Welcome to our new posts, we have been doing a few day trips around the district over the past month or so and we have had friends in town from Jimboomba for a few weeks on their way home from Alice Springs. I have been at Engine & Air school for 2 weeks so I have been on day shift with weekends off so we could spend some time with Ray and Gaye over the weekends, a real bonus.
Joanne and I kicked off our day trips on Saturday the 1st of September with a trip down the Landsborough Highway to the tiny town of Mckinlay. The Mckinlay district was discovered by Scotsman John Mckinlay on a trip from Adelaide to the Gulf in 1861 and the settlement was established in 1888 as a Cobb and Co staging post.
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| Can you see the name of the main street in Mckinlay. Kirby St. |
Mckinlay is most famous in recent times as the place were Crocodile Dundee used to hang out. The pub used to be known as The Federal Hotel and was located in one of the back streets of town and was moved here for the movie. The pub was built in 1900 and licenced in 1901 and is now known as the Walkabout Creek Hotel. The sign on the fence says Gidyea Bug Byway, we will travel this road to meet up with the Flinders Highway and home to Cloncurry.
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| Not many customers here today, in fact we were told the publican just opens when he feels like it. |
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| A pair of water trucks heading for amine some where. |
About 80km west of Mckinlay is the Cannington mine owned and operated by BHP Billiton, it is a silver and lead mine. Ore is transported by road train to Yurbi about 20km from Cloncurry where it is loaded onto our trains for shipment to the port of Townsville. Cannington was the official supplier of silver for the Sydney Olympics and para Olympics as well as the 2008 Beijing games.
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| Theres not much on the Gidyea Bug Byway. |
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| Found some form of life. |
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| We pulled up here because there was a big Wedged Tailed Eagle just off to the side of the road with a small wallaby, but he was smarter than me as he took off with his meal before I could get the camera ready. |
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| We saw this train sitting at this crossing station from a long way back, so when we arrived there we pulled up for a chat. This is an empty fertilizer train on it's way back from Townsville to Phosphate Hill for another load. This place is called Gilliat. |
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| The fertilizer was waiting for this train, a loaded ore train from Mt Isa Mines. |
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| I think this old truck has been waiting for a train for awhile. There used to be a little settlement here many years ago. |
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| The other end of the Gidyea Bug Byway at the Flinders Highway. The Gidyea Bug is a small beetle like insect and in a good wet season reaches plague proportions and causes all sorts of havoc in the area. Last year we didn't see hardly any. |
Well it's time to head back the 100km to Cloncurry as tomorrow we head out the other direction to Clem Walton Park and the Corella Dam.
