1st August Winton

 Kms today 468             kms to date  9100

I broke the 9000km barrier from when I left home on 18th June and started my dance with Covid border closures.  The Irish Club disappointingly didn't do breakfast so I had to make do with a ham, cheese and tomato toastie, and a coffee from the general store. This was a precursor to a series of food blunders.

I started my journey in front of Bob Katter's electoral office and took a photo of the tallest chimney in Australia at the Glencore mine. The mine dominates the town and can be seen from all quarters. It is one of the largest copper, zinc and silver mines in the World.  A modern version of the mine at Burra.

 

Bob Katter would have this view from his electoral office

 I zoomed along quite nicely on the twisting undulating road out of Mt Isa to Cloncurry.  This is where both in 1981 and 2010, I turned off and headed north to Normanton and the Gulf of Carpentaria.  The traffic coming the other way was like a rush hour with 100's of 4WD heading into town.

Once I turned off towards Winton the traffic thinned dramatically. I planned to stop at McKinlay to refuel and have some lunch.  The petrol station was unmanned and I had to use my credit card in a terminal before I filled up. I discovered I had somehow charged $2,963 to my card!  I kept the receipt so should be able to sort it out.  The pub was used in the Crocodile Dundee movie, but that hasn't been a bonanza for it as there was no food available because of staff shortages.  So I had to forgo lunch as well as breakfast!

Walkabout Creek Hotel

Sharing a beer with Mick Dundee

I decided to press on to Winton.  The countryside was very flat grassland, but there were some ridges of hills that had resisted erosion because of a hard cap rock.  At Winton I discovered that rural QLD closed up at 2pm and as I arrived at 2:15 no lunch for me.  I had to make do with a glass of Guinness.

I was first in the queue for dinner.  Afterwards I wandered down the street to the Royal Cinema, an open air cinema.  Alan and I saw a musical performance there in 2014.  The movie was a 1938 western starring a very young looking John Wayne.  There was much galloping about on horses and the baddy eventually had his comeuppance when he didn't duck and hit his head on a branch. The movie was low budget and looked it.

Winton Royal Cinema

The room I am staying in is called the LBJ room.  In 1942 Lyndon Johnson was in a plane flying to Cloncurry to refuel, but the pilot got lost.  The pilot decided to land at Carisbrooke Station with the assumption that there would be fuel available there.  LBJ came into town for the night afterwards and stayed at the North Gregory Hotel.  There is however a little problem with the story - the hotel LBJ stayed in burned down in 1944!  The current hotel claims that the room I was in was approximately in the same position as the one LBJ slept in.

The LBJ Room (almost)

Sheep grazing on Main Street