After leaving Lawn Hill, we beat feet down to Cloncurry, picked up the trailer and started on our Nevada Day, tour of famous pubs in Central Queensland. Our first stop was in McKinlay to drop in on the pub made famous in the movie Crocodile Dundee, the Walkabout Creek Hotel. Now, for you Yanks, a "Hotel" in Oz may or may not have any hotel rooms to rent, but will always have a bar. This is a hold over from times when only hotels were licenced to sell booze, so may places declared themselves to be hotels in order to participate in the much more lucrative grog trade. It used to be, in order to maintain their licence to sell alcohol, they had to maintain a few rooms, but those rooms were usually not available for one reason or another. Most of that has fallen by the wayside these days, and, in many cases, only the name remains. Anyway, this particular Hotel was a disappointment. They changed the name from the Federal Hotel in 1986 to match the movie name and, in 1996, moved it 400 meters to the highway to make it easier for the tourists to find. It was an obvious tourist trap with none of the character (including the bad) that we’ve come to expect of outback pubs. It was clean, neat, tidy, efficient, well stocked with mementoes, had a pretty, friendly bar maid and even accepted Master Card!! Yuukk! We sipped one watery beer and took this photo, just to say we’d been there.
The next stop was much more satisfying. 74 km down the road is the Blue Heeler in Kyuna, reputed to be the birthplace of the unofficial Australian anthem "Waltzing Matilda".
The song depicts (using lots of Aussie slang) the story of the fateful demise of an itinerant sheep stockman during the Shearer’s Strike of the late 1800's. This was more like it! A surly publican in a blue singlet dispensing strong ale in a well used (well OK, sorta rundown) pub with real personality. A photo marks the spot where the "Squatter" (owner of the sheep station where the swagman of the story was drowned) dropped dead in his tracks while having a beer. Every square inch of the place, inside and out, is covered by written comments deposited by visitors over the years - mostly obscene.
In this photo you can see the sign on the roof (the red nose of the dog glows at night), and the lifesaver’s chair out front which is used in the annual Kyuna Surf Carnival. Never mind that the nearest beach is hundreds of miles away on the coast! Each year in August they throw a beach party complete with surf boards and all sorts of competitions to benefit the Royal Flying Doctor Service - crazy place! This was a favorite place of our dear, departed friend, Jim, and his wife, Heather, so we lifted several pots of beer to them and you can see me in the photo above adding our names to wall.
Then it was off to our last pub of the day in Winton 150 km further down the road. This is the other place that claims to be the birthplace of the Matilda legend, the North Gregory Hotel. Added to this is the coincidence that a US warplane carrying the future American president LBJ was forced down by bad weather near here in WW II, and the crew, along with LBJ stayed the night in the Hotel - WOW! Unfortunately, this was another nice, clean, neat, respectable pub, so after having our obligatory pot (small mug) of beer, we retired to the nearby caravan park and set up camp. As we had found in most of the caravan parks along the way, there was always someone interesting to talk to, and this place was no exception. The "permanent" residents included a friendly, but permanently drunk, city employee and his very nice, and usually sober, girl friend who was a local barmaid. We spent a good deal of time chatting with them and getting to understand the local outlook on things - surprisingly well informed, thoughtful, and, in the case of the drunk, quite entertaining!!
The next day, we made the 340 km run into and back from Longreach to see the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. This is a museum dedicated to observing the contribution of the outback explorers, stockmen, pioneers, and aboriginals in the "taming" of the outback and development of Australia. Besides being an excellent display of the topic, it was the best example of architecture that we had seen since leaving Sydney! The building is simply stunning in its design and construction and perfectly suited to it’s use. We spent all day here and only just managed to see it all. Here are a few views of the interior and exterior of the building.
Note the clever combined use of duct work and lighting fixtures in the last photo!
We put off our departure from Winton for another day in order to be there for the running of the Melbourne Cup. This is a horse race that attracts such national attention that the country virtually grinds to a stop each year to watch it. It’s run in Melbourne as you might expect, and appeals to Australia’s national love of a good horse race. It would be as if the Kentucky Derby was as popular as the Super Bowl and run during the week! It seemed that most people had the day off (except the pub employees, that is) and gathered at their favorite pub to place bets and watch the race. Quite a spectacle, and, since there were at least three pubs in Winton within walking distance of each other, we joined right in. All except for the betting of course, being Nevadans and immune to the temptations of gambling as we are. It was worth watching - an integral part of the Aussie lifestyle (particularly in the Outback), and we had fun! And this sunset on top of it all!
Our friend, Heather, had recommended that we visit Porcupine Gorge National Park on our way through this part of the country, so we headed off to Hughenden along yet another beef road. We dropped the trailer off for storage in the caravan park and stopped into the local visitor’s center for current road information - the road into Porcupine Gorge is a dirt road. While there, we took a look at the giant Muttaburrasaurus fossil skeleton on display in the visitor’s center. It was a big bi-pedal plant eating dinosaur that roamed the edges of the ancient inland sea which covered much of Oz in prehistoric times, and is named for the small outback community, Muttburra, near where the fossil was discovered. Then it was off to the gorge.
Now, just as there are no alligators in Oz, there aren’t any porcupines either, so it’s not clear how the gorge got it’s name, but it is a striking feature in this otherwise flat country.
There was no water flowing in it when we arrived, but this little cloud chased us right into the campground.
