Cloncurry Qld June 5 2016

Cloncurry Qld June 5, 2016

Winton proved to be disappointing in more ways than one. Not only was the van park a lot less inviting than before, but the meal that went with the show was certainly not up to the normal standard. We all have certain expectations of these types of camp-fire meals, the main one being that there is plenty of food for all comers. This year the park appears to have outsourced the catering and you'd think the lady was serving up the food rations for her own family. Simply put, she ran out of food roast beef and potatoes before that last of the pre-booked and pre-paid guests arrived. Unforgivable. Then the 'delicious' dessert came out. She had very carefully cut up a couple of SaraLea chocolate cakes into the exact number required and she came around and doled them out, one each, with a drizzle of not-quite-right packet custard on top. 

The new man in town doing the Bush Poet season was Gregory North. A pretty good show actually, even though, he, a 3 times winner of the Australian Bush Poets Competition, fluffed more than one line of poems that he has probably done a 1000 times. His piece-de-resistance is to finish up with that classic by Banjo Patterson: The Man From Snowy River. But he adds a funny twist by having this array of hats and vocal impersonations depicting different ethnic groups, and as the poem progresses, each of these characters plays their part with amusing results. We had gone back to Winton specifically to see the Mel & Suzie show. Would we go back to see Gregory North? Maybe not.

A simple run of 350km up to Cloncurry. We decided to do it in one go, which wasn't too bad except we picked up the Carnival Cavalcade 70km out of Cloncurry. These people, who had just come away from the Winton Show and heading to the show in Cloncurry in a week's time, were not in any hurry. 

They travel in groups of trucks and caravans, portable ticket booths and fold-up sideshows. The trouble is that they don't leave sufficient room between them for overtaking vans to pull into and as some of the trucks struggled to get over the slightest incline, the speed varied between 75 and 95. Not impossible to overtake, but awkward and as Judy was having none of it, we wandered the 70km into town behind them. Made for a very tedious trip but a safe one. 

Pulled into the Oasis Caravan Park, where we have stayed before, and it too is looking a lot more tired than we remember from last time.

Went into town for supplies, guess what? Most of the town, including Woolworths is shut up tight. Luckily Foodworks was still open as was the Puma petrol shop, so we are all set to head off again early tomorrow.