My Molloy
Saturday 2nd July
An expensive day already - but money well spent... the farrier, Tex, came out from Kuranda, and has spent all morning re-shoeing the horses. He really was very professional and friendly,teaching me a lot and showing me the faults in the last bloke's work.
I've kept the old shoes (or "slippers") as spares, even though they are worn unevenly, and bought off him a rasp, hammer, nails and cutters. All up $150 - very good considering the new equipment alone would have cost me this much. Where the last bloke predicted 6 weeks, he predicts 10 - I'm glad I got them done now too, because the old set were wearing unevenly - to the point of being able to be bent by hand.
I feel more prepared for this next leg now - all I'm really missing is a map and compass - my compass was smashed a lot earlier, and I haven't been able to get topo maps anywhere either. Ah well, I consider it a bit of a challenge to rely on my own sense of direction... Having weighed up the risks and consequences I think it would be rewarding to do without, and to totally rely on my own abilities. After all, I'm following in the footsteps of our pioneers who had none of these aids. I sometimes wonder if I was born a couple of centuries too late!
I paid Tex by cheque because I had very little cash left with me - so little, in fact, that I decided to hitch into Mareeba this afternoon (checking first that there was an ANZ bank in town). Stupidly, though, I assumed it would have an ATM (being Saturday) - I caught a lift with Tex and ended up having to go to a servo with EFTPOS. Mareeba is by far the biggest town I've been to since we left Cairns so long ago, and with $200 in my hot little hand, it was all I could do to stop myself spending it all! I treated myself to an icecream then to KFC.
Hitch-hiking home, I soon got a lift with a German guy in a brand new cruiser (600 kms on the clock).. .1 tried to find out his story, but his accent was very thick, and it wasn't until the relative quiet of the Royal Hotel (over beers and "vine") that I discovered his plans - he made his packet in Goober Pedy a few years ago - mainly by conning the government (not very hard to do as he explains it!) and now owns property in Cairns (as well as Germany of course) and now Cooktown, which he intends developing for tourism.
The land he bought up there (about $300,000 worth) is very isolated but with huge potential -only accessible by boat or plane... so he's building an airstrip and has bought permits for two very large boats (he predicts that within 5 years these permits will cost MILLIONS...) The reason for all this? Tourism - rich Europeans that he reckons are sick of fighting in Yugoslavia etc - so will start travelling here. He plans to run it all himself, but one option would be to sell to the Japanese for several million...
Anyway, that is just yet another interesting person I've met on these travels.
Dora Creek
Sunday
Well, it's finally happened... I'm in a bit of trouble. I could blame it on the guide-book, or the weather, or the horses, but it all boils down to my decisions that have brought us here, many miles from anywhere without any water. Well, I have one and a half litres to get me through tomorrow - but there is still the possibility of not having any tomorrow night as well. And what about Nugget and Sarah? How long can they go without? They seem fine at the moment but it's all a big unknown. Should I turn back, or continue at dawn? No doubt I'll be debating that all night.
We left Mt Molloy fairly early (someone greeting me with the news that I'm a media star in the local paper!) - the travelling to Font Hills station was plain, but seemed to go relatively quickly. I had planned to stop on the Mitchell River for several reasons - taking it slowly for the horses and for the remote chance that Libby would be driving out to see me for the night. We arrived there before noon to find no grass in the vicinity (overgrazed cattle property) and very little water.. .just a few green/brown puddles the horses didn't want to know about. I had to go a couple of kms further to visit and notify the homestead anyway, so we went on to find nobody home... I weighed everything up and we continued, doing about another 15 km through some barren, dry country, to arrive here.
