The race to the tip!

Having farewelled the Holiday Road crew the night before we were pretty keen to get back on track - racing the wet season to The Tip. But we couldn't drive past Townsville without stopping for a quick catch-up with an old friend of ours, Rob, who had moved up there a couple of years ago. We intend to spend lots of time with him on our way back down again, and had asked him a rather large favour. The children had worked their way through all the movies we had on board, and our paltry 8 + 5 + 5 Gigabytes of download just isn't cut out for sourcing new entertainment for them.
Dunc had sent through a polite request and an enormous list and mere days later Rob was keen to hand over a USB Drive - bless him! We got Bertha to the car park of his local skate ramp and Rob came past for a coffee with Rosie and their 3 girls. We had a bus full of children again, and people to help us finish off that Bertha Birthday cake. 

Not long after that, we were off and racing in a new (but familiar) direction again. North! From now on, we would be going north until we could go no further - yippee! Dunc decided to drive until he had had enough, and we made it to a great rest area at Bilyana, and since it was the last day of the school holidays, the driver reviver station was open. We parked up in the middle of the roundabout and made ourselves at home for the evening. 

The next day we made it as far as Cairns, where somehow, we suddenly slowed down! It was a public holiday Monday, so the post office was not open to collect Dunc's parcels - a second battery system we required for the Cape York trip. Fortunately we had found a lovely little caravan park that was reasonably priced, which is actually incredibly difficult in Cairns! It was First City Caravilla, for those following along behind us... Even better, Tonia and Cameron had finally caught up to us and had actually passed us at Bilyana! They had gone further up the coast, but didn't like it and decided to come back to us, which meant the children had Jordyn and Riley to play with again. 

In addition to fitting the new battery, Dunc decided that the car service we were going to have done in Darwin, and then in Alice Springs, should REALLY be done before we left, so that added another day as well. In the end we had a lovely few days relaxing and preparing for the Cape York Camping Capers, and were perfectly positioned to appreciate the Blood Moon.