We have now made it to Adels Grove at Lawn Hill National Park. After leaving Normanton we travelled through to Burketown. 30 k of sealed road, 120 k of dirt followed by about 70 k of sealed road. Crossed a few rivers, including the Flinders which is Queensland’s longest River.

Road to Burketown

On the way we called in at the memorial marking where Burke & Wills made their last campsite in 1861  before starting their return trip south. It is a pretty isolated spot near the Little Bynoe River, which isn’t so little.

This is Burke & Wills last campsite near the Little Bynoe River before they turned around and headed south after failing to reach the Gulf. They seem to have been short by about 25 miles, beaten by the rivers and swamps. This tree has blaze marks made by the explorers some 150 years ago. The tree is still alive as are a couple of others they marked. Others on the site are dead or just stumps.

Crossing the Flinders River causeway, the water was about 30cm below the roadway.

There is not a lot at Burketown and it seems to be set up mostly to service the cattle industry, Barramundi fishing and tourists travelling along the Savannah Way. One of the big events here is the Morning Glory. A strange cloud formation that rolls in from the Gulf from September through to December. We were lucky to see it happen the morning we were there. An unusual event the locals said for this time of year. We didn’t complain it was quite spectacular. There were 3 bands of these ‘rolled-up’ clouds crossing over Burketown, all over in about 20 minutes or so.

Morning Glory

This bore at Burketown is over 100 years old and has been flowing rather hot water from day one plus a lot of other stuff such as carbonates and calcium etc. Can’t drink it, they used to have a spar here in the old days.

rom Burketown we turn south to Gregory Downs and then west to Adels Grove for a few nights in Lawn Hill National Park. Bit more dirt road  to come.

Well we have had six days here at Karumba on the Gulf. What a neat place this camp ground on Karumba Point is. Right on the water, temperature is great at give or take 30 degrees. No wind to speak of . Blue skies. No rain, it stopped a couple of weeks ago. People are happy, they go fishing, talk about fishing, clean their catch, eat their catch, go fishing, talk about fishing, clean their catch,eat their catch etc. Endless! The pool here though is a bit chilly. Allthego went in a few times and it was nippy. There is a character here who ties a rope around himself,  gets in the pool and does laps against the rope, really bores into it. Must be 70. Exhausting.

Everybody loves to take a sun set at the Karumba Point Hotel

Krys the Crock. The largest recorded crocodile was shot in 1957 on the banks of the Norman River. It was 8.63 metres long. This is a replica drawn to actual size. A big beastie! Apparently, they can run as fast as we walk (quickly).

We have used  Karumba as a base and tripped into Normanton a couple of times for the ride on the Gulflander and to look around the town. Much prefer Kuramba for ambience!

Normanton’s Big Barra

Allthego was chasing Barra so he took a charter out for half day in search of the Barra, no Barra. The port side of the boat caught 80%  of the fish, about 25 salmon. Allthego was on the starboard side and caught 2 under size salmon and an under size cod. Stingrays offered some minor excitement. The catch was shared, so we ended up with a couple of nice fish. Filled in 5 hours on the placid Gulf seas and it was very peaceful out there drifting around. Fishing and eating fish seems to be the go here.

Allthego got amongst the stingrays whilst the others chose to catch some salmon. At least this was a pretty design.

The fish and chips (had a few prawns as well)  are great at the Sea Breeze Cafe. Really nicely cooked piece of Barra. Hotel on the Point was also great as the sun sank into the ocean.

Our last evening  was spent on a sunset cruise ( a loose description for an over-size dinghy) along the Norman River and then out about 5 k into the Gulf to a sand island where we wandered around taking photos, drinking a glass of white and eating some prawns and fruit. While this was happening the sun was dropping into the ocean.  Really top trip.

Sun set at the sand island. About 5km off the mouth of the Norman River in the Gulf. Highest point is about 1 metre above the sea line and its not very big either. This is low tide.

We left Karumba this morning for Burketown (where we now are). Tomorrow we are onward bound for Adel’s Grove near  Lawn Hill National Park.  On the way through the savannah we stopped off at Burke & Wills last campsite before they set off for  the coast (which they never reached). There are two trees here still living bearing Burke and Wills marks. The live trees must be 200 plus years old (?).

Adel’s Grove  is a bit isolated and I may not be able to get a blog up for a few days. Maybe something  is possible.

On Wednesday we were off to Croydon on the Gulflander. This is a 5 hour journey on a rail motor with one carriage and covers the 140k or so to Croydon from Normanton. We left at 8.30 am. The train was full, probably 40 or so people, most going the full distance and some getting off after about 40k  at a place called Critter’s camp to rejoin their bus trip. During the dry season the trip is very popular and the Gulflander runs on a number of days for tours etc. The trip we were on was the regular weekly run to Croydon and then back the next day to Normanton.  It started operations to Croydon  in 1891 using steam locomotives, the boilers were fired with wood not coal, with wood in short supply in the Gulf country rail motors replaced the steam locomotives in 1929.

