Aug 28th ... Normanton

Andrew and Trish Jackson have decided they need to start on their way home so they will not be coming any further north with us. We were disappointed but fully understand their time constraints, so we said our goodbyes and headed off.

For many hundreds of kilometres we had been seeing these white flowering eucalypts and this area was particularly thick with them. They looked lovely contrasted against the blue sky. As we left town we crossed the Cloncurry River before we turned due north and headed for the Gulf.

White flowering gums

Cloncurry River

We were driving on a "development" road so we were quite pleased that it was mostly two lanes. When it did narrow, the edges were really steep so we were fortunate there was not too much traffic as there is no option but to put two wheels onto the shoulder.  But it was still surprising when we came across an accident that had just happened. The road was two lane, straight, no traffic, it was still early morning and a clear day, but this car with a camper trailer had rolled and it was a mess. Fortunately, the lady driver walked away with only a scratch and the elderly man passenger was injured but not too seriously. Unfortunately, their car and van were completely wrecked. We were the second car on the scene so we helped clear the road of debris and generally did what we could. Garry took some photos which we later handed on to the Police in Normanton. What a terrible way to end your travels, but given the condition of the vehicles, these were two very lucky people.

Most of the debris is out of picture

Our next, and more pleasant, stop was the Burke and Wills Roadhouse where we bought a sandwich for morning tea. Our route today took us across many creeks and rivers and there was often birds of many varieties to look at.

The Dugold River

The jabiru

One area we drove through had the most amazing number of termite mounds. These went for many kilometres in all directions and gave the paddocks the look of a giant cemetery filled with headstones.

As we came north we noticed that it was getting quite hot. Normanton is around 35 degrees most days and we were looking forward to some more tropical weather.
 When we got to town it was pretty quiet as it was a Sunday afternoon, and really warm, so as soon as we had checked in and parked the van, we went for a swim. The pool at the park was huge ... 25 ms, and surprisingly cool and refreshing. It was the first time this trip that we felt the need to sit around in wet swimmers just to be comfortable.
We waited until around 5pm before going out to explore the town.
Normanton has a few icons like, the Purple Pub and the Gulflander train, but these only contribute to what is an old fashion, nice, country, QLD town. The streets are really wide and there are lots of lovely old buildings.There were even the original stone gutters, original lamp posts, the first town well, and "hitching" rails in town. All very interesting and well kept.

Also in town was a life size model of a crocodile shot in 1957 on the bank of the Norman River. It was 8.63 ms long and this replica is supposedly to scale. It is the biggest known crocodile to be killed in Australia and is in the Guinness Book of records. It was estimated that this croc weighed over 2 tons. Recently a crocodile was captured in Indonesia that was weighed at 1 ton and it is reputedly one of the largest in the world ... so Krys would have been something to see and probably deserves a statue!

Krys the crocodile

As well as the wide clean streets and lots of palm trees, there were also many sweet smelling flowers and it was so nice to walk around at dusk when many of them were their most perfumed.

A mango tree

All around Normanton is the flood plain of the river and there is water lying everywhere outside the town area. This seems to be a gathering place for hundreds of magpie geese as well as the odd jabiru and brolga. It was not possible to get too close but I hope this is an indication of good things to come.

Magpie Geese with Jabiru in background.