Townsville to Cloncurry via Normanton

After the wedding we left Townsville for Mount Surprise and the Undara volcanic National Park
Mt Surprise – here we explored another fascinating geological wonder the Undara Volcanic National Park, the cooling molten lava of an erupted volcanic flow of lava 190,000 years ago forming 90km of hollow underground lava tube from a single volcano. The lava quickly cooled and crusted, while the interior lava drained beneath to leave long, dark, hollow tubes at a length of over 160km. We also walked the eggcup-shaped crater on the 2.5 km Kalkani crater circuit. The guide took the time to explain the science first before taking us below ground to the lava tubes. This was a great approach as it allowed us to understand what we were seeing.

Kalkani crater

Next we went to Forsayth, an old mining town which is one of the few remaining towns of a large number which existed on the Etheridge Gold Fields. For anyone who wants to try their luck detecting there is still some gold and relics out there.

We went on a guided boat tour through the rugged sandstone formations of Cobbold Gorge. This gorge is very narrow, closing to 2 metres wide in places with 30 metre high cliffs on both side, and some the native wildlife that we got to see included freshwater crocodiles, heron and many different fish. Again we walked to the top of the gorge first before descending to the bottom of the gorge so we could understand what we were about to see on the boat.

Back onto the Gulf Development Road at Georgetown we stopped at Croydon for a picnic lunch in the park and that we looked through the Croydon general store which has been trading since 1894.Then on to our next camp at Normanton.

Normanton is a historic town at the centre of the Gulf Savannah grassland. Here we spent the day doing a self guided walking tour of the town that included the original artesian bore that supplies "hot" water to the amenities in the caravan that we stayed in.




Artesian Bore, Town well/ Light pole



With crocodiles prevalent here we saw a replica of the largest one ever shot in 1957 measuring 8.63m.




Krys the Croc - the Savannah King

 Our walking tour finished at the Railway Station, museum and home of the famous Gulflander Train, just in time to catch at short train ride on this historic 140 km rail line but we only went out to Critters Camp and return. It was interesting as the camp is a transhipment point in the wet season where road trains load their cargo onto barges. It is the only guaranteed way that the town can be resupplied in the wet.

Gulflander Train

Before we packed up to leave Normanton we out took our breakfast out to Burke & Wills –camp 119, it is the most northerly camp site of the Burke and Wills expedition party crossing inland.

Burke & Wills Camp 119

Whilst in Normanton we heard of the fantastic sunsets at Karumba so we decided to have dinner at the pub on the beach at Karumba Point. The locally caught barramundi was great and the sunset didn't let us down and they were at least 30 or 40 people ready to capture it on film.

Karumba Point sunset

We then travelled south about 400 kms to Cloncurry. We visited the Mary Kathleen Museum which told the story of the abandoned mining town and the Rev John Flynn Museum which provided information on the founding of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.



The next day we went to McKinlay and the Walkabout Creek Pub, home of the Crocodile Dundee films.

We continued south to Kynuna and the Blue Heeler pub, the location of the first public recital of Waltzing Matilda. It is an amazing pub and even has its own surf life club and boat even though it is over 1,000 kms from the ocean.




Blue Heeler Hotel famous hotel with illiminated blue heeler statue on the roof.  Waltzing Matilda Exhibition


We finished the day by a trip to the billabong that is generally accepted to be the setting for Waltzing Matildas. It is about 23 kms from Kynuna and is incredibly peaceful.

Combo Waterhole Conservation Park the events described in "WaltzingMatilda" occurred in this conservation park.

Atherton Tablelands/Cairns Highlands

It has now been a few weeks since our adventure up the Cape and we have had a bit of a break from touring. We arrived back in Cairns to have our car serviced and to try and clean off some of the red dust that we accumulated from the Cape, we spent 2 whole days cleaning and we are still finding red dust everywhere.

