A great breakfast with the normal eggs and bacon and
sausages in a roll, as well as THE most delicious lamb stew – Soooo good ! Then they started reading and reciting bush
poetry, and the locals doing it ranged from about 10 on upwards, and we had a
train driver, a farmer, a local teacher, and this character called Keith who we
are not sure what he did, but he had grown up in the bush, and was just
hilarious. Others were good honest yarns
about the bush. We have seen on this trip how Aboriginal rock art is a way of
passing down dreamtime stories for future generations – Well, I am learning
that Aussie Bush poetry is one Australian way of doing the same thing. It is a
big thing in the country – They have competitions quite frequently, and one
competition even has the winners going to the USA to compete in their Cowboy
Poetry and yarn competitions. Very
interesting.
After that, it was off towards Winton, about 350 kms
east. Leaving Cloncurry we got a photo
of the sign saying that Cloncurry had Australia’s highest ever recorded
temperature of 53.7 deg C in 1889 !! We
then passed these poor cattle crowded round a water hole, but with little or no
grass to eat at the moment because of the drought conditions here this year.
Some quite long road trains continue to pass us regularly – 53.5 metres is I
believe the maximum allowed, and they have a total cargo weight allowed of in excess of 75 MT. Those back trailers sway
around a fair bit on these narrow roads
– Overtaking them is quite fun, and should be completed as quickly as possible
!!!
While the scenery is pretty bleak, there is quite a lot
of Australian history on this route, and after 100 kms we came to McKinlay,
which was made famous in the Crocodile Dundee movies because the pub here was
the famous Walkabout Pub, from where Mick Dundee and Walter Riley ran their
infamous Never Never Safari tours !! The
town itself is just a tad bleak – And the little lock up shed in the garden beside the Police Station, complete with
bars on the windows, was a sight to
see. Then, as we pulled up at the
Walkabout Pub for a beer (well, it was nearly lunch time !!), two fully loaded
4WD’s with big trailers pulled up – It was Fred Brophy’s travelling Boxing
Circus !! For those of you that don’t
know, in the past there were lots of these Boxing Circus’ travelling around all
the country shows and rodeo’s, with their own fighters offering to box or wrestle
any locals who thought they had a chance to win and make some money. For obvious reasons in our modern cotton wool
world, like so many other similar travelling institutions of the past, these
have died out, and Fred Brophy’s is the last, and is very well known just
because it has persisted. So to see them
pull up at Mick Dundee’s Walkabout Pub, and come into the bar for a beer, was
too good an opportunity to miss !! They were en route to the Mt Isa Rodeo the
following weekend.
A little further down the road we stopped for lunch, as
did half the Australian Army !!! We had
seen some tanks passing us into Mt Isa yesterday, but it turns out half the
Aussie Army is currently moving from Townsville to Darwin (where this lot are
currently based), after being on manoeuvres in Townsville for several
months. Imagine doing that whole route,
on these boring straight roads, and not allowed to go over 80 kmh !!! Also in the car park we found two brolgas
(kind of Aussie bush storks, similar to the Jabiru’s we had seen in Kakadu) –
Kind of incongruous, but you get that in the bush !!
Driving on along the often straight and boring road, we
saw emus, bustards, wedge tailed eagles, and the usual hoards of kites around
the many dead ‘Roos beside the road. The
Winton area is also famous for dinosaur fossils, and is in fact the scene of
the only known evidence in the world of a dinosaur stampede ! There are frequent mesas beside the road
which only serve to make the whole dinosaur thing very realistic !
Suddenly BANG –Another rock thrown up by a passing truck
smacks into the windscreen, this time on my side, and make a big star – I think
this one night spread into a big crack !!
Hmmm.
Shortly afterwards we came into Winton – a small town
based on cattle – and past several large and well preserved old hotels (pubs)
in town as we headed to our campsite. As
we set up, we were surprised to see the site owner walking around with a little
Alpaca ! Chocolate – And not even as big
as Trooper !! Cute !
After our supper, we went off to the central shed where
two ladies were putting on an hour or two of bush poetry and fun, and it was
excellent. In Australia, quite a lot of
campsites have travelling people entertaining others on a busking basis, and at
the end of the night you put some money in their bucket if you think they were
worth it. These ladies were excellent,
and like others, they do it not only because they enjoy it, but also to make a
little extra income to support them while they travel. I never saw this in the
USA, but we have now seen it several times on this trip, and it really is an
excellent idea, and makes for a fun evening in the camp sites.
Pics here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0045CloncurryToWinton?authkey=Gv1sRgCNXjv7m0m_7CGA#
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