Again, the campground was empty and, this not being our first rodeo, we waited to set up camp until the last minute - good thing, too. The rain was refreshing and brought out the wonderful smells of the bush when wet. We reveled in the sensations, and when it had passed, we took a walk down into the gorge itself. The walk was great, but no sooner had we arrived than that nice little squall came back at us again - this time with lots of thunder and lightening. We raced back up the face of the ridge with lightening all around and a pelting rain. We found out later that most of the ridge was composed of fairly rich iron ore!! By the time we made it back to the Troopy our campsite was awash and we were facing an uphill climb along a muddy road back to another 50 km of wet dirt road!
4WD was required within the first 50 yds and we made it out just before the junction with the "main" road turned back into the swamp that it would be during the rest of the wet. We had come in on the main road at 80 km/hr just two hours before. Now it was a quagmire of loose surface and occasional washouts. About 10 km from the junction we came across a poor bloke that had his third flat of the day and had run out of spare tires for his Landcruiser. He, dog, and rig were drenched and had been sitting in the rain for nearly 4 hours. We lent him our spare and let him lead the way back to Hughenden where he lived. This worked out great for us, because I could watch to see where the soft spots in the road were when he hit them and skidded. Often this served only to allow me to find my own soft spots, but we derived some comfort in the knowledge that at least we weren’t alone out there and if one of us got stuck, the other may be able to help pull him out. Finally, we made it back to the pavement and town, which had also been drenched in the downpour. After retrieving our tire from the grateful resident, we proceeded to the caravan park to set up the trailer for the night and get some take out Chinese food - quite ordinary quality, by the way - at the local Chinese restaurant. Next morning, I spent a couple of hours washing the mud out from under every nook and cranny in the Troopy’s undercarriage - at least 200 lbs of it! What a mess - I nearly had to put it in 4WD to climb over the mud pile that accumulated under the car!!
Then it was off to our last stop on the way back to Cairns, Lake Tinaroo on the Atherton Tablelands. We passed through Charters Towers, with an overnight stay in Greenvale along the way. The caravan park in Greenvale is very nice and quite empty at this time of year. The managers were friendly and the birds prolific. Tinaroo is a reservoir on the Barron river which is reputed to be a great place to catch Red Claw, and is one of the few places still open for Barramundi fishing with a world record size catch made there recently. Instead of staying in yet another caravan park, we decided to drive the short dirt road into the campground along the edge of the lake. We claimed a spot in the campground and left the trailer there while we went to go explore the rest of the lake. We drove into all of the other campgrounds around the lake, some of which were nicer than the one that we had already paid for, and went along several very nice walks to various points of interest around the lake. It had started to rain, but it was cool and pleasant to walk in the rainforest during the rain - our first time at this! We made our way around the lake and back to our spot in plenty of time to set up camp before dark. A great meal was conjured up from the grub box and we settled in to watch the campground fill up with weekend visitors - most with motorboats.
The next morning I left Karen to watch the very comical bird life around our camp and went off exploring the perimeter of the lake near our camp for fishing opportunities. I found a secluded arm of the lake that looked like it was pretty inaccessible to the boatmen and planned a strategy for fishing it. I put out my yabbie traps and tried to catch some bait fish with rod and reel to no avail. The day was filled with the sounds of high powered ski boats and lower powered, but numerous, fishing tinnies (small, aluminum dinghies with outboard motors). The camp was pretty noisy with all this activity, but we found some nice folks to visit and talk with just the same. On the following morning I went to check my traps and have a fishing session. No cheripin or Red Claw in the traps, but there was a decent sized bait fish, so I used him to explore the entire arm of the lake in some detail. There was no sign of Barra, so I pulled up stakes and relocated my traps back to a couple of likely looking coves near the camp. That night it rained like crazy, but the next morning I had caught a nice feed of nine Red Claw for our dinner that night!
These are like our crayfish, but big! And great eating when boiled! I tried to use one of the smaller ones as bait for the Barra, but, again, no luck. This wasn’t to be a great fishing trip, but the "Claw" more than made up for it. The rain and Monday chased out the other campers and we had the campground to ourselves in the morning. We decided to stay another day to enjoy the peace and quiet and try to catch some more Red Claw. We had just paid our fee when a bus load of children from a local aboriginal community arrived and unloaded camping gear for a stay of several days! So much for peace and quiet!! Oh well, it was still a nice day and I hadn’t tired of trying out various methods of catching bait fish and trying for the "Big Barra".
Karen also hadn’t ceased to be amused with her feathery friends. One in particular was notable. It was a male Magpie Lark that would unceasingly attack his reflection in the Troopy’s windows and mirrors. He would fling himself into the glass in a protective rage for several minutes and then stagger off, dizzy from the impacts, until he’d recovered sufficiently to start over again when he passed by again later. The windows were covered with marks indicating where he’d impacted the glass and he never seemed to figure it out.
While in Tinaroo, we received the sad news that Heather’s mother, Polly, who we’d met while in Southport had passed away. Our heart goes out to poor Heather and the Banks’ who have had to deal with so much loss in the past year with the deaths of Heather’s father last year and Jim this year. It’s so hard to watch people that you’ve come to know and love struggle so when there’s so little that anyone can do to help....
Well, I managed to catch a few more Red Claw to take down to Cairns with us, but no Barra..this time. We take memories of wonderful sunsets like this one that we can send to you.
Now it’s time for a little R&R in Cairns with Fay, Peter, Scott and Nikki before we head on down the coast for the Banks’ and Christmas!!