After 7 and half happy month in Darwin I was on the move again. Unfortunately while Darwin was much better for my health, it was still not good enough. Because of that I found and got (Yeaah!) a great new job in Billinudgel. A small village somewhere on the Australian coast 150km south of Brisbane. That's kind of an amazingly good opportunity. And a perfectly Lloyd friendly place too, so... here we are again!

I said again because, after growing up on the french riviera, I did many move in the past. 1998: Paris (with 1 month in New York in 2000), 2002: Sydney, 2005: Brisbane, January 2008: Darwin, August 2008: Billinudgel, hopefully I'll stay there for a much longeeeer while!

By the way, before I "leave" Darwin, here is the jade Buddha that looked over my Travel, thanks Huisze , I think I quite liked it and gives some personality to my car as well!

Saturday morning, everything packed, I left my Darwin home for the last time, it was 10:05! I did stop by the Parap market for a last papaw salad and then I hit the road for a 3800 km journey.

In the middle of winter temperatures in Darwin go from 18 degrees (at night) to 28 degrees (during the day), it's still quite warm. The water temperature might be around 26 (just an educated guess) and the country side is dry and prone to bush fire. More than that ranger have burnt many patch of ground to prevent bigger fire later, that gave the territory its dry season look.

I confess, I'm dramatizing a little, it's not always as bad as this picture!

I quickly reached Katherine's Gorge, it's still green and lush but so much less, here take a look

Katherine's gorge in the Wet season

Katherine's gorge in the dry season

Once out of Darwin past Katherine one is quickly in the middle of a dry and green nowhere. I had an uneventful 1000 km drive south until the first left turn at Three ways, the most famous T intersection of the Northern Territory .

Here is Three ways road house, which has a nice and cheap burger with chips. But petrol was the most expensive of my trip, a bit more than $2 per litter.

And the famous T intersection.

As I dived in the Australian outback I got more and more alone. After Three ways I had to drive about 450 km before being able to refuel. The average town has just a couple of hundred people. And often all one can find is a road house and its petrol station.

On the second day I crossed the NT state border back to Queensland, there isn't much to see there.

And I slept in Mount Isa. A mining town in a calderas like formation on top of some hill range in the middle of the Australian outback. It's easily one of the biggest town around with the most hospitable surrounding, thanks to its mountainous location.

And then I drove on and on again. At some stage I had the feeling I reached the closest place to nowhere as can be reached with the high way. Somewhere... on the road, 600km west of Townsville.

I guess it can be more impressive in the rocky desert in South Australia, I have to try that one day. But that was pretty isolated. I started to feel better around there, on my 3rd day of the trip (you know, I have this problem with pollution, a few days in the outback worked wonder for me).

300 km from Townsville it suddenly start to get greener and lush. There was flowering Mimosa all around, that was nice

I slept before Townsville in a road house. By then I was getting used to long drive and woke up early. I hit the road at 4:30AM on my fourth day. That was the first time I saw fog in Australia (I'm not much of an early riser hey), more than seeing it, I had to drive through it for a while, can't see much, it was interesting!

I by-passed Townsville and drove to Airlie beach (aka Whitsundays), I though I had to stop there. There are heaps of hills and farms, it's all green and you do wonder where the beach can be until it suddenly appears. Very nice spot, a bit like Nice (in France) but with less people and more greeneries, maybe warmer as well!

I was making good progress until.... it was 3pm and there was an accident on road, a big one: 2 trucks and a car somehow collided. Here you can see the rescue helicopter.

I was stranded on the spot until 6:30pm, that made me a little cranky after that I made godspeed to Billinudgel. Not much else to say on the trip as I was just hurrying up. Except, perhaps, that Gladstone does seems to be a Lloyd friendly town, I'm sad I failed a job interview for a job there back in December now, ha well.
Finally I managed to arrive in Brunswick Head (next to Billinudgel) next day (Wednesday) around 7pm.

In Billinudgel it is winter. Day temperature is around 13 degrees (at least it was yesterday), very much cooler than Darwin, that's a bit of a shock. I have been told it's one of the coldest winter in a while. Although water temperature is currently much warmer. About 20 degrees or so apparently (some locals told me). I rented a holiday accommodation in South Golden Beach (still there by the way) and about 15 Brisbane friend came to see me the first week-end. And slept in the house.

As it's only one sand dune away from the beach, we had to ... go in for swim!

Well, once you are inside, it's ok!

My employer found for me a house to rent in the suburb next door: New Brighton (in a couple of days, there is still some renovation work going on as we speak), that's a great Lloyd friendly place with The shop close by (Amazing no?) and on the sea shores, I think it'll be good!

And that's it for now, see ya!