At three in the morning a four wheel drive ute growled and bumped its way past my camp. Bloody hell, some farmer is keen to get to town!

Anyway the ute took the western fork in the road so that seemed to be the way to go. Turns out it was right and the northern turn just went to a farm dam.

After about five kilometres the private Kangaroo Hills road rejoined the Ingham Road and shortly thereafter split to go north as the Kennedy Development Road.

Onto the Kennedy and more of the endless ‘down into gullies, slow to cross the sandy creek, and grind your way out’.  And repeat.

At midmorning I met a Toyota trayback ute coming south. Turned out he was the mailman who was on his way home (to Ingham on the coast) after coming out past my camp at three in the morning. We chatted about what was wrong with the world including how the Singaporean company Wilmar had taken over the sugar mills on the coast and was going to screw the canegrowers. (Sure enough, by February 2017 the standoff between the two had got bad enough to require government intervention).

The mailman asked if I had met Melissa, as did the truckdriver I passed a few more kilometres on. Famous lady. If you leave this life having half the reputation of a nice, hardworking lady like her you are doing alright.

Passed Valley of Lagoons station with its ‘Keep Out’ signs and over the Iron Range (?) and in and out of ever more creek crossings. I don’t like this endless crossing of creeks – it is tiring and soon gets boring.

Finally camped in a gravel pit just past a lovely lagoon with a farmhouse perched on the hill above it. A lovely spot it you like your loveliness taken in isolation.