THURSDAY 18 JULY     CHARLEVILLE

It was another warm day.

After breakfast, John found a game on his laptop that was not internet dependent, and spent much of the day playing that. I read, played ball with dog, walked her on laps of the park a few times, chatted with other campers.

I did some reading of tourist information, and distance calculations, and decided to see if John would change his mind about us heading for Cooktown. I didn’t actually think he was remembering the place as it was, when we were there in 1998, or even remembering the correct place! He was talking about fishing off the sandy beaches there. Ummm – not that I remember. John was not great with place names, so he could equally well be remembering Cairns…..or Coffs Harbour….or Carnarvon……

From the current information I could find, it did not seem as if Cooktown was a dog friendly town.

To me, it seemed a long way to go, for just a few days there, before turning around and heading back somewhere south of Cairns again. I would like to go back to the coast between Cairns and the Daintree River – plenty of sandy beaches there – but again, couldn’t find anywhere to stay that took dogs.

Mid-afternoon, John emerged from his laptop, and Bus, and we walked the circuit track around the property. It was quite pretty, through the scrub.

Then John remembered that he’d promised  I could do some shopping today, so we drove to town. I went to the butcher, for steak, and some fish, then to a supermarket for a little stock up on fresh produce.

We tried to find a vet, to get some anti-tick treatment for dog, but no vet was to be found. I’d tried to buy Advantix at a big pet supply place near home, before we left, but what they tried to sell me was already past its expiry date! Then I’d tried a couple of places in Broken Hill, but they had no stocks, although I’d managed to buy a tick collar. I was getting mildly concerned because, if we were soon to be at the coast, she should already have been tick medicated.

Did some packing up of the camp.

Tea was steak, potatoes, mushrooms.