While the car was being services Marty and I took another cruise this time to discover more of the spectacular underwater gardens of the outer Reefs of the coral reef system for more snorkelling, the morning session was on Michaelmas Cay (the middle reef) and then after lunch the boat took us out to Hasting Reef (the outer reef) for the afternoon. What we saw was very different to our previous snorkelling expedition at Great Keppel. We were about 50 kms off shore and the fish species and the reef very diverse. We saw small harmless sharks, giant clams and steep drops on the edge of the reef. All in all a great day.

Marty with a pineapple sea cucumber

A giant clam

We left Cairns and headed for the Atherton Tablelands staying at Lake Tinaroo, only a short drive from Cairns up the Kennedy Highway. After setting up camp we set out to sample some of the tastes of the Tropics in the afternoon with visits to the Golden Drop Mango Winery and Mt Uncle Distillery to sample some of the local fruit wines, liqueurs and spirits, some of which were so good that we had to take some away with us. The sparkling mango wine would come in handy as by this time we had decided that we were not that far from Townsville and we would be able to attend Marty's nephew's wedding. We also got some very tasty coffee and mulberry liqueurs that go down very well in the cooler evenings. We also found double bananas for 80c each, which is a real bargain because, to our surprise, bananas are no cheaper here than at home despite most of them being grown here.
On the Saturday we headed out to the township of Atherton, to look at the Crystal Caves a fanciful creation, with a private mineralogical collection of over 600 specimens, including the world's largest amethyst geode, the Empress of Uruguay, this is 3.5 meters tall with 100% natural amethyst crystals inside.

 Empress of Uruguay

Ammonite Fossils



Thats me sitting on a large bit of Rose Quarts  Rose Quartz has been known as THE stone that is inseparably associated with love, romance and passion. Rose Quartz is be- lieved by many to have powerful magical properties that open the heart for love, giving softness to the most hardened of hearts.



Maroccan Fossil

At lunch time we headed for Mareeba, where 70% of Australia's coffee is grown. We visited Coffee World and got to tastes 21 coffees, 4 teas, 3 liqueurs and 12 chocolates. I only liked the chocolates. Marty tasted all the coffees, as if he isn't already hypo enough. Coffee World also had an antiquities museum of coffee and tea memorabilia which included a good history of the introduction of coffee into western society.

Other things we saw in this area was the Rocky Creek war memorial park, the site of a 3,000 bed hospital complex at between 1943 and 1945 where over 60,000 patients were treated in the hospital. The patients were brought to the hospital from all theatres of war in the south west Pacific.
Sunday we took a long drive out along the Wheelbarrow Way to Chillagoe a small outback town west of Atherton Tablelands to see the impressive rugged limestone bluff containing over 560 known caves which were originally an ancient coral reef. We took a guided tour of the Royal Arch cave and visited the balancing rock before we drove around the town to see the ore smelter ruins and look at some of the marble souvenirs.

Balancing Rock



Royal Arch Cave, can you see the side profile of Queen Victoria?



We also visited the Historic Village at Herberton, just south of Atherton. The village contains over 25 buildings in their original form. There is a old businesses and civic buildings such as a school, blacksmith, banks, and a grocer each with utensils and tools from the 19th century. The weather wasn't great but it wa still an enjoyable visit.

After lunch we travelled on pass Ravenshoe the highest town in Queensland then onto Innot Hot Springs for a couple of restful days at the natural thermal springs that reputedly having healing powers for weary bodies like ours. We stayed at the Leisure & Health Park that has 6 public pools all with varying degrees of water temperature. 44 -24 degree water bubbles out of Nettle Creek so you can dig your own hole in the river sands of the creek bed and relax if you don't want to stay in the park.

Swimmers enjoying a pool of hot water in Nettle Creek

Innot Hot Springs Nettle Creek Qld 

Then on to Townsville for the wedding.

Cape York (an adventure in Blokesworld)

One of the goals we set ourselves for our time away was to get to the northernmost tip of Australia at Cape York. We did a lot of research and took a lot of advice on whether two townies in a pretend 4WD (an all wheel drive rather than a 4WD) towing a big trailer could get there on the 700 k of dirt roads on the cape.

