On the road about 8.20am heading north to Merluna Station (a working cattle station on the road to Weipa). Did my first sked with VKS-737 this morning on the HF radio. Travelling along the PDR (Peninsular Development Road) toward Coen this morning, it's 104klms and will take about 1 1/2 hours - the roads are starting to get corrugated and rough now. Stopped in Coen at the Historical House, had a quick look through and used the facilities. Continuing north to Archer River Roadhouse, which sits beside the Archer River (of course). Crossed quite alot of creeks today, some had water, some didn't - all were pretty, but the landscape is pretty much the same - scrubland. We noticed they now have signs up for the turnoffs, very helpful and much easier.
Coen to Archer River Roadhouse about 65klms and will take about 1 hour. Plan is to stop at Archer River for lunch and have one of their famous Archer River Burgers again. Arrived at 11.30am, needed to attend to Boris's comfort first (no dogs allowed in the Roadhouse grounds), so took him for a walk - unfortunately he had to wait for us in the car while we had lunch. 
Back on the road about 12.30pm, firstly crossing the Archer River (causeway), very picturesque river. Onward north on the PDR to the junction with Telegraph Road, where we turned left to Weipa. 40klms along we turned off to Merluna Station. The driveway into the Homestead is 8klms! Arrived around 1.30pm, so toady we covered about 261klms in around 5hours. Booked into the campground, but on the way in we called them on UHF channel 3, to advise of our arrival (it's courteous to do so). Friendly people at Merluna - they have two areas to camp, one for general campers and the other for campers with generators & dogs - that's us. We found a spot under the shade of a big tree, there wasn't anyone else camped when we arrived, so had the place to ourselves. We went for a walk around with Boris, there was some old machinery laying around which was interesting to look at. It's quite hot here this afternoon, poor Boris - black is not a good colour for Queensland. About 4pm, 3 camper trailers arrived and would you believe it, a Travelander. The Travelander guys ended up camping near by and when the lady came past, we said Hi and she asked "This isn't a Travelander, is it?", I told her it was a custom Travelander and our chatting began. Her other half came over with beer in hand to join in the chatting and look over our custom Travelander, they had seen us at Musgrave but we disappeared before they could come over and say hello - introducing Jim & Evelyne. We mozzed over to their camper - Craig and Jim were deep in conversation about the camper, Evelyne & I got the maps out and were discussing where each of us were off to over the next few days. Time goes quickly while you're talking, it was 7pm, so time to organise dinner. A fair few road gang fellows were staying in the dongas on the property also, but they kept to themselves.
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