Stopped at the Black Bull siding. We had some morning tea here. Not sure why it is called the Black Bull siding, should have asked.

Doing the Titanic thing on the Gulflander at the Black Bull siding, about 80k out of Normanton, a bit over half way to Croydon.

The rail motor we were on RM 93 commenced its life on the line  in 1982,  built-in 1950 and has been reworked and refurbished a few times since then. Its 6 cylinder diesel engine though is 69 years old, the whole thing works like a truck except on tracks.  The train runs on hollow steel sleepers that are set in the ground, there is no ballast or embankments on the track where the line is flood affected. Floods apparently just flow across the line and do little if any damage. 90% of the sleepers and track are original and have been in place for 120 years. A couple of sections have recently been replaced due to rust finally taking hold in an area where acid from old mining operations has leached through the soil and damaged the sleepers.

The Gulflander’s drivers eat, showing all the implements. The gears are not synchro-meshed, 4 forward one reverse of the crash through type.

The Gulflander is one of Australia’s last mail trains. We dropped off some mail at the Haydon property. This is a weekly ritual. Mrs Haydon has 3 very young children and they just love the train. So the driver told us.

As the train rattles along,  the driver  who is also the station master and ticket seller, gives a running commentary on the history of the line, the environment through which it passes and the communities that used to  line its track  (these are long gone).

Picture of a picture. A steam loco crossing the Norman River in 1902.

This post is a flood level marker. The top one is the devastating 1974 flood. There must have been an enormous amount of water, it is pretty flat here for miles. Normanton was evacuated.

On the previous Monday we had done a short trip on another rail motor RM 60 which had been built-in 1931. This travelled about 4 miles to the 4 mile, curious that! There is only one track all the way to Croydon with some triangular turnarounds at various places to allow the train to change direction and head back to Normanton. This little rail motor has been fully restored and rattles along at about 30k an hour.

This is the old 1931 Rail motor RM 60,

RM 60 needs to be cranked to get her going

The Gulflander arrives in Croydon  at 1.30 pm in time for lunch at the Club Hotel and a short wander around town. We chose to return by a bus service to Normanton at 3.30 and arrived back at 5.30, to pick up the car which we had left at the station. It was still there. Other passengers were staying overnight in Croydon, returning on the Gulflander the next day to Normanton. It was great day out for nostalgia lovers!

Georgetown and Croydon are famous for their origins as 1880’s gold mining centres. Most of the gold had been stripped by the early 1900s. In both towns the history of gold mining and the people involved are features of the town’s publicity machines. All sorts of relics from the past are on display; battery stamps, old mine sites and chimneys, flywheels, steam engines, winches, buckets etc.

Many of these were made in England but some were made in foundries on the gold fields and nearby  towns. Today it is pretty much a cattle region  finding  its way, via the live cattle trade, to Indonesia through the Gulf  port of Karumba.

Special sponges were provided in the ladies facilities at the Croydon Caravan Park. They just looked and grinned.

We spent a couple of interesting days wandering around the sights of Georgetown and Croydon.

Lillies

Cumberland Chimney

Some sort of dragonfly on the pond

A pretty good fish and chips was had at the Club Hotel in Croydon, the last one of 30 still standing from the 1890s. This town has a number of well preserved wooden buildings from the same period. One of them is the courthouse where we listened to the case brought against Elizabeth Brown for drunk and disorderly conduct, she was locked up in Normanton for 2 months. Nearby the gaol has an incumbent who has been there for 90 years lying on a bed, an audio comes to life when you walk past with him moaning and groaning about the conditions.

Elizabeth Brown in the dock

The Chinese had a big presence on the gold fields up here and there is archaeological dig site outside Croydon on one of their former settlements, an 1890s Chinatown. An interesting place to wander around, as well as the Chinese section of the old cemetery.

Chinese headstone in the Croydon cemetery, the writing also indicates the person’s home place back in China.

An excellent camp ground here couldn’t keep us another night in town as we had to move on.

This was a special! We passed the Gulflander travelling from Croydon to Normanton. Doesn’t generally happen on Saturdays. Once a week on Thursdays is the rule. This was a special charter full of grey nomads! We are doing this trip next week.

Leaving Croydon we are now heading for Normanton and Kurumba, hoping to catch an elusive Barramundi on the shores of the Gulf.

