.
The rest of the crew are now rolling out of bed, getting
ready for a long days travel towards Townsville, 1200 kilometres away. As we
hit the road, the fog lifts and the blazing sun beats down, temperature
shooting north of 30-degrees and it isn’t even 8 in the morning. While the rest
of the crew are basking in the heat, my Nordic blood is reacting in a much
different manner. The refreshed cleanliness of my morning wash turns into a
mid-morning mess of sweat and burning skin. I figured a day spent in the car
wouldn’t require slapping on the sun block for at least a couple more hours, oh
how wrong I was.
As is becoming a morning ritual, we find a McDonalds in
Bundaburg for a bit of breakfast and short jaunt of Facebook and blog updating.
Then it’s back on the road heading north, where more heat and humidity lies in
wait. Now with sunscreen on, it doesn’t seem to matter, with the sun beating
down at an angle; my left arm is a slave to the unrelenting rays. Stuck in my
seat, the Nissan just keeps getting hotter and hotter, and word of stopping on
a beach a ways up the coast is a refreshing sound as I sweat away, only the hot
breeze coming through the window keeping me sane.
As we work our way north, the scenery change is magnificent.
The lush tropical hills of Surfers Paradise fads into the wide open expanses of
savannah, wide open flat country with large trees sparsely spread throughout,
with low pointed mountains far off in the distance, it’s a mixture of the
African savannah and coastal mountains of Asia. By 2 pm, I’m working my third
litre of water, and it occurs to me that I haven’t gone to the washroom yet.
Soon, we come across sand dunes, and just beyond the beach,
and we pull over for a much needed dip, four men peeling themselves out of the
hot stinky Nissan. The ocean never looked so good, it’s just a shame it’s so
far away. We hit at the height of low tide, and the long shallow beach
stretched on for kilometres, a refreshing dip a frustratingly harsh hike away.
So, a quick moment to unwind on the beach, and we are back into the stink box
for another 8-hours.
By the time it was my turn to drive, darkness had fallen,
and reaching Townsville today was just not going to happen. As fatigue took its
toll, I searched for a rest stop to spend the night. However, it would take
another hour before we would find anything, and in our desperation, a truck
stop would have to do. However, the Nissan began to run rough pulling into the
stop, stalling several times when jumping on the clutch, a new challenge is
likely ahead.
I wake up in another sweaty mess, just wanting to get out of
bed, very little sleep as big diesel rigs pass by all night. However, a
glorious sunrise gives some beauty to an otherwise uninspiring truck stop. Back
on the road, it only takes us a couple hours to reach Townsville, a nice
tropical city on the ocean that wraps around a large plateau. It’s a beautiful
city, and we find a caravan park right on the ocean. Ah, we’ll get that ocean
swim after all. “Nope, there’s stingers in the water there, the closest
swimming area is down the coast,” utters the attendant at the park. Damn.
We set up, and do final checks on all the equipment and
electronics giving Glen and Marks issues, while the truck is giving me and
Craig stress as well. The humidity here is ridiculous and the temp is well over
30, how far I have no idea, and I don’t want to know, however, it all hit me in
an instant, lifting a load into the roof rack. All of a sudden my head goes
light, and my heart begins to race. I know exactly what going on and stumble
over to the tap to douse my head and body with water, which doesn’t make me any
wetter than my already sweat drenched cloths and take in as much water as I my
stomach can handle. My energy level plummets as heat overtakes my body. “I’m
out,” I comment as I stumble over to the shade of a tree. The heat finally got
me, I’d been battling it since I landed two weeks ago, and now I lay exhausted
and useless against a tree, as mosquitos attack every inch of my body; a camel
back tube constantly hanging from my mouth.
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