The Things You Do For Your Dog ...

 

The Walkabout Creek Hotel (of Crocodile Dundee fame)

After leaving the delightful Crocodile Dundee pub in McKinlay, I kept heading west.  I was SO tempted to keep going and not turn east when I reached Cloncurry but I had promised Maggie that I would take her to the beach (beach = ball games = happiness) and there were things to do back in Brisbane.  So I savoured my last taste of the outback before I headed to the bedlam that is the Queensland coast.

Very cute concerned cows

Most towns have houses for sale ... a true outback town has bulls for sale!

At a roadside stop, I got chatting to a couple who were driving a road train hauling cotton bales from Katherine!  They were a bit concerned because one of the 4 tonne bales had slipped (the plastic wrapping made this possible) and they were trying to secure it.  Annie (who seemed to be the boss) told me that it took the truck 5 kilometres to get up to maximum speed and 2 kilometres to stop!  She said they could do it quicker but that they would wreck the brakes.  They were halfway through a 3500 kilometres trip.  What a job!  It made me a lot more careful (and forgiving) of any big road trains I met.

You can see the naughty slipping bale with its extra strap ... at 4 tonnes, it would be a VERY dangerous thing if it fell off.

Cloncurry, Julia Creek, Richmond and Torrens Creek was my route to the coast.  And it seemed that it was the route for hundreds, no! thousands of caravans, motorhomes and camper trailers.  Oh, why didn't I keep going west!?!  Everyone was heading to the coast and, unlike me, they had bookings for weeks!  For months!  I'd managed to beg a couple of nights in a few different places ... most parks had laughed at me when I tried to get a site but I had persevered.

White Mountains National Park

A typical creek ... a bare expanse of sand, some of them up to 100m wide

In Cloncurry cemetery, there is an Afghan section where the cameleers were buried.  The grave of a mullah is one of the two headstones that remain (they anglicised his name from Sayed Omar to Syid O'Mar) while the other belongs to an Aboriginal woman, Nellie Edwards, who could have been a cameleer's wife or a rare convert to Islam. 

The scenery as I headed east was still arid and rocky but the bush was bursting with colour, in particular a stunning grevillea that lined the roads.  At one of my stops, I saw a vision of a sad future ... an old woman got out of an old battered van, dressed in fluffy pyjama bottoms and she started investigating the bin.  It was an incredibly sad sight.  I waved and was going to invite her over for a cup of tea but she scurried back into the van and drove off.  "Nomadland" in Queensland.

Eventually, we reached the coast and the lovely town of Bowen.  Maggie was happy!  There was a beautiful beach just a hop, skip and a jump away and I had a lovely little site nestled amongst the huge boulders.  But let's just pause for a while and talk about grey nomads, the Queensland coast and happy hour.  I was going to call this post "You're SO Brave!" because everyone (and I do mean everyone!) said that to me.  "Are you travelling alone? Oh! You're SO brave!"  When they weren't staring in frank amazement that I hadn't been murdered yet, they were inviting me to happy hour.  I went to a couple but really couldn't stand it ... "This is Anthea from Victoria - she's SO brave!" ... because these people aren't travelling.  They are staying put for months and they all know one another (probably from previous years) and they sit in a circle, get drunk and quiz you about being brave.  When I'm invited now, I smile (bravely) but inform them that I must walk the dog before it gets dark (and dangerous).

Sea, sand and a ball ... Bliss!

I did some lovely walks around Bowen, mainly up around the headlands, with views towards the Whitsundays and along the coast.  It was hot work with the sun bouncing off the white rocks and the steep paths climbing and climbing.  So in one little bay, I took off my boots and just waded in to the lovely clear and azure water.  My one and only swim!

View down to Horseshoe Bay, where my campground was.

My next coastal stop was a place called Bucasia Beach but I had a day to spare so decided to go to Finch Hatton.  Apart from sounding like it should be in an episode of Midsomer Murders, Finch Hatton boasts a beautiful gorge, a great camp at the showgrounds and more sugar cane tracks and trains than I've seen before.  All in a gorgeous valley, surrounded by towering, misty mountains.  I walked the walks, visited a really interesting craft shop in Pinnacle and found a roadside stall that sold the most ENORMOUS passionfruit.  

Bush Stone-curlews standing on the cane train tracks

The walk up to the Araluen Cascades was all ferns and palms, vibrant greens and damp browns.  The mosquitoes were enormous but the birds were a delight.  I saw a family of rufous fantails but they were too fast for the camera.  On the way back to Finch Hatten, I stopped to visit Felix the bull who is very affectionate and nice but is quite useless.  He doesn't like cows and has stepped on his pizzle and broken it.  But he is quite cute!

Bucasia Beach is a delight!  I would like to live here (well, for half the year anyway) but there's not a chance that I could afford anything!  The beach is beautiful and long, with a shallow gradient and tides that recede for tens of metres.  Next to the beach is a beautifully kept parkland with lots of big shady trees, picnic tables and ... and it's off-lead!!!!  So apart from the mosquitoes (thousands), the box jellyfish (summer-time) and the ticks, it's paradise!

So now I'm in Emu Park, near Yeppoon.  This park has cost the most of any place I've stayed and it's been a waste since it has rained most of today.  The things you do to keep your dog happy!  So I'm off tomorrow ... south and west.  I want to get back a bit inland because I'm over this coast thing.  There's too many people and I'm tired of being told I'm brave.  And Maggie has hurt her leg so she's not allowed beaches or balls.  So inland it is!  Yippee!

