Day 469 Camooweal – Mckinlay (Australia) / motorbike GS Dakar RTW overland adventure traveller

• Left – 10.30am
• 17th July 2015
• Miles rode – 263 (421km)

It was cold again last. I woke at 7am but didn’t feel like venturing outside so stayed in my sleeping bag for another hour. I needed to do some checks on the bike and make some adjustments so it was 10.30 when I left the campsite, I was the last to leave.

I saw my first emu shortly after leaving and then I saw my first kangaroos (I think the ones I saw previously were wallabies), maybe 50 to 100 of them I imagine, I would like to share my experiences of them jumping around in the great Australian outback but I can’t because they were all dead! Their heads and bodies had been smashed open by cars and lorries and their blood was dried on the road and showed where they were hit and the path their carcasses had been dragged along before they came to rest. It was obvious when I was approaching a dead kangaroo as many Eagles would be ripping flesh from the carcass, as I got closer they would fly away but obviously some had too much kangaroo and couldn’t fly away quick enough as there were dead Eagles on the verge too.

Skippy had skipped his last skip.

As usual I have time to ponder and my thoughts wandered off and fantasised about this mass killing. I kept thinking about the ‘Norwegian Blue’ / the ‘Dead Parrot Sketch’. I felt like saying ‘didn’t your mother warn you about playing in the road?’ 

As I continued along the road I saw more and more roadkill and the blood stains became more frequent, how many kangaroos are killed each day I thought? Not only kangaroos but cattle and eagles too.

I arrived at Mount Isa for lunch and realised there was nothing there for me so continued East and decided to take a dirt road, I stopped for a drink in the middle of nowhere and a new 4WD came along and stopped beside me, it was the cattle station owner. We talked for an hour and he said he owned a cattle station the size of England and had 20,000 cattle, I really enjoyed our conversation. He suggested I stop for the night in Mckinlay as the hotel (pub) there is where they filmed ‘Crocodile Dundee’.

Mckinlay is a small town, so small I think it only has a dozen buildings including the petrol station and hotel (pub) where I camped for the night, as usual everyone else had massive motor holmes and caravans. When a town only has one pub the options for a Friday night out are limited. The ‘Walkabout Creek Hotel’ (the pub) was where they filmed the movie ‘Crocodile Dundee’, Mick Dundee wasn’t propping up the bar but a combination of Stockmen and travellers were. I joined Andy & Vicki from Sydney and had the obligatory ‘rump steak’ as I was in cattle territory, we had a good evening and they invited me to stay with them when I get to Sydney. See you guys in a few weeks.

The cold weather is still about and as soon as the sun went down the temperature dropped to what seemed like zero. Another night in my small tent freezing I thought but Andy & Vicki gave me a blanket so I was really warm. Typical Australian hospitality.

I watched everyone else get into their warm caravans and I was cold and alone in my really small tent. Being alone is ok but being cold is not, but I did have the blanket tonight.

So, I’m in bed with; thermal underwear, socks, trousers, t-shirt, fleece, woolly hat, sleeping bag liner, sleeping bag & blanket.

What a glamorous life I have.