Melb to Cape York

Day 1 Tocumwal on the Murray preparing for roast dinner with the Alan and Kath

 

13/6/13 Tocumwal great time for a couple of days on the banks of the Murray with Alan and Kath, nice roast dinner cooked by Alan and Kath, Ger and I were very supportive in the spirit of the night.

15/6/13 Goolgowi nice spot to camp for the night and great meal at the local pub, very small town.

16/6/13 Cobar.  A really interesting mining town and the Heritage centre well worth a visit.  Nice free camp under the Cobar sign, an iconic spot.

17/6/13 Cobar to Bourke.  Nice drive arriving at Lunch time.  Afternoon cruise on the Darling on a paddle steamer.  After that visited the most interesting cemetery where Fred Hollows is buried and many of the pioneers of this area. Later afternoon 4wd trip out to the spot where Major Mitchell established a stockade that was a beautiful spot to view another beautiful sunset.

 

18/6/13 Toured Bourke visiting many of the sights and in particular visited the Back of Bourke Exhibition centre.  This was excellent and very informative.  It is hard to imagine the hardship that the pioneers suffered and in particular the women.  Many of them had 10 children and so many of them died either at birth or in their youth.   Dinner at the Port of Bourke pub gave us the chance to meet a local policeman and to learn of his work in Bourke.

19/6/13 Bourke-Cuunamulla and then a free camp some were out of Wyandra behind a road works base.  Nice camp fire and we were joined by another couple free camping with whom we shared our fire to cook their dinner.

20/6/13 Charleville. Stay at the Cobb and Co Caravan park, not bad.  A very interesting, sleepy and quite town.  Again we cannot get over the hardships that the pioneers experienced in developing these areas.

21/6/13 A game of golf at the local course  where 9 holes are grass greens and the other 9 are sand greens!!.  The visit to the cosmos centre to view planets, stars and the moon through the telescopes was really something.  A great place to see the stars out here, very little light pollution.

22/6/13 Charleville-Augathella-Tambo.   A short stop for a few hours in Augathella was very interesting.  A great photographic exhibition of the work of the earlier settlers was great and a documentary video on the history of the area was both informative and hilarious. Many years ago there was  movie called Smiley based on a little boy in an outback town.  Well Augathella is the town where he lived and we met his relatives at the pub.  It was warm enough for Ger to have a beer at the bar.

 

Public toilets at Augatherlla

There is reportly 20,000 head of cattle on the road being driven from North to South down the road to find feed as the feed dries up.  The contract drover gets about $3.00 to $3.50 per head per week.  This mob of Angus that blocked our path were about 2000 head.  With a team of about 3 plus a cook they are getting $6000-$7000 per week. Not bad but hard work.

 

Then drove to Tambo that is the oldest country town in Q’land. They are celebrating 150 years this week so the town was gearing up for a big week.  For a tiny town, only 2 pubs, they were having a big time.  500 booked for the black tie dinner and a race meeting at an amazing race course when you consider how remote this town is.  We found a great spot to camp for the night by the Barcoo river.   A beautiful spot most serene spot,  beautiful sunset and wonderful roast chicken cooked on the camp oven.  

 

 I have always wanted to see the Barcoo as one of my favourite poems and the only one I can recite completely is set in this area. 

 The Bush Christening  starts with

On the outer Barcoo where churches are few
And men of religion are scanty
On a road seldom crossed
‘Cept by fokes that are lost
One Michael McGee had a shanty.

If you want the rest of it I am happy to recite it after a minimum of two pints of Guinness.

Also went to Mass here at Tambo, not many at mass so we did increase the congregation by a significant percentage.  Devonshire  tea with the CWA of after mass was delicious.  Country Women’s Association, definitely not the Chicks With Attitude.

 

23/6/13  Tambo to Blackall.

This town has some very good claim to fame.  The home of Jackie Howe, reputably Australia’s greatest ever shearer, the town where the ALP was founded.  Now there is some confusion on this as the next town Barcaldine also claim to be the founding place of the ALP.  It seems that they both have claims as one was where the ALP was founded and one is where they had the first meeting.  Won’t bother with the complicated explanation but it is interesting to know that the two oldest political  parties in Australia, The ALP and the National Party both started here in this area.

The moument to the foundation of the ALP

Jackie Howe

Me and Jackie,  I the one in the hat on the right

Woolscoure plant driven entirely by steam.