Well, we made it to the  Undara Lava Tubes, or  the ‘Undara Experience’ as the marketing people call it. No blog while we were there as the internet was a bit variable. Just can’t wait till we get the NBN!  Along the way we called in at Greenvale for lunch at the 3 Rivers Hotel. One of its claims to fame is having a sausage tree in its backyard.  Now the sign says there are only 4 of these trees in Australia, 2 are in Townsville, 1 is in Adelaide the other one is right here in Greenvale. Believe it or not! This tree comes from South Africa/Mozambique and apparently has no use for its sausages, apart from the fire. Greenvale is the remnants of the town established for the now closed Greenvale  nickel mine which supplied the refinery at Townsville,  now owned by Clive Palmer. It is now famous for a sausage tree.

Greenvale’s Sausage Tree

Undara is a great camping spot out in the wilds, so when we arrived and finally backed the van into our spot it was with great shock that the Physi cult struck. Some these days would say ‘awesome’. Guess  what? Claire Ridley and Gary (now live in Sydney)  jumped out from behind a tree and said ‘ hi  there, I know you,  I’m Claire’ and Leanne said ‘Yes, I’m Leanne’. The Brisbane connection was made and Gary suggested Physi. Anyway it seems Claire’s kids did Physi with the Brown kids and Imlays, Whites, Tucker-Evans etc. This was all 20 years ago! What a funny place to meet up again. We were there for 3 nights.

Gary and Claire Ridley recounting physi tales with Allthego in the packed out bar at Undara lodge. The grey nomads had not yet arrived it seems.

These lava tubes are really quite spectacular to experience. They originate from lava flows from the Undara Volcano which spewed basalt flows for some 10-30 years about 190,000 years ago. There were massive volumes of lava, estimated at 23 m cubic km of the stuff. This spread out over the landscape but a lot of it found its way down gently sloping water courses. The top and sides of the flow hardened but inside it kept going, finally when the lava eruptions stopped the tubes drained out leaving a tube (bit like worm casings). Well some of these tubes are big enough to drive road trains through. We went into  4 of them but there are lots, one is estimated at running for 160 km. Truly something to be seen!

Undara lava tube

This guy is the size of my thumb, in an Undara creek

Huntsman spider on the track back to the van.

On our last day we climbed to the top of the Kalkarni volcano and walked around its rim, not much action in the crater as it is quite dormant. There are over 170 volcanos of various types in this geological region.  The last volcano erupted here about 10,000 years ago and would have been witnessed at the time  by the indigenous people.

The bone dry Etheridge River at Georgetown

Kalkarni volcano

We have now moved onto Georgetown and are on the Savannah Way heading west for Croydon tomorrow.

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Here we are in ‘The Towers’ staying at the Oasis van park just outside town. They have a pool here which is great because its hot. There are no crocodiles in the pool just allthego.

Come on in there are no crocodiles in here!

This town has some great old Gold Rush days buildings, some about 140 years old. Most are made of bricks (from here in CT as I will call it) and rendered with quite a thick coating. They have been lovingly restored, but the trick is that  it is thought the actual bricks are beginning to crumble (despite all the painting) and in another 30-40 years there will be a major restoration problem for the town. Not sure I will be around to see the outcome, but interesting problem anyway to solve (of course not on the scale of the salad dressing mystery).There are a few interesting places to see here, including an old gold battery stamping plant. This is where the ore was crushed and ultimately the gold extracted. It stopped working in the early 1970s, much of the machinery remains in place depicting how the process worked. The town plays strongly on its past and has ‘ghosts’ from the old days appearing in presentations of the town’s history.

The CT Stock Exchange was built in 1890, now restored. The “Calling of the card takes place in the central arcade.

This is a presentation of the “Calling of the Card” in the Charters Towers Stock Exchange. It was done 3 times a day. These days trades are done on computers. The CT exchange is long closed!

In its heyday in the 1880s there were 90 hotels in the town, having a population of about 25,000. Today there are about 8,500 people and maybe 5 or 6 hotels, some still in their old surroundings. We dined one night in The Courthouse (renovated somewhat) on a couple of really good steaks.A few locals (really local and showing it!) were entrenched at the bar enjoying the band.

The Courthouse has to cancel the main event!

We had gone originally here to see a bull bucking contest. Unfortunately this had been cancelled due to an injury. I asked the bar girl whether the bull had been injured,she looked at me quizzically and said “No, the bull had speared the bloke doing the show”. Enough said!

This is a portrait of Jupiter in old age. He is credited with finding the first gold at Charters Towers in 1871 when as an Aboriginal horse boy he found nuggets in a creek bed at the foot of Tower Hill. Jupiters Casino in Townsville is named after him.

