Greetings from an absolutely gorgeous free camp spot about an hour northwest of the bustling metropolis of Winton. I’ve been making steady, unhurried progress towards Darwin since picking up my van on Thursday.

For those of you who haven’t already received personal confirmation, I did in fact go to a medical center the day after my last post. After a quick chat and some local anesthetic the doctor made a small slit and shoved in what I can only describe as a miniature ice cream scoop, which he proceeded to vigorously scoop all around. When he had mentioned local anesthetic I made a joke about skipping it, and then when he was scooping away all I could think was “wow thank god for local anesthetic”. One painful night later I went back to have the dressing removed, and things have been gradually feeling better ever since. I also had to take a course of antibiotics, which I had been hoping to avoid. Don’t worry though, I’ve been eating a good mix of vegetables and trash, and my iron stomach seems not to have skipped a beat.

The 3 nights I spent in the hostel were pretty much entirely uneventful, toe gelato experience aside. Everyone there was a lot younger than me, and most people seemed to be staying at least semi-long term, so they all mostly knew each other and didn’t have much time or interest for getting to know a weird, limping old man. That was fine frankly—when I first got there I met a woman who was staying in the same room, and she informed me that she absolutely needed a break because she’d counted and was on 18 straight nights of drinking. When I checked in a couple of days later, it was 20. I’d say those days are behind me, but frankly I never had anything close to that level of stamina in the first place.

Luckily things lined up pretty well for my van and everything got done by Thursday (much earlier than the potential worst case of having to wait until the following week). I can tell you I was a bit emo, as Mark DeBoever would say, when I picked it up. It really does feel like both home and freedom for me, and I was stoked to finally, really hit the road.

I had originally planned on following the coast up to Townsville, where I would link up with the highway that crosses to the west. That turns out not to be the most direct route though, and I decided I’d had enough of skipping from one little identical coastal town to the next and was ready to hightail it to Darwin, now skipping from one identical farm/frontier town to the next. Leaving the coast you cross some hills and forest, and then fairly quickly it starts to get flatter, hotter, and drier. There’s a lot of agriculture out here but somehow the drive isn’t quite as mind-numbing as through the central US, I think because much of the land here is for cattle grazing so it still has trees and bushes, rather than being absolutely uniform. You also get the striking red dirt out here, which is very cool.

So yeah. So far there’s been a bit more infrastructure than I expected—the little towns I’m passing through are actual towns, with cafes and parks and internet and whatnot, and you come across one every hour or three. By the day after tomorrow I should be in the Northern Territory though, and as I understand it that’s when I’ll really understand the meaning of “the middle of nowhere”. So I’m thinking of taking some time to stroll around this beautiful area tomorrow, and then stopping in a town long enough to post this blog and do a bit of research on parks and activities on the way up to Darwin. I’ve tested my satellite communicator, I bought an extra 10L jug of water, and the van damn well better be just about bulletproof at this point, so after that there’ll be nothing left to do but a last shop and fill up on water, and then I expect to be more or less fully out of touch for… some number of days that I’ll have a better idea of once I do some research. See you on the other side.

Just throwing some text in here to break up the photos, if I’m honest. Fair warning, it’s going to be a lot of sunsets and desert landscapes for the next while I think.

You can find a couple videos for this post here. I’m going to start experimenting a little with mini-vlogs, largely at the recommendation of Cheyne, who I had the pleasure of couchsurfing with in Sunshine Coast. If you don’t like them blame him.