The breeding program here seems a bit confused or is this the sheep they shear for the wool to make the Collingwood jumpers?

We are considering an up grade to one of these vans.

Camped on the edge of town, had a beer at the Union hotel, home of the Blackall Magpies, and at the Barcoo hotel. The swim in the artesian spa was fun, the water come out of the bore at 58C. Visited the black stump,.

I am one side of the black stump but Ger is beyond the black stump.

Well they do have a good Team here in Blackall.

Yes it is windy up here.

However, what they are most proud of in Blackall is their home town Limerick.

A popular girl of Blackall

Wore a newspaper dress to a ball
Her rig-out caught fire
And burned her entire, front page,
Sporting section and all.

 

Camped on the edge of town, had a beer at the Union hotel, home of the Blackall Magpies, and at the Barcoo hotel.  The swim in the artesian spa was fun, the water come out of the bore at 58C. Visited the black stump,.

 

24/6/13 Blackall to Barcaldine to Infracombe.

Barcaldine pronounced   Bar Call Din.  They say easy to remember as they have 5 pubs.

 “5 bars to call in to”  Just beautiful.

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Ger checking two of the five pubs.

 

 

Visited the tree of knowledge, supposedly where the ALP was formed, wondered if they could do with that tree in Canberra.   Huge wind mill that symbolized the importance of the artesian water.

Stayed at the Infracombe caravan park.  Great Happy hour and great entertainment from the owner of the park, very funny stuff.

This is the place where our Quentin Bryce spent a lot of time. Her father was the manager of the Blackall woolscour.  Nearly everything in this town has been opened by Quentin Bryce including the renovated pub.

Note the opening hours

You have to take your hat off to these pioneers.

 

25/6/13 Infracombe-Longreach.   The home of the Qantas museum and the Stockman’s Hall of Fame.

I particularly wanted to visit the stockman’s hall and was the main reason for coming this way.  It was all that I had hoped for and more.  It is so well done and we spent several hours learning more about the hardship and hard work that the pioneers suffered to survive so many years ago.

It is amazing to think of the hardship for the women in those times.  Many of them had so many children, many of them 10 or more, and they spend long periods of months without their husbands. They worked so hard and suffered so much.

It is amazing to think that in 1937 that Nancy Bird Walton was flying commercially and in the early days of the aero industry.  There were a number of young female pilots in those times.

You may ask why this photo.  This is the old ambulance station and this is not stone and brick it is press metal. it looks so real.

 

27/6/13  Longreach-Winton.  Free camp behind the North Gregory Hotel, the hotel where, allegedly the first rendition of Waltzing Matilda was performed.  Also it was here on the 16 Nov 1920 that Qantas was formed.  Learnt all about the history of Waltzing Matilda and that there are three versions and the one we all know was a version modified as an advert for a brand of tea.

13Kms before Winton there is a turn off to the Age of Dinosaurs museum it was a dirt road  for 12 kms on a bit of corrugation but the van stayed together.

The museum was amazing, they focus on the discovery, conservation and research of the Australian Dinosaurs.  We were astounded to learn that among their large number of fossils two have been recognised as two new species.  Banjo was the first one a carnivore about the size of an emu and Matilda a very large herbivore.  As they were found close to each other it is suspected that Banjo tried to kill Matilda but she was so large she most likely did him in.  They have an even bigger Dinosaur, Wade, who will be announced soon to the world and he is a new species of the largest Dinosaurs known.  

This is a bit of Wade's leg

Before you ask the Dinosaur is on the left.

 

28/6/13- Winton. Early start to visit Lake Quarry Conservation Park to view the Dinosaur stampede (220Km round trip on corrugations)- the site of the world’s only recorded evidence of a  Dinosaur stampede that occurred 95 million years ago.  There were about 200 small Dinosaurs drinking at a water hole when a monster of Dinosaur trapped them and attacked.  There were two species at the water hole, a small hen size herbivore and an emu size carnivore that live together reasonably well but this huge Carnivore was looking for a meal and there was a great stampede when he attacked. This area was only discovered in the late 1970s and is well worth a visit as there are over 3,300 prints housed in an ecological sustainable complex.  Really interesting and informative.
 

Afternoon spent at the Waltzing Matilda Centre which celebrates history of the song first sun here on the 6/5/1895. Also 16 Nov 1920 Qantas was registered as a company at The Winton club.  This is also famous for Opals.

 

29/6/13. Winton-Cloncurry.

