RED DIRT

Where was I up to...

Charters Towers, our first stop along the Overlanders Way.  Now I was approaching this leg of the journey with some trepidation - the long drive from Townsville to 'Three Ways' in NT but the scenery has actually made this trip far more enjoyable than I had envisaged.  There are termite mounds galore, the beautiful red dirt (which I will come to despise in a month I am sure),and  the varying landscape while consistent in its vastness.  The road also kept us entertained when there were sections which caught the uninitiated completely off guard and had our trailer airborne and was responsible for breaking one of my coffee cups!

Our stop after Charters Towers was Richmond, a place I had never heard of but had a fabulous history of its own.  Supposedly many millions of years ago an inland sea flowed through here and when it stopped flowing there were many fossils of marine dinosaurs left behind.  This has led to many cattle farmers finding extraordinary fossils on their property and we visited Kronosaurus Korner to check some of them out.  Ben and Emma were particularly fascinated with the Kronosaurus Queenslandicus - an 11m dinosaur which had teeth the size of bananas.  His skeleton was taken to the USA but the replica in the photo below supposedly depicts its actual size.

Kronosaurus

Emma and Ben at the water park at Lake Fred Tritton

 After the museum we walked, skateboarded around the Fred Tritton lake next to our caravan park and the kids cooled down in the water park which was much smaller than they had expected but that didn't stop them having fun if the giggling and carrying on where anything to go by.  We went back to the campsite as the sun was setting, then had another walk around the 1.2 km lake by night when the path was all lit up.

Pink galahs at the lake

Back on the road and this was worse than yesterdays which was unfortunate because now it was teeming with rain.  We were both a little tense and relaxed considerably when the skies cleared hours later and so did the roads.  We had stopped in at Cloncurry for lunch, rain still teeming, and to check out the John Flynne gallery which detailed his work establishing the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the School of the Air.  By about 4 we arrived at Mt Isa to freezing temperatures and a howling wind.  Not remotely what I had expected.  The mountains leading in to 'the Isa' were spectacular and we enjoyed looking around the unique town yesterday.  Another of the amazing sights of the last few days has been the flocks of Wedge-tailed Eagles, they are a delight to watch.

Xstrata mine at Mt Isa

A fair way from home

Wedge-tailed eagle in flight

Red rocks

 Today was pretty exciting as we entered the Northern Territory.  The first thing we noticed was that the speed limit went from 110 to 130, not that anyone was doing that on these roads, and the other was that almost instantly the trees disappeared and that completely flat barren landscape that I had expected a few days prior was really evident now.  The greenery did return as well as a glimpse at some beautiful wildflowers.  We have stopped for the night at Barkley Roadhouse and can't wait for the next instalment in this trip.