On the next day we were heading for Mount Isa for re-stocking, laundry & internet. I also popped at Queensland Transport Office to enquire about transferring my European licence to Australian one. We took also small drive to the town lookout. Gotta say, after seeing quite a few outback towns, Mt. Isa really felt nice, I wouldn't mind moving here some day. Our next destination was Cloncurry from where turned north towards Normanton. All of us wanted to avoid coastline between Townsville & Cairns cause all of are plannin to do road trip in east coast at some point so we decided to take inland route to Cairns. We parked up fairly early, again in-the-middle-of-nowhere, right next to highway and yet again we had the whole place to ourseves. Me & Taavi we're sittin on our chairs next to highway reading our books, what a way to chill out. Most of the few passing cars waived and honked at us, nice.
Next day we explored Normanton a bit and then decided to head towards coast, to Karumba. We found nice and fairly cheap caravan park next to beach. Others bought some prawns, barra & salmon from town for dinner but I wasn't so fuzzed about seafood that day so I just opted cooking by myself in camper while others were having BBQ at the beach. After few hours guys came back and Taavi was a bit blooded, he had slipped on the rocks and hurt his hands. Apparently he even felt a bit dizzy, reckon he had a wee concussion but luckily no broken bones. Obviously, he called it an early night and I was again the last one to go to bed, I stayed few hours online since reception area had a free wi-fi, not a very common thing in Australia.
On the next morning we we're on our third last leg towards Cairns. Re-fuelling in Normanton and then towards Croydon where we would have a lunch break and take a look at Lake Belmore. At first we stopped at tourist information center and how lucky we we're again - tour bus had just left and they had some extra sandwiches as leftovers which we're offered to us. Again, what a nice persons these aussies are. After our wee lunch we headed for Lake Belmore where Taavi & Lou went for a swim. We spent quite a long time at the lake after heading for our next camping site, Cumberland, about 130km from Croydon. On our way there was again few single-lane parts on highway and even a single-lane river crossing. Our camping ground itself was a bit random area next to some historic site with chimney and a small billabong next to it. Guess I had become a bit tired of taking photos of our camping grounds lately, more or less they're all about the same with some exceptions.
After Cumberland we headed towards Undara Volcanic National Park. On our way passing Mt. Surprise we even found a free car-wash, neat. Well, actually, it was supposed to be used by cars travelling west but what the heck, since we had a chance, why not. Eventually we arrived to Undara. Heidi & Taavi opted for a tour in the volcanic caves and me & Lou opted for a wee walk. We we're headin towards Atkinson's Lookout. On our way stumbled across few roos, one of them scared the shit out of us by jumping out of the bush just about 2-3metres ahead of us. That one was scared and hopped far away but then we saw two others, mummy and her joey who weren't quite that scared. They let us approach up to 5metres of them before hopping away, nice creatures. The lookout itself was nice but nothing spectacular. After all of us joining back at the camper we headed for one volcano where you could take a walk around. Well, others did the whole 2,5km walk, I just walked on top and back, just wanted to photograph more roos that we're down at the car park. Again, it was getting fairly late and it was pretty dark when we arrived to our camping ground, Archer Creek, about 140km from Cairns. This place was pretty nice but there was a busy highway right next it with a downhill and lots of traffic, road trains passing through the whole night and using their engine breaks on the downhill. Obviously, us guys didn't sleep that well in our tents.
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