Day 8 - Mount Molloy to Archer River Roadhouse, by Tilly

This morning when we got up, there was a lady with a stall selling dried mangoes and slices. We went over and bought some slices, then had a look at some cool flowers that shrivel up when you touch them to hide. Then a man called Steve got talking to Dad and Bill and said that it was a good fishing spot in the creek, so Bill went down and had a go and reckons he’s full of it.

After we had packed up, we got in the cars and headed towards Weipa. I was with Dad and it turns out today was going to be a long drive due to the bad roads. Siri was telling us it was 600kms, but she was also saying it would take 9 1/2 hours to get there. We were soon to find out that it would take us longer still.

We started on a normal road, but the sign said take the road with caution, which made Mum a bit nervous. Dad couldn’t work out why people were saying that it was so bad … and then we hit the dirt. There was over 100kms of dirt road before we were to get where we were going. We averaged about 60kms/h, but had to nearly stop whenever there was a creek crossing because the potholes on the other side were so bad, and Dad was worried about the springs on the horse float (there were a lot of creek crossings).

Our first stop was to get fuel at a roadhouse called the Hann River Roadhouse. When we were driving into the town, we went over a bridge and saw a nice spot on the river that wasn’t deep enough for crocs, even though the sign said no swimming because of crocs. We only went on the 4WD track part of the river.

Then we kept driving again until we got to our next stop where we got more fuel and something to eat at the Palmer River Roadhouse. Mum and Dad remember coming here together 18 year ago. I bought a shirt with the money that Nan and Poppa gave us at the start of the trip. As we were going through a crossing to get into this town, they was another good swimming spot. I didn’t really trust that there weren’t any crocs, but Dad did, so we all went in a bit.

After that, we were going again. The road started getting really bad, and we did a spring on the float. It turns out we only dropped a hangar, but Dad said we should replace the spring anyway. When he started to undo the nuts and bolts it was getting really tough, but he didn’t want to angle grind it because there were no spares to replace it, so we eventually undid the nut far enough that Dad could cut it off and get another nut on. The locator for the spring and the axle that was welded on had also snapped off, which meant the the axle would just be swaying there and there was nothing to hold it into place, so Bill had to cut off a bit of one of the plates to use as a new locator. When we were putting the nut back on the bolts with the new spring, we couldn’t, so we drove 70kms (1 1/2 hours) to Archer River Roadhouse with the nuts only half on. Whoever wasn’t helping with the spring had to stand at Dads legs to make sure he didn’t get run over. He was under the float and nobody coming could see his legs dangling out on the road, which wasn’t that wide.

Once the spring was sort of on, we kept going. There were a lot of people that stopped and offered us help, and when we were driving, it was getting dark and someone waved us down because he needed help. Turns out he was a black man that just wanted a lighter. So Dad lit the cigarette that was hanging out of his mouth, then we kept going. He told Dad that he had his bonnet up because he was trying to put wires together and make a spark to light his cigarette. Mum thought it was a bit shady how he only wanted a lighter, tried to wave her on and she didn’t like the look of the people in his passenger seat. A few minutes after we left him, he overtook us and kept going ahead. After that, we saw the mans break lights on the side of the road and realised that he was trying to wave us down again. Dad ignored him and kept going, then again he overtook us and went ahead. As we were crossing a creek and needed to slow down anyway, Dad told me to hop out and get into Mums car. I didn’t like that much, but Dad didn’t trust the black people. When I got into Mums car, they were all a bit scared too because it was very dark and we couldn’t see much. We kept going until we got to Archer River Roadhouse, where we found their car again. Dad went in and asked where we were meant to park, and he saw the black man and thought he was nice because he shook his hand. We parked the float and went back and got sausage rolls for tea while we watched the State of Origin. After that, we came back, had a shower and are about to go to bed.

Goodnight,

Tilly