Anthea in the Outback

I have reached the outback.  It's not quite what I'd imagined.  Yes, the roads reach to the limitless horizon and towns are few and far between.  Kites wheel overhead and there are brahman cattle grazing in the endless paddocks.  But it's green!  There's something really wrong about a verdant, lush landscape when you have been expecting desert, bindis and saltbush.  It's beautiful but it just seems too kind and forgiving.

And the roads just keep going ... going in an absolutely straight line ... on and on ...

... or are dangerous because you are reading signs on the side of the road rather than paying attention to the huge road trains about to run you over!

East from West?

????????? That DID NOT help!

Oh!

One of the things that breaks the tedium of long straight roads is the birdlife (interesting unlike the frustrating trivia games some brightspark invented).  Crossing every culvert and bridge pushes a cloud of swallows into the air, all swirls and darts and acrobatics around the van.  There are countless kites and falcons soaring and hovering ... I assume all this greenery has meant that it's a bumper season for animals and birds.

An Australian bustard

Brolgas on the side of the road

Maggie and a Major Mitchell historic marker

My first stop after a rain-soaked Emerald was Alpha.  I only visited the Lifeline shop in Emerald (more books) and missed the gem fields (wet, wet, wet) and just drove west, where the BOM showed no rain.  Much as I love Van Morrison, he is not suited to wet weather unless there's a good camp kitchen.  So to Alpha.  Maggie and I ended up staying there for two days.  The caravan park was delightful and I had many a long chat with the managers and quite a few walks around the small town - set out like many of these outback towns on a rigid grid system.  Alpha is a bit different.  My first (and only) conversation with a local went like this ...

I was taking a photo of the bakery and an old man leant against the wall and said "you won't get a pie".  "That's fine" blinked Anthea, "I've already got lunch".  "Well, you won't get one" he replies.  "No worries" say Anthea.  "Yep! You won't get no pies here" he mutters.  I start walking away and hear "she won't get a pie that way neither!"  I must look like I am in dire need of a pie!

Back in the days when fuel prices only needed three digits

You won't get a pie!  Bakery ... closed!

Pub ... closed!

Hairdressers ... closed!

Having enjoyed the serenity and pielessness of closed Alpha, I travelled along more straight roads, through more green pastures to Ilfracombe.  This is a very small hamlet about 27 km from Longreach where I wanted to visit the Qantas Founders Museum and maybe the Stockmens Hall of Fame.  Ilfracombe has a pub, the Wellshot Hotel, a caravan park, a post office/op shop/craft shop/library/homewares shop and a mile of tractors, trucks, agricultural machinery and weird gadgets, all painted lurid colours.  It was quite a display!

On of the side effects of (a) all the eastern states being on school holidays, (b) some pretty ordinary weather in the said eastern states and (c) the hangover from COVID restricting movement last year, is that it is VERY, VERY BUSY.  In Barcaldine, vans and trailers lined the main street in both directions, with a queue halfway around the block to get fuel and the bakery with empty shelves at 11am!  I've had to book into most van parks, often getting sites just because the van is so small.  Otherwise, things are booked solid.  So it was no surprise to find that the Stockmens Hall of Fame was booked out and I just squeezed into the Qantas museum.  But I really enjoyed this place - it was well presented and very interesting.  Interactive displays told the story of the founders of Qantas but also gave a feel for the place and the times.  

And so to Winton.  I'd booked three nights behind the North Gregory pub, camping out the back, and had managed to book into the Australian Age of Dinosaurs.  This was going to be a highlight!  And it's a sad lesson in expectations that Alpha was more pleasant (even with no pies) and Qantas more interesting.  But Winton did have some lovely highlights.  The pub was a beautiful example of an outback pub, although it seems to have been a bit unlucky, burning down in 1899, 1916 and 1946.  I loved its grab at history ... Waltzing Matilda was played in public for the first time here, the founders of Qantas met here and Lyndon B. Johnson stayed for a night when his plane was forced to land during WWII.  It has a ghost (of course) and beautiful etchings on the doors.

For all of you who are planning to go to Winton, can I give you a word of advice?  Take lots of water!  Nice water!  Drinkable water!  Not water that vaguely smells like a septic tank.  Sulphur fumes coming out of your shower really don't make you think you are clean.  Add to that, backpackers and 15 campsites sharing the ONE shower ... 

Arno's Wall - a creative use of motorbikes, cash registers, wheels, stoves, etc, etc.

So to the dinosaurs ... a 'highlight'!  I was disappointed ... no! I was bored!  The dinosaur tracks had been transported there from a site 60 km away.  Many of the exhibits were copies.  There was no access to the actual sites where the bones had been discovered.  It was pretty much all fake.  And I felt so sorry for the families, who had shelled out $200 but there was nothing much there for the kids.  I heard one mum ask her little girl what was the best part of the trip and she replied the sandpit ... not any of the tours or displays or statues or ...  just the free sandpit.  For my part, the best bit was the diversity of plants, many of them flowering, and the stunning views from the "Jump Up" down onto the Winton Plain.  However, don't let me put you off ... if you like dinosaurs I'm sure you'll love it!

Plant identification time ...

"Sida" shrub

Silver turkey bush - Eremophila bowmanii

Eremophila cordatisepaia

Hop bush - Dodonaea petiolaris

Crimson turkey bush - Eremophila latrobei

Green mulla mulla - Ptilotus psilorhachis

So now I'm in McKinlay - home to the Walkabout Creek Hotel of Crocodile Dundee fame.  As I eat my fish and chips (surprisingly lovely considering how far away from the sea this is), kill mosquitoes and listen to the road trains thunder past, I'm still undecided as to where I'll go next.  I'm so enjoying the 'outback' and there's still so much to see.  How exciting is that!