May 24, 2009

Well what an awesome day! The rolling grassy plains gave way to gradually becoming more tree'd with an occasional outcrop of rugged stony land and trees as well as rugged mini stone type mountains then back to grassy plains and back again. We've seen a few little ant hills over the last couple of days but only around 8inches high then late this arvo started coming across more substantial ones in both size and quantity. Up to a metre though most half that or less. Some were a real tease as we made our way the last few k's into town clearly pretending to look like kangaroos so some slow travel.

As the day has gone on the grass has been less dense and yellow and even a couple of green patches here and there. Good to see water in large creeks and rivers and some water holes. The fauna continues to be great. Leaving Longreach we saw 2 brolga take to flight from the side of the road, very ungainly until in the air but beautiful in flight. The eagles continue to amaze us both in number and wing span. Truly spectacular! They are a good guide to road kill which needs to be avoided. A big collection of circling eagles up ahead or over the horizon usually means a substantial bit of meat to be seriously avoided. The odd 1 or 2 eagles speaks of a smaller meal but also to be avoided. The road surface has largely not been as smooth today. Not potholes but rough and bumpy, some of it a bit of a reaction to the heat I suspect.

Came across a large lizard thing this morning. Colour was hues of gold and green. Great camouflage for the grass it was in. Not as fat a gut as the goannas I'm familiar with and overall longer. We were following a car and van 100 metres or so behind when I saw Norm's stop lights come on and he headed for the side of the road slowing quickly. I braked but initially couldn't see what was on the road then it didn't make any sense. I now realise that was because it was scampering / waddling across the road. It carried itself high off the road and was weaving in a wavy motion like a snake. I finally realised what it was when it swung its head out straight and it's nose went over the centre white line and it's tail was only just across the fog line when I passed so it must have been 6 - 8 feet at least. Thankfully it kept going across the road rather than back where it had come from under one of our bikes. We asked the girls at the BP servo in Winton what it would have been. One said they used to get a lot of them on the property she grew up on but didn't know what they were called. The other suggested we call it a gizard and who would know! The locals at Cloncurry tell us it would be a printy a goanna the colour we saw with diamond print on it so that's what it was.



Banjo Paterson's statue at the Waltzing Matilda Museum Winton.

Winton had a really pretty main street. A real credit to the council and local townsfolk. The Waltzing Matilda Museum is there but we didn't visit. Took a pic of the Banjo Pattersons statue and windmill - very outback. Had a works burger at the Kynuna road house for lunch. It was basically a mini mixed grill jammed in a monstrous bun and held together with a shaslick skewer. HUGE.



Having a break.

Stopped at McKinlay for a 20min power nap (approx 100kms SE from Cloncurry) and managed to find some shade from a picnic table. Nice breeze. Happy we didn't find any big red ants on the rug with us. Saw a few as we rolled it up! There was a pub there claiming to be Crocodile Dundee's Walkabout Creek Hotel. Passed up the opportunity to have a lemon lime and bitters because we wanted to get to Cloncurry before the kangaroos started coming out of the shade to graze. Now we're having a couple of XXXX Gold's (mid strength and very nice) in the bar of the Cloncurry Post Office Hotel.



Post Office Hotel Cloncurry