A highlight of the visit to CT was listening to a ‘Foyer Recital’ in one of the old buildings. This was free and a part of the ‘Ten days at the Towers’ extravaganza of all things country, including music (its like a mini Tamworth Country Music Festival). The band playing were the ‘Gospel Gold Diggers”. The lead singer, Wiley, on guitair admitted to being 79. There was a girl Minnie Mina  (not much younger or older than Wiley),  on a double bass and clarinet. Last, but not least, was Kooki (on banjo and violin/fiddle) she was half their age. What a group! About 30 onlookers enjoyed the performance. The old C & W standard ‘This Old House’  (now who sang that on the top 40 way back when?) stood out as the song of the night. The band seemed to enjoy it as well!

The Australian Bank of Commerce was built in 1891. It has been restored and redeveloped as The World Theatre complex. This is where we heard the Gospel Gold Diggers foyer recital.

The Gospel Gold Diggers. Minnie is at the back, Kooki at left and Wiley on the right. Tapping out the tunes.

Its been a great couple of days here looking around CT. We now continue  heading 400k  north on Monday to the Undara Lava Tubes.

As we left Brisbane’s outskirts heading for Childers the impact of all the rain from Cyclone Ita became apparent, particularly from Gympie on. The paddocks were green and dams fullish, the bulls were frolicking amongst the cows. As we turned west at Rockhampton it wasn’t quite as green, creeks empty or only puddles and a bit of dust. The rains seem to have greened the tops of everything.

At Duaringa, as previously reported, the case of the spilt salad dressing transpired in this really good free camp site beside the highway. There was ultimately no inquiry into the event which is just as well. Mysteries of jars unscrewing themselves best remain unresolved on these outback journeys. Its ultimate understanding (if ever) awaits another time and place.

Duaringa campsite in the early morning

Moving onto Clermont we stopped by Copperfield, a now deserted copper mining area dating back to the 1870s. This was Queensland’s first copper discovery and upwards of 2000 miners and assorted shop keepers and publicans lived in this area. There were 22 chimney stacks scattered across the field where the rich copper ore was processed. All the people have now gone  leaving behind the cemetery, a now restored general store and a remaining chimney.

The last chimney standing on the Copperfield mine area

Anzac Day 2014 in Clermont

Clermont has its murals too! This one depicts the police rounding up the striking shearers in the 1890s.

The sorghum fields outside Clermont on the way north to Charters Towers are just enormous stretching as far as the eye can see. They provide a stark contrast to the scrubby bush land right alongside or on the other side of the road. If all this area was cultivated it would be an enormous crop!

Sorghum crop

Amongst all the scrub creeks and rivers creep, some are bone dry others puddles and some, like the Belyando River (170k north of Clermont), are full and deep in parts. 5 people it seems live at the Belyando Roadhouse selling diesel at $2.05  a litre. Couldn’t see a lot else to do here, except count road trains pulling in and out. We stopped here for lunch having  topped the tank up before leaving Clermont. Petrol and diesel sales were limited to $30 worth, a bit less than 15 litres, perhaps only just enough to make the 200k to Charters Towers.

Cape River

Cape River a little further along from the Belyando was pretty dry, but very wide at this crossing, with great drifts of sand on its flood banks.

We are now at Charters Towers for 3 nights.

There is a song which starts with these lyrics but I can’t remember any of the rest. Athomealone says it’s some sort of romantic song and that’s why I can’t remember the lyrics! A good start for 7 weeks on the road!

As planned we got away 4 hours late on the 22 April 2014  from Brisbane heading up the Bruce Highway. We are off to Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, via the Savannah Way. The Savannah Way traverses Northern Australia west of Cairns, passing through towns such as Georgetown, Croydon, Normantown and Burketown. We are away 7 or so weeks on this return trip to Brisbane. It is the end of the wet season in Kakadu and we are leaving before (we hope) all the old grey nomads get on the road doing the same trip!

We have had 3 quick one night stands getting here to Charters Towers. First night was  Childers. Next a free camp, including amenities and hot showers, at Duaringa which is about 12ok west of Rockhampton on the Capricorn Highway. Arrived here to a  minor drama with the van. On opening up we found a trail of oily salad dressing stretching from the fridge, seems a jar tipped over and the lid unscrewed itself and this stuff leaked out of the fridge across the floor of the van. There was an opportunity here for an enquiry into why and how this jar lid unscrewed itself but allthego felt this was unnecessary and it was just better to let the clean up proceed. This was wise.

After an otherwise uneventful night we continued west to Emerald and then turned north on the Gregory Development Rd to Clermont.  Over-nighted here at the Clermont Caravan Park, great little spot just out-of-town. Spent a couple of hours whipping around catching all the sites. One of these was St Mary’s RC Church but the Roman Catholics had a few years ago  cunningly moved their hundred plus year old church and built a new facility, but they hadn’t told the guide books. Tricky! We missed it. Anzac Day dawned and we headed down  to Hoods Lagoon for the  commemorative service at 9.30am. My guess is there were 300 people  of all ages there,which is about 10% of Clermont’s population. Not bad.

We are now in Charters Towers for 3 nights.