On the road to Cloncurry

Once at Ilfracombe Caravan Park, we were quickly set up. Sandy and I decided to treat ourselves that night to dinner at the Wellshot Hotel, which was next door to the caravan park (very handy, maybe too handy!). This proved to be a very entertaining evening, with a very hospitable host, interesting locals and a steady influx of truckies and their tales.

Sunday (9th) and Monday were days to catch up on our chores and to let our bodies unwind from their daily grind on the farm. Slowly the aches and bruises disappeared, and we learnt to sleep in past 6am. It seemed strange not to be getting up and feeding the chooks, dogs, etc.

Tuesday (11th) with great excitement we were back on the road, it was good to be travelling again, Sandy and I agreed that about 8 weeks was probably a good length of time to work in any one spot. With me (Sheila) at the wheel we drove the 198km to Winton, where we stayed in the Matilda Country Tourist Park. This proved to be a very quiet park as it was out of season and we had our pick of the many sizable shaded sites.

Winton is a small town with plenty of pubs (motels), that afternoon we headed to the Waltzing Matilda Centre, which proved to be very informative and well set out facility, and explains the story of the unoffical anthem Waltzing Matilda by Banjo Patterson. Feeling a little parched after out tour, we were forced to have a beer in one of the many pubs in the main street as all the coffee shops were shut (out of season you see, closed early). Whilst here we caught up on the news of the appalling floods happening in the south east of Qld, this got Sandy and I thinking about the direction we should be heading, as we had planned to travel south east back to Brisbane, but this was not looking like a very good idea.

Wednesday we headed into dinosaur country, off out to Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways (part of the Australian Dinosaur Trail) down a dirt track which proved to be a little entertaining on our return journey due to the heavy rain which had happened whilst we had been visiting the centre. We had an enjoyable time being the only visitors there and having the guide all to ourselves. It just shows you what a small world it is, but our guide was originally from Longreach and use to be the governess at Tanamera Cattle station and knew the Copper family!  We did not get time to visit the other dinosaur attraction at Winton, Australian Age of Dinosaurs where you can get to actually work on dinosaur bones, next time maybe.

Thursday saw us back on the road with Sandy doing the next leg of our journey to Cloncurry, 351km northwest. On our way we passed the Blue Heeler Motel in Kynuna which had connections with the Cooper family, so we stopped to take a picture and send it to Wally. We also stopped in McKinlay to have a drink in the famous Walk About Creek Hotel, Mick Dundee’s watering hole in the film.

As we continued on our journey we found the land we were travelling through was very flat, with not too much to see, other than huge swathes of grass and a few cattle. I got excited with the camera every time I saw a little hill or stony outcrop, but most of the time it was, how did Sandy put it, “a lot of f*@k all”.

When we arrived in Cloncurry, it was shut. I’m not kidding, we arrived at the Gilbert Park Tourist Village, when they asked us how long we would be staying we said two nights, possibly longer as we wanted to have a look round Cloncurry, where we were informed that because it was out of season, all of the tourist places were shut. We had hoped to visit the John Flynn Place and find out about the founding of the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS), anyway not to be, next time. We did head out to Chinaman Creek Dam for a look see.