Day 2 drive Cairns to Melbourne, an easy day

We intended to drive for 8 hrs today but detoured at about 300 kms to Airlie Beach/ Shute Harbour a kind of famo7s access point to the Whitsunday Passage, lots of islands and the Great Barrier Reef.
The 300km we drove were easy highway through  very dry country, dry river beds, low hills and these dominating giant blue skies in this part of Queensland. I'd like to comment on the people and the local cultural aspects but there aren't any.
We are staying in an apartment with a view of harbour and its n8ce...hot day, cooling in the afternoon, around $170au per night.
Last night in Townsville we stayed at the Aquarius on the beach, and that was really n8ce, at $100 a night. We had a good meal at the Watermark Restaurant nearby in Townsville last night and saw Jonathan Thurston an Australian rugby league football hero and his team at the next 5able. THE Watermark restau4ant has very good food and service and the dinner for 2...2 entrees, pasta and mussels, and one main dish of half kilo tbone steak, a glass of red wine and 9ne of lemade was $120, which is a lot but we were tired and it was
nearby. We will go out somewhere nearby here in Airlie Beach and it will be costly too I expect as it is a bit of annternational destination with the islands and reef etc. And tomorrow we will do the long drive to Central Queensland straight down a straight highway One for about 8 hours. Just had a swim. I think in a few days the weariness we have from ge ting ready for the trip and packing up the house etc will give way to more ease and relaxation. Bye from Airlie Beach, Queensland.

Journey Cairns to Melbourne Day One of the 3000km drive.

Woke up at 4am from a late night feverishly packing the Nissan Navara 4x4 dual cab ute pick up, from sleeping on the yoga mat in Cairns, and advised Mrs Fitz that I had forgotten how to stand up.
After re learning how to stand up from a yoga mat, we did lots of things and finally departed by Nissan Navara, packed to the hilt, literally, at 11am. 4 hours 40 minutes later, traversing the big change from the wet tropics of unending green to the Dry Tropics of Townsville 400km South of Cairns, we made good time on a bright clear highway, stopped a few times, and now are esconced in a Townsville motel called Aquarius on The Beach...as it is on the beach...pics follow.

The Removalists come in the morning, or so they say. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I really don't know anymore...it really doesn't matter any more...much like Colonel Kurtz somewhere in the lost Apocalypse jungles of Indochina...it just doesn't matter any more...I've gone beyond all that....2.15am at the moment, the screech of packing tape and the slash of the blade. They call him "Box-Cutter Johnny" now.

The Removalists come in the morning, or so they say. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I really don't know anymore...it really doesn't matter any more...much like Colonel Kurtz somewhere in the lost Apocalypse jungles of Indochina...it just doesn't matter any more...I've gone beyond all that....2.15am at the moment, the screech of packing tape and the slash of the blade. They call me "Box-Cutter Johnny" now.

So, driving from Cairns to Melbourne...7 days, 2,974.35 km, yes, that's okay. Easy. We can do that and still have time for a bit of surfing. Still amazing what can become okay when the heart is set on it and the wheels of one's powers and machinations are fully applied....or, as they say, when the blowtorch is applied to the belly of meaning.

So, driving from Cairns to Melbourne...7 days, 2,974.35 km, yes, that's okay. Easy. We can do that and still have time for a bit of surfing. Still amazing what can become okay when the heart is set on it and the wheels of one's powers and machinations are fully applied....or, as they say, when the blowtorch is applied to the belly of meaning.

Earlville, Cairns, is an interesting place to live. I was just at Stockland shops getting 10 metres of pre-packaged bubble wrap (can I have that wrapped, please? No, get out!). I went to the Bottle Shop to get my daily bottle of Guinness (+ 2 on a Sunday, for Christ's sake), and, anyway, there was this giant of a man, giant like a Samoan guy, except white, in the shop wandering about quacking like a duck. Aisle to aisle, quack, quack, quack. I was going to laugh and say hello, as I usually would, and enter into some banter and social intercourse on ducks and how their quack has no echo, as I usually do, but then he started talking to the bottles as if in love..."How do you do, Jack Daniels, how do you today? Hahahaha! Quack Quack Quack..." and he spoke it in a guttural Belfast O'Hooligan dialect, so I thought I best leave him be. Obviously deep in prayer.

curios

a really good album to not do work to: Bob Dylan's Self Portrait...Get you a copper kettle, get you a copper coil, fill it with home made corn mash, and never more we'll toil...we'll just lay there by the juniper whilst the moon is high, watch them jugs a filing' in the pale moon light. My daddy he made whiskey, my grandaddy he did too...we aint paid no whiskey tax since 1792...