I Wanna Be a Travel Writer – March 1, Survivor II: The Australian Campout

I Wanna Be a Travel Writer

March 1 – Survivor II: The Australian Campout

Whether you hated Jerri, drooled over Colby, or fell in love with Elisabeth – there’s no denying that the Ogakor and Kucha tribes were camped out in a pretty sweet spot to lose weight, win a car, and strategize their way to getting the million dollar prize.

“Might as well have called it Survivor: the Australian Coast,” said Kym at the Innisfail Tourist Center as she pulled out a map of the Atherton Tablelands and tried to show me where she thought they went. Survivor II: The Australian Outback, wasn’t quite as remote as one would think you’d have to be in order to be considered Outback.

When the location of the filming site was still secretive, I’d found a map on a Survivor fan website that said they shot the series on a private cattle ranch near the Upper Herbert River. It showed the closest towns to be Mt. Garnet and Ravenshoe. With only that knowledge, and a few road maps that covered the Atherton tableland area, I left Barry’s Drive-Thru pie shop in Innisfail at 10:00am and headed west on the Palmerston Highway towards Ravenshoe.

Admittedly, I had been gripped by Survivor mania since I applied to be on the first show in Borneo, and was excited to see how close I could get to where they filmed second series. Before I left, a girl I’d just met said she had a friend who’s parents were good friends with the people who owned the farmland where they filmed. What a connection! Some calls were made on my behalf, but the land owners didn’t want me anywhere near their property. I was disappointed, but if the small towns closest to the film site were such a treasure that everyone was protecting them, I figured there’d be a story in that as well.

Nearly an hour and 71km later, I reached the township of Millaa Millaa. The name is Aboriginal for “water water”, and staying true to it’s definition, the gray clouds that had been both before, and behind me, turned to drizzle. Millaa Millaa is home to the most popular lookout on the tablelands. Located on McHugh Road between Millaa Millaa and the Kennedy Highway, it has 180 degree views that reach as far as Atherton and the coast near Innisfail. Had the weather been better, I would have taken the time to explore the waterfall circuit. Following signs “Tourist Drive 9″ and “Theresa Creek Road,” there is a popular scenic drive that goes through dairy country and passes through a stretch of dirt road between Ellinjaa Falls and Zillie Falls.

Instead I took the 27km scenic route along The Old Palmerston Highway between Millaa Millaa and Ravenshoe. It was a winding single lane bitumen road that meandered through what felt like a natural tunnel because of the green walls of tropical foliage that seemed to arch over from either side. As I emerged from the rainforest and drove into some farmland, I couldn’t help but laugh at the yellow children’s bus stop signs that I was seeing. I knew I was within a few hours of the Survivor site, and it certainly didn’t feel like I was anywhere near what I had read and heard about the Australian Outback.

I arrived in Ravenshoe at 11:30. The town had more of a presence than I expected for just a small dot on the map. Ravenshoe, most noted as the highest town in Queensland at 920m, was founded as a timber town in 1910. Today with a population of 900, it’s on top of the Great Dividing Range and is the gateway between both the Atherton Tableland and the Gulf Savannah.

Elly at the visitor’s information stand welcomed me like a friend of her daughter’s who’d just come home for a high school reunion. While she didn’t know anything about the CBS crew that came through, she was quick to jump on the phone and start calling friends to see if they knew of anyone who did. I asked her if the locals were apprehensive of tourists coming through because of the show, and she just shook her head and suggested that they could use publicity.

Elly’s calls put me in touch with a Queensland Park Ranger, and I spent a good hour with him going over maps with more specific details of where they filmed. According to him, after numerous attempts, the plane was finally able to land and drop the Survivors off at Princess Hills near the edge of Lumholtz National Park. From there they hiked in the five miles to their prospective camps. They also did a lot of the filming at Blencoe Falls, where I can only assume is where they held tribal council.

When I asked the ranger if I could drive there, he asked what kind of a car I had and then laughed at my silver rental sedan. Four-wheel drives were the only vehicles to get down those roads, and not even at this time of the year in February. He must have seen the alternate possibilities forming in my head because he added that Cashmere Creek is all flooded out and there was nothing getting through this time of the year.

