Blackall to Caloundra

July 23 to July 30

We stopped at the Blackall Caravan Park on Sunday night, where they have an authentic campfire roast and damper dinner on offer each night, with live entertainment. The owners start getting the fire ready around lunchtime so the coals are just right to cook on in the evening. Seems like a lot of work, but the results were excellent and very entertaining (the cooking and the singer).

Blackall Caravan Park, entertainment before the camp oven dinner

Blackall is also the official home of the “black stump”, an actual tree stump used for surveying the Western Queensland in the 1800’s, and officially anything further west was “beyond the black stump”.

The original Black Stump, Blackall

Travelling south we stayed in Tambo and camped on the Barcoo River, evoking memories of Banjo Patterson or Henry Lawson poems. This is classic Western Queensland landscape.

The mighty (dry) Barcoo River

The bushwalk along the Barcoo River also leads to the only QANTAS plane crash site. Contrary to beliefs that QANTAS has never has a fatal plane crash, three lives we lost there in 1927.

Tambo. Plaque marking the historical plane crash site.

Further south is Augathella, another classic country town and nicely set up for travelling tourists.

Augathella Meat Ant sculpture.
Their local footy team are the "Meat Ants" very cool mascot!

We visited Charleville, which has a very good Royal Flying Doctor Service museum, but didn’t have much else that interested us. From Charleville we turned east and followed the Warrego Highway. This area of Western Queensland is on the higher plains, and is renowned for cold nights and warm days in winter.

Morven Historical Museum - A "house" made our of used kerosene tins,
the depression made people inventive. 

All the towns along the Warrego Highway were very inviting, we particularly liked Mitchell (how could you not), Roma and Chinchilla.

Roma's Largest Bottle Tree

Our last week on the road and we found some of the best free camps, the Chinchilla Weir (where they offer some free powered spots, one of which we fluked) and Bowenville near Dalby were real standouts. Although the days were clear, sunny and 25⁰C, the near zero degree nights weren’t really exciting us.

Chinchilla Weir - the actual weir wall, not where we parked

Saturday night we stopped at Mitchell’s (our son, not the town this time) in North Lakes. We had a good catch up and an easy drive back to the Sunny Coast on Sunday morning.

Karumba to Blackall

July 16 to July 23

We left Karumba on Sunday and there was very little to see as we drove south. The Burke and Wills Roadhouse is the mid-point of a 400km stretch of nothing, as you drive towards Cloncurry on more single carriageway bitumen.

Our free camp that night was Jack and Lil’s Rest Area, another 100km from the roadhouse and incredibly isolated, still some 140km from Julia Creek on the Wills Development Road. The stars that night were simply spectacular with no other light interfering with the view. We had this experience a number of times through remote WA, it was great to have the experience again.

We were headed for two towns we missed on our trip last year, which make up the Dinosaur Trail. Richmond was first with Kronosauras Dinosaur Fossil Museum. A number of important dinosaur fossil discoveries have been made in areas around Richmond, Hughenden and Muttaburra.

Lifesize Replica of a Kronosaurus, Richmond

The dinosaur museum displays some rare collections including a recent (initially discovered in 1989) Polycotylid skeleton now on display.

Polycotylid Fossil, Richmond

What he may have looked like

We stayed in Richmond for a few days as there was plenty to see and do. We visited one of the public fossil dig sites, and came across a number of professional palaeontologists following up a fish fossil find from the day before. This area was under 60 metres of water during the Cretaceous period so most fossils being uncovered are water based.

Fossil dig site, near Richmond

Hughenden has the Flinders Fossil Discovery Centre and houses a couple of very interesting fossils, including the Muttaburrasaurus.

Muttaburrasaurus, Hughenden

Both towns offer low or no cost RV Parking in town so they attract a good numbers of travellers. Certainly Richmond have made the town very inviting and has prepared historic walks and other points of interest apart from the fossils.

Sculpture outside the new Council Chambers, Richmond

From Hughenden it was another long drive through fairly featureless terrain to Winton. As we were here only 12 months ago we only stopped in for lunch. It was great to see the Waltzing Matilda Centre being re-built after being destroyed by fire a few years ago. It was still a clear site last year, and is due to reopen in the next 12 months.

New Waltzing Matilda Centre taking shape, Winton

We spent a day in Longreach and nearby Ilfracombe. We didn’t spend too much time in Ilfracombe last year so enjoyed the historical machinery museum and the Wellshot Centre, showcasing the wool industry through the 20^th century.

Part of the Ilfracombe Machinery Museum, a 500 metre long display

We finally started to travel new territory when we turned south from Barcaldine, and arrived in Blackall on Sunday morning. When you look at the map we certainly travelled a long distance in a week, but given the spread out nature of Central QLD it’s hard not to.

Mareeba to Karumba

July 9 to July 16

Mareeba is the northern township of the Atherton Tablelands. We were a week too early for the rodeo, which many say rivals the Mt Isa Rodeo in size and participation. We stayed at the rodeo ground (which is also the local low cost camping ground) and enjoyed the lead up horseman competitions like “cutting”, where they separate a calf from a group and try to keep it isolated. We didn’t understand the rules but were impressed with the horse and rider expertise. A free country music concert was also held that night.

