Day 51– Saturday 6 August 2016 – Hughenden - Townsville

I guess today was full of milestone moments although there are one or two that weren't quite what we bargained for.   We spent our last night in what could (at a pinch) be described as an outback location.  Knowing we had another big day of 382km we set our alarm for 6.30am.  Don't ask me what happened but we weren't ready to leave until 8.30am and I don't know where the time went.  We've left earlier on days where we got up later.  I think it's one of those unsolved mysteries of the universe.  We did receive a sendoff from these two cheeky little people at the caravan park who were very curious about what we were up to.

The first quarter of the trip was slow and ruled by horribly bumpy roads that not only rearranged your caravan cupboards but also your internal organs as well.  The one saving grace was a constantly changing environment that tended to hold your attention, unlike yesterday when the only excitement was the power poles changing from one side of the road to the other!  Today though we passed over an amazing number of Creeks and Rivers.  Most of them were dry or very little water at all but even the dry beds have such amazing character about them.

The cows continued to play with my mind.  This time one camouflaged itself as a sign draped with some sort of cloth.  I saw it move.  It was a cow I tell you - right beside the road.  And then it was a sign.

If that wasn't bad enough then the budgies started to conspire against me.  I was berating a budgie for sitting in the middle of the lane only moving slightly to the side, when it suddenly turned into a large ball of brown paper.   

And speaking of signs - this is the second one we have seen of this one.....  Isn't there a little irony in there!!!!!    1800 Splatt - well they do say don't text and drive.

Ahhh yes.  The days have been long.............

The saddest moment of the drive was sighting the last cheddar shape at the bottom of the container.  Neither Shane nor I could bring ourselves to eat it so we gave it to Scheppi.  Goodbye Cheddar Shapes.  We loved you!

We reached the outskirts of Townsville by around 1.30pm and our focus was finding Battery World to try to resolve the issue of our battery power.  It seemed a new battery was the answer to our prayers although at the cost of $369 I was tossing up could I live without it.  But we opted to replace which took only a short while (read 10 minutes - not a bad hourly rate!).  

It was a tight squeeze to navigate out of the alley that Battery World use as their "service lane" and as I was being guided out around the corner by the technician and Shane hopped back in the car I noticed smoke coming from the front of the caravan.  I urged him to get out and have a look as I stopped the car and thick smoke started pouring out of the front locker as he opened the door.  He raced back to the Battery World workshop and I was torn between getting the fire extinguisher out of the van or grabbing the dogs from the car and running for our lives.  People rushed from everywhere and I asked what the hell is going on.  The technician sheepishly states - "connected the wires to the wrong terminals"...........  WHAT????????????

An hour and a half later we are finally driving away after having to have very melted wiring replaced, a new Anderson plug installed, lots of testing done and a business card from the owner assuring us that if ANYTHING doesn't work properly to please give him a call.  It was such a stressful time and we both realised just how close we came to losing everything we had in the van - computers, harddrives, memorabilia, clothing, thousands of dollars worth of dog show equipment - all because this guy got his job wrong - even with a 50% chance of hooking up two terminals correctly.

Just to finish off the day we were in the process of trying to navigate our way down the highway to the caravan park we had booked into and my phone battery went flat.  Shane changed to his phone and it was flat as well.  We finally found the park, pulled into our site, got everything set up and poured a very well earned glass of wine.  

Welcome to Townsville!  Meanwhile, this was the view out my door tonight.