“People are going to have to put a big effort in to get there,” he said as we talked about the possibility of tourists coming through to visit the area when the weather was better.

I asked him about the crew coming through, and if any of the locals had hung out with them. A bit agitated, he said that they had seen the big white trucks passing through, but there was little interaction with any of them.

“To me it was a really big disappointment that there were very few local people to come see how the logistics of how they operated the whole thing,” he said. Mark Burnett kept the location of the show very secret and apparently even the local townspeople weren’t allowed to be involved too much. The ranger said that whatever manpower and supplies the crew did need, they got from Cairns.

I sat in the car 4km outside of Mt. Garnet with the car pointed down the road that led 84km to Blencoe Falls. It was 3:30pm. I thought about the road ahead of me and just didn’t want to turn back. All but one local from Ravenshoe and Mt. Garnet told me not to take this road with my front-wheeled drive rental car. It was a fiery haired woman at the Mt Garnet Café that said I could do it. If she knew that I was capable of eating a burger piled high with a fried egg, beets, bacon, carrots, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, pineapple, cheese and barbeque sauce, I guess she saw it in me to handle a little red dirt.
I stepped on the gas and didn’t look back.

The first bit of road was paved, with on and off spots of dirt road. I imagined that the locals might have had it all wrong, and that the Survivor crew might have paved this road so that their supply trucks could get to them more easily. However, it didn’t take long for the gravel to disappear into a deep and dark red earth.

The ranger had been right about the road. There was no way a proper car wash was going to clean away the evidence of me taking the rental on unsecured roads. At the same time, it wasn’t rough enough to need four-wheel drive so I trudged on. After driving about half an hour into the road and only seeing a few cars pass in a swirl of dust, I wondered what I’d do if I got a flat. There wasn’t much sun left in the day and I was hours worth of walking time back to the main road or to the cattle stations further on. Naturally, I didn’t have a mobile with me either.

I drove and drove with the excitement that it was possible to get so close to the location that had been protected with such seriousness during the filming. The gum trees and wayward cows were somehow welcoming me with a casual indifference. The clouds quickly moving through the blue sky above were enticing and hypnotic.

The road became bumpier than I could handle at 70km/h and I slowed to about 50km/h and less. I hoped the tires would hold up. Then, after a bit of rockiness I realized that I had to go to the bathroom. Not a car to be seen, I got out and went behind the car, still attempting to hide myself from the nothingness that was out there. What did the Survivors do for this? They never told on the Borneo show. Did they build a communal bathroom? Or were they digging their six inches every time. I laughed as I imagined a series of overturned earth piles out there marking where each person had been. This squatting stuff would get old. The girls must’ve built themselves some kind of stool.

As I drove on, it started to rain.

I passed an outpost named Gunawarra and kept going. Dusk was upon me and I kept wondering if I should turn back. I’d still be on the road after dark and I wasn’t sure how smart that was. But I didn’t want to stop. Every so often I’d pass a sign by the side of the road that indicated that the road was a flood zone. I held onto hope that Cashmere Creek would be dry as well.

Suddenly, I saw a kangaroo hop across the road. My first kangaroo! Then another, and another. They were so small. Maybe three feet tall. I had always thought that they were as tall as people. They just stood there on the side of the road, staring at me. Frozen. As if I couldn’t see them. It was both thrilling, and also frustrating that I’d have to slow down each time till they unglued themselves and hopped off into the bush. I got to 49 kangaroos before I stopped counting.

Finally I reached Glen Eagle station. I couldn’t believe that I had made it to the edge of the ranch! Even if the owners hadn’t wanted me to come, I still proved that it was possible. Maybe the ranger had been wrong, maybe I could still make it to Blencoe Falls. I turned down the road that led to their property.

The holes in the dirt road were pretty large and I knew that this would be the worst place to get stuck. Especially after they had said they didn’t want me anywhere near their property. But I worked my way around the bumps and edged on. All I could see were gum trees. Kangaroos watched me from both sides of the road as if they were the enforcers of the “No Trespassing” sign in front of me. I wanted to go on and see what was in there. But I didn’t want to run into owners.

Did you like this article?

    

 

Share it

 

Place a comment