Thursday, 17 October 2024
This morning, we travelled between Normanton and Croydon AGAIN! The logistics of doing the Gulflander train trip makes this inevitable! We drove south out of Normanton on the Burke Developmental Road before turning left (east) onto the Gulf Developmental Road/Savannah Way towards Croydon. Not long after turning off we spied a very large bird taking off from some roadkill and think that it was a wedge-tailed eagle rather than a kite? We didn’t get a good look at its tail, but it looked much heavier in the legs than the kites are.
About 65 kilometres into our journey I spied three red-tailed black cockatoos in a tree beside the road. I am always excited to see the yellow-tailed black cockatoos in Fitzroy Gardens each winter when they come down to the city from the snowfields and have always wanted to see one of their even more elusive cousins in the wild. It was only a glimpse but impressive to see them.
Another 20 or so kilometres into the trip Bernie had to slow down for a goanna/monitor to amble across the road. We think we may have run over a couple of smaller lizards along the way because, unfortunately, they are a bit harder to see … until it is too late. At least with a really big lizard you can see it and take action to avoid hitting it.
We reached Blackbull where The Gulflander stopped yesterday for morning tea and the highway crossed the railway line. That got us to wondering about this morning’s return trip from Croydon to Normanton. Hmmn, we thought, it left (or should have left) Croydon at 8.30am how long would it take to chug along to Blackbull?? We were keeping our eyes peeled for it, but the closer that we travelled to Croydon the more we were thinking that we must have missed it.
Ha, when we were about 35 kilometres out of Croydon we saw The Gulflander motoring along on its return trip. That meant that it had taken it 45 minutes to travel that far and we were going to be in Croydon in 20 minutes. That’s the difference between travelling at between 16 and 20kph and 110kph!
We arrived in Croydon and made our way to the True Blue Visitor Information Centre because we knew that they had clean facilities. We said hello to Sonya again and assured her that she has now seen the last of us. Seeing as we managed to fit in all of Croydon’s sights yesterday between arriving on the train and departing on the bus we piled back into the vehicles to strike out into unchartered territory. Well, road that we hadn’t previously travelled anyway!
We passed a campervan heading east and wondered if it is finishing up the same loop us us before heading back to the south? We felt that it probably wouldn’t be heading further north at this time of the year, but I guess there are always people who take a chance on travelling out for season? We’ll never know!
After leaving Croydon behind us the road started climbing into the Great Dividing Range/Gregory Range and the landscape was noticeably different as we climbed. Even with elevation we were still regularly crossing floodways. When it turns wet, we imagine that there is more water than the watercourses can deal with regardless of whether they are on the plain or in the ranges. It is just so hard to imagine so much water when at the moment everything is so very dry.
We crossed the Gilbert River which consisted of only a few puddles of water. The crossing was substantial but low lying so the road must become impassable for at least some of the wet season. On the eastern side of the river we could see fruit trees, but couldn’t agree on what the fruit was. Bernie suggested avocados whereas I thought mangoes??
Bernie spotted another dead pig. At least this one was not as offensive as the ones beside the railway line yesterday which had been dead long enough to really pong. Garry said they hadn’t been there on last week’s run so they’d been dead less than a week, but in the tropics … phew!
Since Normanton we had been enjoying driving on a really good road when all of a sudden, when we were still about 45 kilometres out of Georgetown, it went from good quality dual carriageway to a single track of potholed bitumen with a wide ‘shoulder’ on each side. We’d only been on that for a few kilometres when we had to pull over to the shoulder to let a road train through. Fortunately, the road was not single track for all of the last 45 Ks into Georgetown, it was mixed up with sections of proper two-lane highway. And thank goodness, it was on one of the dual carriageway sections that we had an oncoming OVERSIZED road train coming at us. Long and wide!
Arriving in Georgetown we found our next Savannah Art Trail sculpture, this one featuring the flower of a kapok tree. We did overshoot it slightly but eagle-eyed Bernie noticed it in time for us to chuck a U-turn to photograph it before we had driven all the way into town.
We refuelled at the Ampol service station and then looked for somewhere more interesting to find some lunch. Um, nope, nowhere else to eat in Georgetown so it was back to the servo for lunch. Three times BLT and one cheese toastie for me. Despite having low expectations all of the sandwiches were really good.
Next stop another side trip this time into Cobbold Gorge where we are splurging on the two night Cobbold Explorer Experience. But first we had to do about 70 kilometres of mostly dirt road driving to get there! At about 35 kilometres in I was excited that we spotted a small flock of red-tailed black cockatoos in a tree right beside the road. Since we weren’t on the highway this time we stopped to try for a photo. Hmmn, it’s not easy to photograph birds in trees even when they are the size of a red-tailed black cockatoo.
When we arrived at the gorge it was still early in the afternoon so, just as soon as we were checked in and had transferred our gear from the vehicles into our Boundary Huts, we changed into our togs and made our way to the infinity pool overlooking the dam. It was lovely spending a couple of hours enjoying the pool while watching all of the wildlife around the dam. I was very excited that there were lots of red-tailed black cockatoos flying around squawking. Hopefully they won’t wake us up too early in the morning?
Bernie and Steve were adventurous and decided to take a couple of canoes out on the dam. Cathy and I decided that we were quite happy to watch them having a go. They managed to paddle to the end of the dam and back again without capsizing. But are their arms going to be sore tomorrow? Just before we left the pool area Bernie looked up towards our huts and spied a big argus monitor going for a stroll behind Cathy and Steve’s hut. I’m happy to see any reptile that has legs. Nothing was mentioned at check-in about snakes being about so hopefully we won’t encounter any of those!!!
After our pool time we made our way back to our huts to freshen up for dinner. Our package includes dinner both nights that we are here, two breakfasts and lunch tomorrow. We had been allocated a 6.00pm sitting for our dinner so headed down to the bistro at 6.00pm. When we asked what our package entitled us to the answer was everything on the menu, all you have to pay for is drinks. The boys splurged on entrée, main AND dessert. I opted for entrée and main and Cathy chose a main and dessert. While we were at dinner the big lizard (assuming it’s the same one) was heading back down the hill towards the dam. There were some lapwings (plovers) going nuts at it so we wondered if they have eggs or chicks about at the moment??
