Laura to Coen

We are really taking it easy now. We took our time packing up at Laura, Gaz fixed a rattle on the exhaust before we hit the corregations. The road was quite bumpy just outside of Laura. At times it was easier to drive along the side of the road coming back to the road to get around a drain or creek. A lot of dust holes and when road trains go past it's best to stop rather than keep driving through the dust. I'd read stories of idiots trying to overtake road trains on this road I can not understand what they would be thinking its ridiculous! The amount of dust stones etc pulled up into a cloud and thrown out for miles. We took a video of a road train going past but I don't think I can upload that to this site.

Its definitely getting warmer as we travel further north. We have the windows fully down and the air temp is a perfect warmth we have heard its really hot at the tip. Sams window needs to be fixed - Gaz's next fix it job. We have to keep him active he can't just sit still!

We left Laura around 10:20am and ended up travelling at an average speed of 60km hour on the dirt road. We had keyed in Coen "The Bend" 13 55 27 S 143 11 38 E which had us arriving just before 3pm so we decided to just keep driving just snacking whilst we drove.

We drove into the town of Coen as Gaz had said if it looks like a good spot at the pub (also in the book as a camping spot) then we'd stop there and maybe have a pub dinner. The town streets were lined with caravans and camper trailers so we thought we'd keep going and see what the bend camping spot was like as it was only 3km north of town. I am so pleased we did as we got the perfect spot alongside the river and didn't have to pay a cent!

In the camps 6 book it doesn't have much detail of this site no mention of it being on the banks of the river which I suppose is a good thing but I would definitely recommend this as a spot to set up.

We decided to set up and spend a couple of nights. We will take a drive into town to explore a bit.

Gaz got a great campfire going and the shower tent set up. We both had a shower while dinner cooked. Sam had a bath. We had roast chicken pieces potatoes carrots and broccoli then for desert, port and roast almond dark chocolate - yummmmm.

Sam crashed out before dinner was cooked but luckily he had eaten some cucumber carrots and cheese plus a whole pile of rice cakes.