In summary the advice we got was:

• Go there early in the dry season after the roads have been graded and the damage from the wet season has been repaired

• Go on the Peninsular Development Road (PDR) and take the by-pass roads and avoid the old telegraph track as the OTT is real hairy chested 4WDing

•     Talk to the locals including the police and fellow travellers for up-to-date advice.

Well we got to the tip in no small part because we followed this advice which was pretty right. Marty did the talking bits I did the rest. So what was it like? The PDR is a wide road generally in good order.

It changed surface often with many water crossings and dips. We think the dips were so named because they are lucky dips for drivers: some were holes in the ground while others were barely noticeable. We got good advice from Scott, a son of family friends who lives in Weipa and assured us the PDR was a unsealed freeway at this time of the year and from various station owners/managers who confirmed that the dry season manning of the stations went from 25 April until 25 October and we were there at about the best time as the graders were at work. Many parts of the road were very different on the way back even though only a week or so had elapsed. This was because of the grader work and traffic use. By talking to the locals we were warned in advance of the biggest potholes so we knew when to expect them. This meant that we only engaged 4WD drive on three occasions, driving in 2WD the rest of the time.

Highlights of the trip were

• The 34k trip to the tip itself from the camping ground and the iconic photo next to the sign "You are at the northernmost point of the Australian continent",

• The trip to Thursday and Horn Islands, where Alison Hall, a daughter of some friends in Canberra, made an excellent guide,

• The visit to Weipa and especially the mine tour

• Going bush to Stone's Crossing and Sandy Beach on the banks of the Wenlock River with Tony and Lorne, friends of Scott, who kindly took the time to show us one of the many special places around Weipa
• The camp ground at Loyalty Beach and the fantastic sunsets.

• The aboriginal drawings at Split Rock near Laura which had great explanations provided.

• And the best day of the whole trip so far, a day under the mango trees at Moreton Telegraph Station spent reading books, drinking wine and generally navel gazing.

We also gained a good knowledge of back packer employment schemes as every station/pub/camp ground had backpackers working as dog's bodies. We saw Swiss, Germans, Fins, Scots and Poms in very unlikely places earning a quid. We also saw some great sunsets, had food eaten by rodents in the middle of the night (Marty is a real hero with a broom handle against a ferocious mouse) and paid up to $2.36 a litre for unleaded fuel.

All in all it really is blokesworld as activities revolve around traditional male pastimes such as fishing boating and four wheel driving. I am happy to partake in this once in a while but I am too much of a princess to do it all the time and am looking forward to returning to civilisation for a while.

We made a lot of new friends along the way. Each night after we set up camp at the Road houses we took the opportunity to meet others that were doing the same thing as us and the general conversation each night would be: where have you come from today, where are you heading to tomorrow and which way are you going to go? Some days we would meet up with others that we had meet before and while we would take a different road and do something a bit different on some days we would end up meeting them again. And we hope that our paths may meet again as we continue our journey.

In all we probably spent longer than most on the cape as we had the time to do so and really wanted to get into it and get a feel for it.

We must give special thanks to:

Scott Byrne who event though he wasn't in Weipa allowed us to camp in his house in the town,

Scott's housemate Wayne who showed us round (we hope the edits to his resume were a reasonable repayment)

Alison Hall who took us around Horn and Thursday Islands and sent back our camera on the ferry when we accidently left it on Horn

Tony Wittkopp, who despite never met us before took us to a special place in the bush and arranged for us to get a new car battery when we needed it (sorry about the State of Origin result, Tony)

Big John and Di and Little John and Tresna the managers of Morton who allow us to have a special meal with their staff (the station doesn't provide meals normally but a butcher's daughter cannot resist lamb shanks).

The only bad part of the trip is Marty. Every time we say farewell to the lovely people we meet on our travels and they say "its been great to meet you" he says "I know" meaning they are the lucky ones and not us!!. We have also been playing spotto on the whole trip. This means that the first person to yell "spotto" when they see a yellow car scores a point. The current score 632 to me and 618 to Marty but that includes about 100 cars that only Marty could possibly think are yellow (Mustard, orange, gold and even light green).