Today was a big day driving for us, we normally only drive up to 3 hours, we think this is a sensible amount of time for people our age to drive in a day and it is generally accepted by most caravanners but today we were on the road for nearly 6 hours all up. We were driving from Karumba to Cloncurry with a alternate plan to stop overnight at Burke and Wills Roadhouse if we needed to. When we arrived at Burke and Wills Roadhouse we made a decision to drive on and stopped for lunch and a bit of a rest before proceeding. The last few kms were a bit of a hard slog but we eventually found our way to Wal's Camp at Cloncurry where we intended to stay for a couple of nights and maybe extending it for another night. The office was closed so we followed the instructions and filled out the information on the envelopes provided and put the money inside before dropping it into the lock box and then drove around looking for a suitable site. We eventually found one where we could park with the sun setting behind us and there was enough room to put our awning out without obstructing the vans driving around the park. It never takes us long to set up so then I washed the few dishes we had before preparing dinner for the night. I was making a meatloaf, one of our favourites, and put it into the Weber to cook. When I get a chance tonight I will make plans for tomorrow and see if we need to book for another night. One bonus we have is that Optus is available in the area which means we can use the internet on our modem while we are here.
We had our coffee at home while I waited for a phone call that never came through, while I was waiting I took care of a bit of washing and cleaning that needed doing. We gave up on the call and took off to the Town Centre to do a bit of shopping, fill up with fuel and replace our gas bottle. From here we drove to Mary Kathleen Memorial Park and Information Centre to see what we could do for today and probably tomorrow because I think we have decided to stay another night. We walked up to the lookout before going into the Information Centre, we hadn't been able to do this last time we were here so it was good to do the climb today and we managed it easily. It was a good view from the top overlooking Cloncurry and the surrounding area, I love outback Australia and never tire of looking at it. We walked back down to the centre and made enquiries about things we could do while here, we were directed to the John Flynn flying doctors centre which we had also missed last time. We drove around to the centre and when we entered we bought a combined tour pass which also gave us entry to the museum at the Mary Kathleen Centre which we will visit tomorrow. The Royal Flying Doctors Centre is a good attraction and we spent a couple of hours there wandering around and watching the few movies they had on the service and the people involved in the service. It was early afternoon by this time so we drove back to camp for lunch.
Our last day here and we drove directly to the Cloncurry Unearthed Visitor Information Centre and Museum. We had paid for entry here yesterday and we needed a bit of information so it seemed like a good idea to make this our first stop. We submitted our pass for the Museum and walked through the gate, there wasn't terribly much to distinguish this from every other museum we had been into but it was set out well. We weren't that long here before we moved on, I was to pick up information on Mt. Isa but completely forgot all about it, I will have to google it later as we want to have a quick stopover here on our way to Camooweal. From the Information Centre we drove out to the airport to have a look at the original Qantas hangar, we couldn't access the hangar but we had a look around the outside. There was a giant bull over the road which I took a photos off as it reminded me so much of Spain particularly with the rocks in the background. Just back down the road was the Equestrian Centre where we went in search of wall art that we had been told about at the Information Centre. We found the art and I took a few photos, unfortunately it is starting to fade but I think a came away with a couple of decent photos.
Driving back into town we drove past the Court House and Post Office, both historic buildings and I took a couple of photos of each before moving onto the aquatic centre where there is another good example of wall art. We drove past the Leichardt Hotel before driving on to Chinaman Creek Dam Road, the road itself is closed at the moment but we drove up to the lookout from here and I took photos of the art work on the water tank which is quite impressive and photos over Cloncurry from the lookout. We drove back to camp from here feeling satisfied that we had exhausted our visit to Cloncurry. Tomorrow we move onto Camooweal and as mentioned previously we will do a quick stop at Mt. Isa to see the highlights.
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