26 June 2014

Hmmmm well what to write really is the question. Sorry there is not really much I can say, the day was basically spent driving back to Cloncurry to rejoin my route around Australia. It was a very long day I had to keep pulling over and taking naps all the way back to Cloncurry, so I didn't get any further pictures of anything along the way. Sorry about that. I will include a few pictures from the truck museum from Winton though, they are very sad, to me they are anyway

 I cannot even begin to tell you how much I want this vehicle, Essex Super Six, cut down to a buckboard

 There are two old Falcons, XM or XP I believe and a Holden, FC I think, there behind these, but we have a County Series Austin (not good with my Counties, Devon or Cambridge perhaps?, Wolseley Six Eighty, Humber Super Snipe and a Austin 1800

 Why do people insist on destroying the interior of old cars. This Snipe was just trashed, but the original and very hard to obtain front and rear windscreens are sitting in the car

 I am really rather partial to this "cut down to a ute" Morris 8 as well

25 June 2014

Winton today, Not like it was in the route that one would normally take to go around Australia, but then this trip so far has been more about seeing places while going around. Both Winton and Longreach were originally on the list as places that I wanted to go to, but they sort of got dropped as it was really too far out of the way to go there, Winton is 348 kilometres from Cloncurry, back towards Brisbane and Longreach another 183 kilometres on top of that. Anyway I went to Winton just to have a look and it was a nice little town, though dry as in that area, so very dry, it's been in drought for the last three years. makes foe a very dramatic on the drive out there though, some amazing colours and vast distances

The town itself is filled with some very friendly people and some interesting characters. Mind you that may be because two of the people I met said I was identical to one of the locals, big Ben they called him, except he had hair one said, haha. Well they helped me out, went out of their way to, with a little family project I had in the area and gave me what help they could, which was very kind of them. The delay with getting this update posted is that again there is no service unless you are with Telstra in the area, sadly the locals don't like it and are unable to do anything about it. People mentioned that times were tough for the town with the drought and the problems with the live cattle export market and that they really were desperately clawing on to the Waltzing Matilda link and anything they could get from the dinosaurs that they could. It's sad to think that the entire town is almost at the mercy of the tourists now, unless it rains sometime soon.

It's a little town and there are lots of closed shops, well lots in comparison with how many there actually are in the small place. Mind if they are relying so greatly on the tourist dollar they really need to make it worth the tourists while to see everything. For example they have the "Biggest Deck Chair" in the world (their claim), but I didn't bother photographing it as it can't be called a deck chair when the canvas in only held on by a couple of frayed strips.

 The Waltzing Matilda centre, unfortunately I always hated the tune after being made to learn it for school many years ago, so I didn't go to the show

 Winton main street

 The Great Northern pub, this is the 5th reincarnation of it following fires over the years, thus the Deco look

 QANTAS memorial in the main street, the first Board meeting was held at the Winton Club, before it moved to Longreach

 One of the local families loves old Holdens I was told, not too much if this is what they do with them I would think, sad really

 More QANTAS history, this plate and the "Cairn" below are all there is 

 Local tourist attraction is the Musical fence, not so much a fence as a collection of junk you can bash about to make a racket. Obviously children love it.

 Now you can tell how dire the situation is when one of the local tourist attractions is a fence containing all the junk an eccentric old member of the townsfolk collected from the local dump and put into a wall at the side of his house. In other areas local council planning would have it down and removed in seconds, here they give him his own park right next door. It's ..... different.

  

 The Junk Wall, Oops sorry it is Arno's wall

The old open air cinema is still there and looking a tad tired, they do however run nostalgic movies on Wednesday nights. Mind I was there Wednesday night, perhaps I was too early for the show. Oh and to add to it's public service ability, it also used to be the town roller rink.

 Some of the most interesting things I saw in town were the old glass slides that were shown before the start of the movies, wasn't old advertising something else again.

I have to say I think I am sounding a little harsh with Winton, there is also the Diamantina Truck museum there too (which was worth a look and really very sad to see the waste some vehicles have been left to though) but I won't add pictures of that just yet as there are too many already today. I think I spent the most amount of time in Winton there, well except the accommodation. I must add though if your passing through the area it is worth a stop to have a look, I will go again personally so it was good it was a special side trip for me and thus worth the extra near 700 kilometres. Mind I did have the most incredible slow cooked braised beef with mash and steamed broccoli at the Great Northern Hotel, so that alone makes up for any distance...

24 June 2014

Firstly apologies for the delay in getting further updates done, to say there has been a lack of internet and phone connectivity in a lot of areas would be an understatement. Looks like unless you are with Telstra there are quite a number of no go areas throughout Australia, quite the monopoly Telstra have, and despite this, or probably because of it, most of the people I have talked to absolutely hate them and their "customer Service". I guess when you don't have competition you can do what you like.

