Today was all about wildlife but not too much of it living. There seemed to be roadkill for every kilometre we travelled with the majority being wallabies. The prey birds didn’t seem to mind as each carcass had at least 2 to 3 hawks making a meal of it. We even got to see our first Wedge Tailed Eagle. As usual, he didn’t move as we passed, just lifted his head and watched us move on.
We are definitely in Gulf Country which is cattle country with more and more cattle being seen both on the right side and wrong side of the fences where there are fences.
Not far out of Georgetown was the Cumberland Chimney, the site of a previous gold mine which apart from some mining history is a picturesque free camp and bird haven.
We stopped briefly in another historical gold mining town in Croydon which had an interesting information centre outlining the history of the region and of the Gulflander Train which has its eastern terminus here. We had missed the train as it left at 830am for its return journey to Normanton.
Another couple of hours and we arrived in Normanton. As we passed the railway station, there was a lot of people milling around the Gulflander Train. Does this mean there is a trip about to leave. A quick U-turn and we soon had two tickets for a special 2 hour Critters Camp trip. Not sure that Jenny was all that impressed but when you up here, never pass up an opportunity to ride some history.
The Gulflander has been running for 125 years between Nowhere (Normanton) and Nowhere (Croydon). It was used initially to transport people and goods between the Port of Normanton and the Goldfields of Croydon. It is now purely a tourist train using original carriages and engines from the 1960’s and earlier. It also uses steel sleepers due to termites and the water. 95% of the rails and sleepers are still the originals from the 1880’s. You certainly can tell as it is not the smoothest ride but that is part of the appeal.
Normanton is also hosting its annual rodeo and show this weekend so we were able to take in the town parade and even though it was not the biggest we have seen with about 15 floats, the locals all flocked out to watch. If we didn’t need to keep moving to Darwin, it would be fun to take in some of the rodeo.