1^st stop- Kynuna to have a beer at the pub where Banjo Paterson drank and the legend of Waltzing Matilda was born during the shearer’s strike, the swagman in the song- Samuel Hoffmeister had a last drink.

2^nd Stop-McKinlay another beer at the Walkabout Creek Hotel, the pub featured in the movie Crocodile Dundee.

 

3^rd Stop Free camp on the side of the road 50kms before Cloncurry.  Nice fire and lovely roast in the camp oven.  Great day and night watch the wallabies beat the British lions on Satellite TV great win .

30/6/13 Cloncurry to Mt Isa. Arrived lunch time at the Mt Isa caravan park.  There were a few guys here with 75 year old vintage cars.  One had driven from Melb to Mt Isa in 2 ½ days.  Considering it is about 2500Km this is some effort.

1^st Stop at the Mt Isa Experience centre, an extraordinary look into the people and culture, events and moments that have made Mt Isa the city it is today.

2^nd Stop Riversleigh Fossil centre, no it is not a retirement village. Palaeontologists and scientists have studied and discovered fossils of mammals and marsupials which roamed the Riversleigh river area over 25 million years ago.  Dinner at the Irish Club was interesting but good Guinness.

1/7/13  Mt Isa.

A normal morning catching up on chores and shopping. PM spent at the Hard Times Mine tour.

Excellent experience of life underground in a mine in the 1960’s  The miners worked hard and according to our guide who spent 30 years as an underground worker it was good money and he loved the life, can’t imagine how it could be fun.

Up to the look out over the town to view the sunset over the town and the mine. A wonderful view of the sprawling Mt Isa mine with the 270m smoke stack. The mine is the nation’s deepest underground mine  and the largest producer of Copper, Silver, Lead and Zinc in the world.

2/7/13 Mt Isa towards Normanton.

Stop 1 at Cloncurry, a town with a history, 1861 Burke and Wills came to the area trying to get to the Gulf.  Having driven from Melb to here I cannot imagine how they did this in those times. In 1867 Ernest Henry established the Great Australian Mine which still exists.

Visited the wonderful John Flynn Museum to learn more about the establishment and development of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.  This was amazing.  Once again we marvelled at the hard work and dedication and ingenuity of these pioneers.  Once again the work of the women as nurses, doctors and pilots was extraordinary. The design and development of the equipment for the RFDS was amazing.  From the Pedal radio to the Morse code type writer and Morse code decipher designed my Alfred Traeger, of course and Engineer.  

After lunch we left Cloncurry and drove for an hour to another great camping spot on the side of the road.  Stopped off at the Quamby Pub ( closed today) built in 1860.  The camp spot at Terry Smith lookout had a great sunset while cooking a lovely dinner on our portable camp fire.

3/7/13 Towards Normanton.  Stopped for lunch at Burke and Wills Roadhouse, they passed through this area in 1861, Free camp at Bang Bang site roadside.  Nice place for a sunset.

4/7/13 Normanton:  arrived around lunch time.  In the 1890’s Normanton became a penal settlement for the entire Gulf region.  Some wonderful architecture in the town.  Amazing that some of these old buildings have survived the floods and the climate over so many years. The historical railway station was once the focal point of the town and is the only train line not connected to anywhere other than Croydon and Normanton.  Originally the Gulflander was to run from Normanton to Cloncurry where it would connect with the rest of the Queensland railway system, but at the last moment some dopey politicians made the change to Croydon that was a major gold area at the time.  Nothing any different then to now. The Burns Philip old trading store, now the information centre is a in great order and interesting to visit as is the oldest and only surviving bank where they have on display the old scales they used for weighting the gold.

There is a very interesting pub, The Purple Pub.  See the photos it is very purple.

5/7/13 Normanton.:  Spent the morning on a leisurely walk around town viewing the various old buildings.  All the streets in these towns are so wide.  Every street including the side streets are bigger enough for 6 lanes of traffic if you wanted them.  So walking here is a lot longer as every block has a road that is another quarter of a block.

Drove out to Burke and Wills camp 119, the northerly most camp of their trip and where they turned around to return.  They were her 9-13^th Feb 1861.  How anyone could ride and walk to here from Melbourne is hard to comprehend.

After lunch a swim, well Ger had 10 laps of the largest pool in the gulf, and both of us had a spa in the artesian pool.

Good start for the evening.  First drink at the Purple Pub, then the Central and finally Barra and Chips at the Albion.  No one can say we did not spread our business around.

