Judy & Brian Tour Oz

Ok folks, get yourself a cup of tea and a sticky bun, this might take a while. Day 2 - Morning Early start at the Normanton Railway Station for our ride on the historic Gulflander train. This is a classic railway:It was supposed to go between Normanton to Cloncurry to service the proposed mines, but change of government and discovery of gold in Croydon saw the line diverted after the first 15 miles to go to Croydon instead. It is run by Queensland Rail and, apart from a weekly mail run that goes all the way and takes passengers as well, it takes tourists on an demand basis on short rides out to the 20 mile, Critters Camp. It seems that some of the tour operators call up and charter the train, then it gets scheduled for the run and takes any other passengers that can be found. The train today comprises two old Rail Motors that were converted to carriages, towed by a 1950s rail motor designed and built in Ipswich in 1950. The rails are laid on steel sleepers just sitting on ...

Normanton is 198km north of the roadhouse and we were on good road still, our first excitement was a 'roo that nearly took its last hop, and that was before we hit the outskirts of town. And then there was the emu, which we hadn’t seen for months. This one was on the other side of the road looking away out into the bush. We slowed and then slowed some more. True to form, at the last possible second it turned and took two skitterish emu steps right in front of us. Note: Two tonnes of caravan pulled by two tonnes of metal doesn’t actual stop all that quick even from 40kph. We missed the damn thing luckily but it’s a bit unnerving. At the 50km mark we hit our first taste of developmental road, just on the approach to a crest. Oh joy, no road and no view of oncoming traffic. The moment passed and we got used to the game and the new rules, which in practice are more like a game of chicken: last on on the road holds the tar. Unless the oncoming is a road-train, in which case you get...

At 00.30am o’clock we dragged ourselves up to Mt Isa Base Hospital. Judy had developed a sharp pain behind the knee during the evening and was now in excruciating pain with the slightest movement. We went in almost straight away and the doctor had a good old poke about and declared that it wasn’t a DVT or anything life threatening and suggested a shot of some wonder anti-inflammatory drug and an x-ray in the morning. One the drug started to work the pain eased and we snuck back to the van park at 3am. Bit slow to start this morning, but got on the road about 10am, skipping the opportunity to get the x-ray, and headed east again, stopping at Cloncurry for some fuel and an ice-block. From Cloncurry we headed north into the great unknown. The map shows a ‘developmental’ road all the way to Normanton about 300km. A developmental road is a single lane of bitumen with varying amounts of dirt road on either side for passing. The plan is that when you see the other vehicle, you drive ...

You can’t help it, it’s to do with the geography of Australia. Its 260km from Banka Banka to Barkly Homestead and it’s 260km from there to Camooweal and then 180km more to Isa. You are more or less forced to go the whole way and you end up in Mt Isa. We left Barkly at 7am and got here for lunch at 1.15pm having stopped for a cuppa at Camooweal. As a matter of interest, we covered our 40,000 th km towing the van today. Not bad considering we started in September 2009. On the way across, for the first few hours you are treated to a 360 degree view of a perfectly flat horizon, interrupted only by the occasional stand of gums standing in the mirage lakes in the distance. This is our third time here and I still don’t like it. For one thing, the van park is a sardine tin with vans jammed in cheek by jowl. But then they start turning vans away at 2 o’clock and the place has heaps of other empty spaces. I happened to speak to the groundsman and he was adamant that it was ‘full’. ...