The region is renowned for the agriculture. Particularly interesting was the history of the tobacco plantations.

Curtain Fig at Yungaburra

Some of the smaller town on the tablelands proved most interesting, such as Tolga (with a fantastic woodworks and timber arts centre), Yungaburra with the huge fig trees and bushwalking trails, and Millaa Millaa for the number of waterfalls.

Millaa Millaa Falls

Tuesday we departed the tablelands to drive west along the Savannah Way to the bottom of Cape York. It is a 550km drive to Normanton, but we found the couple of towns along the way interesting. Although the Savannah Way is “sealed” to Normanton, the single carriageway sections are pretty lengthy east of Croydon.

Plenty of single carriageway road east of Croydon on the Savannah Way 

The area was first populated by gold mining in the late 1800’s, and Croydon has a great museum and restored heritage building area.

Croydon Heritage Museum

After breaking the drive into two days, we arrived in Normanton on Wednesday.

Krys the Croc, 8.6 metres long, real life replica size

Only 70km away was one of the planned destinations for this trip, Karumba. This coastal settlement on the Gulf of Carpentaria is primarily a commercial prawning and fishing centre, and the largest live cattle export port in Australia.

New Barra Centre under construction, Karumba

Karumba has long been a dream destination for fishermen, with the unusual gulf waters holding some of the best examples of prized fish such as barramundi, Spanish mackerel, large salmon and huge grunter.

Of course, barramundi aren’t really a winter target fish, and another poor wet season has meant the catches of the recreational fishers have been average at best.

Not a target species, but fun to catch

I did enjoy a fishing charter, and although a bit disappointed with our haul it compared favourably with other boats.

Fair sized Grunter, the largest we caught was 60cm

We stayed at Karumba Point, an incredibly friendly and accommodating area. Saturday night the caravan park put on a complimentary fish BBQ for the guests, including live entertainment.

Free fish BBQ and entertainment night on Saturday

Many isolated tourist towns seem to be geared to just take your money with overcharged tours and overpriced commodities. Karumba is refreshingly different, they are overtly customer focused and have kept “cost of living” and recreational pursuits at a reasonable price. This is why many guests in the caravan parks come back every year, some for 6 months at a time.

Tully to Cooktown

July 2 to July 9

As we headed to Paronella Park (south of Innisfail) on Sunday, it was our third day in a row of rain. This was one of a couple of “must do” visits we had on our list. The park has a really interesting history from when an Italian migrant constructed the series of castles, gardens and hydro power in the 1930’s.

Paronella Park Castle Ruins, who needs to go to Cambodia?

It was in disrepair and not open for a long while, but new owners have done a marvellous job in the last 20 years. The entry price includes day and night tours, a camp spot if required (and power if you’re lucky), and free entry for the next two years.

Our Camp Spot right at Reception

Given the weather and our lucky camp spot, we spent the time between showers to join tours and explore the park ourselves, and the nearby locality of Mena Creek.

The night tour was well worth staying for

After more rain in Innisfail and Babinda (with a great wet weather, but busy free camp) we finally got some good weather for another planned excursion, the Skyrail gondola from Cairns to Kuranda and the Barron Falls. The day we arrived in Cairns a cruise ship had docked so the town and esplanade were crazy busy, as was the Skyrail. We organised tickets for the next day which worked our really well, better weather and an early start.

Barron Falls, not much flow though

We did the Kuranda railway trip back in the 80’s, but this gives you the experience from the tree tops, with two additional stops to walk the forest at Red Peak Station, and view the Barron Falls and Gorge.

Fine weather looking back to Cairns from the Gondola

Add a couple of hours to walk around Kuranda (the town is just one, big “weekend markets”), you can easily spend five or more hours on this trip.

The only quiet spot in Kuranda

We enjoyed the coastal drive to Port Douglas, but Port Douglas is even more like “Noosa” than I remembered. We had a great Member Stop Over camp at Mossman before heading north to Laura and Cooktown for a few days.

Although I was up here four years ago for my motorbike ride through Cape York, it was nice to drive the bitumen and see the countryside. We dropped in to the Lion’s Den Hotel, near Cooktown, where we camped the first and last nights of the bike trip.

Nice to return four years after the motorbike trip

Laura was still busy with left over indigenous visitors from the Laura Dance Festival the previous weekend. We enjoyed a leisurely visit to Split Rock and the rock art sites.

Ancient Rock Art at Split Rock, Laura

Cooktown was very busy with the “Cape York” traffic, but we got to walk the waterfront area and visit Finch Bay.

Finch Bay, Cooktown

Although there are a few official free camps around Cooktown and Laura, we found a couple of quieter spots away from the crowds.

Tinaroo Dam, Atherton Tablelands - the dam levels are very low for this time of the year

Saturday we returned south to the Atherton Tablelands, where we’ll spend some time exploring the many hinterland towns.