 

My Indian mates and there first day opening their bakery shop in Normanton. They are the most unusual guys to be running a bakery shop in this very remote town and they must be the only Indians for hundreds if not thousands of kilometres. Up here there are only local aussies, indigenous or grey nomads and most of them are very white types and overweight.

6/7/13 Karumba.  A very small fishing village right at the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, great prawn area. Enjoyed a kilo of prawns for a delicious dinner. Also managed a drink at lunch at Sunset Point and a pre dinner drink at the Karumba hotel in the Animal bar, the Suave bar was indoors and you had to wear a shirt so a bit up market for us.  Very hot so spent some time in the pool.

 

7/7/13 Karumba.  A quite day. Visited the Sunset point craft market in the morning.  Afternoon some maintenance on the van and cool down in the pool.  Enjoyed a lovely sunset at Sunset point tavern followed by a delicious mixed seafood dinner.  This is one of the few places in Queensland where you can see a sunset over the ocean. Wallaroos around camp site on return.

 

8/7/13 To Croydon and beyond. Spent several hours looking around Croydon and old gold mining town established in 1885.  How did people come out here in those years looking for gold and what made them think there would be gold here.  The heritage of the area has been wonderfully displayed in the town and the information centre. Once again a brilliant audio visual on the history of Croydon.  I don’t know how the pioneers could endure the hardships.  Drove on halfway to Georgetown and camped beside a very dry Gilbert river. Nice place for the night and cooked our first damper for the trip in the camp oven.

We argued over this sign.  Ger thought it was "beware of cow eating cars"

My first thought was "Beware lots of bull dust"

Then we both got it.  "All cars need good STEERing" 

 

9/7/13 Georgetown and Forsayth.  Georgetown another old gold mining town established in 1870.  Now a small town with an abundance of historic vestiges from pioneer times.  A wonderful and amazing Terr Estrial centre which houses a sensational collection by Ted Elliot of gem stones and  fossils from all over Australia and the rest of the world, a huge collection.  Then drove 42 kms of which 12kms were dirt/corrugated to Forsayth a seriously small town but nice little camp site.

 

Note the sign that has always been our opinion.

10/7/13  Cobbold Gorge. Left van at Forsayth a drove on fairly ordinary road for 42kms to Cobbold Gorge.  Managed to get second punch in a week on the same tyre, the rocks are very sharp, must let down the tyre pressure to reduce this problem. This was a very special place, would have liked to have camped at this spot.  Did a 3 hour guide tour which involves a drive to the gorge in an OKA vehicle, a very interesting and informative walk around the gorge rim and finally a wonderful boat trip up the gorge.  It was so narrow that you could touch the wall on either side, saw a fresh water crog sunning himself on a rock. This was a very special trip and in is amazing it was only discovered in 1992.  Drove back to pick up the van and then onto George town to have the tyre fixed again. Free camped by a water hole 30km east of Georgetown.

Would you believe but if you were to eat this one little red seed you would be dead in three days.

Just a little fresh water Crog.

 

 

11/7/13 Undara. After morning tea in Mt Surprise which played a significant part in World War II.  Arrived in Undara Volcanic National Park.  After lunch we drove to Kalkani Crater and did a 2.5km walk around the rim of this very old extinct volcano.  After dinner joined the communal campfire for a  sing-a-long.

12/7/13 Undara National Park. The longest lava flow in the world resulting in the longest Lava tubes in the world. They were formed 190,000 years ago when a huge volcano erupted spewing millions of tonnes of molten lava into surrounding countryside. A morning tour of the lava tubes,  afternoon spent exploring the Pioneer track following the telegraph line built in 1870’s and then the bluff track climbing over granite rocks, great view and lots of wallabies very up close.

Just relaxing after a hard day in Undara, someone has to do it.

 

13/7/13 Undara to Atherton. Lunch and shop at Atherton then drove to Rocky Creek War Memorial Park where we camped-great free camp spot at the sight of the largest World War II repat. Hospital in the southern hemisphere.  60,000 casualties when through this 2000 bed hospital.  A very interesting and informative place to camp.  Met a very nice Aussie/Canadian couple with their 2 young children travelling for 4 months.

14/7/13 To Mareeba.  A short drive to Mareeba, a bit of shopping and then drove out to Granite Gorge where we camped for the night. Great area to explore and walked, climbing over the giant boulders, getting up close to rock wallabies, great fun.

 Granite Gorge walk.