So writes Somerset Maugham in The Gentleman in the Parlour. I, too, am tired of myself and "Riverbend". It's time to lose myself in some strange places and, in so doing, find myself.
As soon as the bathroom renovation is finished and the BHP buy-back safely behind me, I shall take the bus to Sydney, and from there the train to Brisbane, to board the Sunlander to Cairns. 1700km and 31 hours of contemplation, reading, sleeping, and fine dining and w(h)ining. Travel light, travel alone, travel by train!
The romamce of train-travel won't end there as I continue my travels on the Savannahlander and Gulflander all the way up to Karumba.
After a few days at Karumba, back to Cairns with Trans North Bus to hire a small car for a "pub crawl" across the Atherton Tablelands, from the Kuranda Hotel to Herberton's ROYAL HOTEL to the Club Hotel at Ravenshoe and the Tolga Hotel. Those small country pubs are thick with local characters and their tall tales.
Other than quaffing beers with the locals, I want to take in some of the local sights: historic Irvinebank, the Undara Lava Tubes, and Chillagoe.
Back down to the coast for a stop-over at the Babinda State Hotel to catch up with an old mate from my Thursday-Island-days, David Richardson, who has since retired in Babinda. Then Cairns again but not to stop - when you want to stop moving, you're dead - but merely to hand back the hire car as it's too boring and tiresome to drive on my own all the way up to Cooktown. Instead, I shall let my old friend Allan of Country Road Coachlines drive me there.
Perhaps I stop over at Mt Carbine which holds some old memories for me: back in 1977 the newly-opened Mt Carbine tungsten mine had offered me a job as an accountant. They had flown me down from Port Moresby for the interview but one look at the desolate landscape and one whiff of the dead kangaroos in the scrub told me there were better things in life than climbing the accountancy ladder at Mt Carbine. The mine closed in 1987 but has since been reopened by Icon Resources.
There's so much to do and see in tropical North Queensland that at the end of the trip I hope to be able to say as Somerset Maugham did, "I do not bring back from a journey quite the same self that I took."