Anyway, Normanton to Cloncurry, 382km, what can I say really, it was a long drive I think I may have passed about a dozen vehicles in the whole distance and maybe was over taken by about half that. I must say that thankfully so far the only Road Trains I have experienced have been going the opposite direction and so have not been an issue.

As I said, what can I say, this is basically the view all the way down

Welcome to Woop Woop

The only stop / place along the way really is the Burke and Wills Roadhouse, and you know it is the only place along the way when the usual kilometre signs along the way identify the next place as the roadhouse, rather than a town! More frustrating for everyone I am sure is that out of all the fuel pumps they have, all of the deisel pumps in the main station were out, only the single truck pump was working and the vehicles were lining up. No problem at all with petrol though!

Cloncurry seems to be a larger than usual small town, though I am not sure that it is entirely successful, there seem to be a lot of empty shops but the air of the place seems to be happy enough. It is a bit of a regional hub and they are right on one of the main tourist routes, so things seem to be ticking along for them. First stop for me was to the tourist information office, where they have a memorial park for Mary Kathleen, who is not a person, it was actually a uranium mine and town up the road from here between Cloncurry and Mt Isa. Supposedly when it was closed for the final time all of the towns buildings were sold off and transported far and wide around the country. I am not sure what is left there now, but I will probably have a look when passing by.

 Arriving at the Tourist office and Mary Kathleen Memorial Park

 Not really a whole lot to remember at the park

 Overlooking Cloncurry

 Council buildings

Main street, the Highway east and west 

Next update will be for Winton which is well out of the way and almost backtracking in the scheme of things and then I will try and get all the other updates done up to today so that everything is up to date again. Hopefully there will be internet service, with my provider, at the next town...

23 June 2013

Well this morning was another early day and again on the road early and another long drive, it was 395 kilometres from Mt Surprise to Normanton and another 71 kilometres from Normanton to Karumba. So from Mt Surprise it is 92 kilometres to Georgetown, where they have a mineral display with 4500 examples from all over, though I must say I didn't go have a look, and then about 150km between there and Croydon and 150km again to Normanton. Both Croydon and Georgetown are a lot smaller than I imagined they would be, mind I never thought they would be very big, they aren't a small as Mt Surprise, but they are small indeed.

I didn't actually take any pictures in Georgetown as really I didn't notice all that much I wanted to photograph, small little town with not a lot seeming to be going on.It was an interesting landscape between Mt Surprise and Georgetown.

 Part of the highway, it isn't all of the way, mostly it is a lane each way and really well constructed, though there are a few sections that are still like the road I had imagined it to be 

 There is a bitumen surface in the middle there somewhere

 Landscape changes from this to flat grassland and scrub further on

 Colours are amazing I think

Main street Georgetown

  Croydon on the other hand has some interesting old buildings and they seem to have a bit more civic pride happening, mind I suppose having the Gulflander train that was opened in 1891 and runs on a line that is still measured in Miles helps bring in tourist dollars. The line runs from Normanton to Croydon and was never actually connected to the rest of the Queensland rail network. Actually I have yet to see the train, if it hasn't departed to Croydon before I get to Normanton.

Normanton is another in the line of tidy towns, with really, really wide streets. Very sleepy place and there doesn't seem to be much happening at all, though a nice relaxed atmosphere about it. There are two mini supermarkets, three pubs and a small hospital as the main stays, though there are a few other small shops and such and a school here as well, oh and some good places for fishing by the looks of it. The train, I've forgotten that, it's here too, somewhere..

 Main street of Normanton

They have a big Croc!

To round the day out I did a round trip to Karumba to have a look at what is there and to have visited the Gulf of Carpentaria as well. There is not a huge amount there at all really, nice little place though and in two halves, the town and the point, the latter being where most of the tourists are as it is where you can watch the sun set over the water and is supposed to be amazing, though I am saving that for the coast of Western Australia instead. Karumba is the only town on the south Gulf coast that has sight of the Gulf due to extensive mud flats.

 Not much of a beach, but then you wouldn't swim here would you

The Count, The Gulf

One interesting thing I was thinking of on the way back was basically what is in the following photo

Certainly a wide and expansive plain, all the way to the horizon in all directions, so given where the ground level is and given where the road is in proximity to the ground level and given the sign in the picture and that the indicators are all at 1 metre, can you even imagine the voulme of water it would take to flood this area!

Tomorrow is another long drive, it is just under 400 kilometres from Normanton to Cloncurry and there is 1 Road House (petrol station) along the way....