Chatting all the way to Uluru and back again: Part one

After a week on the road travelling to Uluru, Geoff and I have arrived at Winton for a few days. Time now to reflect on how much caffeine we’ve had, how many showgrounds/caravan parks we’ve stayed at, how many towns we’ve walked through, and something I never saw coming, how many dogs we’ve met!

I always thought I’d like to write a travelogue called “Coffee around Australia” whilst travelling, but after interacting with more dogs than I’ve had hot coffees, I could easily change this to “Dogs around Australia” instead! You see, we met these dogs when Geoff and I started out walking through (as opposed to driving through) the small outback towns of the country on our first day after leaving home. It began quite innocently with the gift of a pedometer from my sister-in-law, who is taking part in a challenge to walk at least 10,000 steps every day. With the direction given to walk as much as possible, I made an executive decision that Geoff and I would walk through as many small towns along the way as we could fit in.

As we travelled, I saw a billboard emblazoned with the sign: “Disconnect to Reconnect” and as I couldn’t get any phone coverage, I was feeling very disconnected indeed! However, the sign reminded me of something I’ve always wanted to do: walk the Camino across the top of Spain as a way of connecting to my spiritual roots as well as meeting new and interesting people.

At this point, as Geoff was driving a long lonely stretch of road between Longreach and Winton and while strains of the Ten Tenors singing Pia Jesu were floating through the countryside, a revelation came to me: perhaps I didn’t need to fly to Spain to walk the Camino after all? Just say, if I could walk the towns of the outback as a unique Australian experience instead…sure, we would drive the highways of this vast land, but WALK the towns so that we could ‘connect’ with the locals. Disconnect from technology and reconnect to people. It sounded so good! Therefore what began as a means of completing 10,000 steps a day has become so much more, dear friends. By walking through towns, we have met so many people – delightful people with interesting stories.

We have presently stayed overnight in eight small towns in Queensland: Goomeri, Roma, Miles, Mitchell, Charleville, Blackall, Ilfracombe and Winton. We have also walked towns where we’ve stopped for breaks, bringing the total towns walked so far to fourteen.

Now take Goomeri for instance. It was freezing cold in this heritage town (population 300) when we set out to walk. It wasn’t long before we met Ray – a former Postmaster – walking with his dog Lucy. Ray’s wife had died leaving him bereft; the gift of Lucy by his children brought him back to life. As we chatted in the sunshine, Ray encouraged us to come back in May for the Pumpkin Festival. It was amazing how attached we felt to this little town after our chat.

When we walked Roma (population 2500), a town known for its oil reserves, we met a sheep farmer out shopping whilst waiting for the bank to open. A real country larrikin, he charmed us with stories of icy weather and a joke about winning the best prize at the local show. I still haven’t worked out the punch line yet, but he was so nice that I laughed anyway!

And then there was another older gentleman called Steve who was guiding visitors through a beautiful old church when we met, but it wasn’t long before he told us he sang in a choir. Steve was so busy helping causes since he retired, that he still hasn’t got any time for himself – another kindred spirit! We made his day when we asked for a photo, a sure sign that a connection has been made. However, on this occasion not one dog was involved!

Oh, so many stories to tell! There’s young Adam at Mitchell (population 500), a budding author. He was so enamored when I told him I wrote that he got out his iPhone and began to Google my blog! Much discussion followed. Mitchell is well known for its artesian spa pool, which we love. So far we have bathed in three towns with spas: Mitchell, a town full of dogs; Blackall (population 500) where we met some amazing old ladies running an op shop, and then Ilfracombe (population 50) where we were entertained uproariously by the caravan park owner and his wife at Happy Hour!

Oh no! It’s time to go now – watch out for my next instalment of ‘Chatting all the way to Uluru and back again’!