2010 On the road

Mataranka, Tennant Creek, Camooweal, Mount Isa, Cloncurry, Normanton, Croydon, George Town, Innott Springs and Mareeba.

Hi to all

Just a laugh to start with saw this at Normanton train station, click on to enlarge for easy reading,

We are in Mareeba Queensland West of Cairns and intend to stay here for a while, after a month and a half of travelling South, than East.

But first we stopped off at Daly Waters once more to say hello to Lyn and Errol and than met up with Ian and Merilyn at Tennant Creek for a nice 2 day get together and catchup on travel stories.Visited the Telegraph Station again and the interesting thing was this unusual wind mill next door instead of vertical blades they are horizontal it was used for pumping water for an animal delouse trough I think.

Great sunsets are here to be seen,

Than leaving I & M behind East we traveled. (here crossing the border)

Camooweal, just inside the Queensland border, our first stop and decided to camp at the Billabong

here for a couple of days, it was so nice and peaceful, the evenings were just magic sitting around a camp fire underneath a blanket of starsand had sunsets like these blood red.

After 8 days food was getting very low, so we made tracks to Mt Isa, only spent a couple of days here, stocking up once more, we were here last year.

Next Mary Kathleen

for a look only or so we thought, this town was built in the 1950s for the people who worked in the Kathleen Uranium Mine.

they actually built every facility you can think of from Medical, to numerous sporting complexes, this is the Medical center and the tiles you able to clearly see,

hotels etc. than when they closed the Mine in the 70s, as there is more here and they closed only due contract fulfillment, every building in the town was auction off ,all the streets are still there and so are the slabs from all the buildings, we spent the night in the main street of the shopping center and rode our bikes around town, it is an amazing place.

Visited the Uranium mine

petty impressive especially as we walked for an hour or more to get there.

After Mary Kathleen we spent 1 night at Clem Walton Park great spot and next to a dammed off lake,

the trip in and out was a bit scary, if another van was to come the in the opposite direction there was no where to go, as the track in and out was very narrow and on the side of a hill for approx. 3-4 K's but luck was with us and we made it OK.

Cloncurry or The Curry as they say, we were there last year so it was just those menial chores i.e. shopping etc.

Leichhart River Camp

near Normanton, great spot and we did our usual booked 3 days and stayed 9.

Sig caught 5 Barra,

4 of which were to small to keep, under 60 Centimeters which he threw back. luckily one was 60cm and legal size.
Some distances from Normanton on the gulf

Saturday dinner at the Homestead

3 courses, Soup and Damper, Steak and Veg and Trifle for the grand sum of $3 ( no its not a joke )and to top things off a ceiling of stars.

During our stay we rode on the old Gulflander train

from Normanton to Critters Camp and back a nice experience also took some photo's of some colorfull places

Croydon

stop was a must as we were able to receive SBS and watched the World Cup Soccer here same goes for our stop in George Town, mind we also washed the Van here. a nice scene inside the courthouse museum. (see more when you click on photo)

Note sign on back wall

After George Town, we traveled on through Mt Surprise and ended up staying at Innott Hot Springs for 3 days, for some relaxing swims in the pools there.

Here some great water falls near Ravenshoe

At Ravenshoe we rode the steam train,

boy was it cold and wet during our stay, this place is 900 ft above sea level and has rain and more rain just about all year round, but the country side is beautiful.