HALF WAY THERE

After lunch at the Hann River Roadhouse we continued on our trek to the tip of Australia. We rumbled along the dirt roads for miles and miles passing through cattle stations the size of small countries. We came to a smidgen of civilisation.

It was the Old Musgrave Telegraph Satation which was opened in 1886 and it was the half way telegraph station between Cairns and Thursday Island just off the tip of Australia. It operated for 100 years as a telegraph station. Now it is a hotel, shop and museum as well as a Flying Doctor Clinic.

 Our driver exclaimed, "There must be something happening here today. I have never seen so many people here before."(there was about a dozen). Then he saw the Flying Doctor's plane on the station's airstrip. Later we found out that it was clinic day, where people from outlying stations drive in to the station to see the doctor. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is a unique aero medical organisation which delivers emergency services and clinics in an immense area of sparsely populated Australia. The aircraft are equipped to provide airborne intensive care. Doctors, nurses and pilots are on call 24 hours a day. The Cairns base is the biggest in QLD and covers an area the size of Japan.

The children from outback stations come in to see the doctor wearing their good clothes except you can't keep country kids in shoes. These children probably only see each other occasionally. They do their schooling from home by "School of the Air" which used to be done by radio but now uses computers with an interactive two way broadband satellite connection.

 The children were waiting to wave goodbye to the doctor as he flew over their heads back to Cairns base.

There was another little plane just taking off after dropping off a patient who had been to Cairns for cancer treatment. The patient was actually Sue, the owner  of Lotus Bird Lodge where we would be sleeping that night. This plane belonged to a different organisation called Air Angels . They are privately owned planes of cattle station owners who donate the planes (when not in use) to take non emergency patients for treatment.

We followed Sue for a long way until we arrived in the late afternoon at Lotus Bird Lodge, another nice accommodation place in the middle of nowhere. There were a series of cabins situated on the edge of a lagoon.

 Before dinner we went for a walk around the lagoon. It is usually inhabited by many birds but we only saw a few. 

However it was a very pretty walk with the setting sun lighting up the trees.

We had a delicious home cooked meal in the open air dining room. We watched the kangaroos come in for a nightly feed of seed put out by the owners. There were 19 of us on the bus and we were the first  guests for this dry season. The Lodge is closed in the wet season like most other tourist destinations as the roads are impassable in the wet. This lodge was almost completely ruined in floods some years ago and had to be renovated.

 The next morning all the staff waved us goodbye. Gary and Sue were wonderful hosts and three young  girls who come from Sweden each season to work there. Gary and Sue regard them as family.

Weipa, on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, was the next overnight stop.