Day 65

Karumba - Normanton - Croydon - Georgetown

"Country girl shake it for me....."

Yee hah - roll up folks it's Rodeo time in the Queensland Outback.

We were up and ready to roll out at 8am today. I enjoyed my time in Karumba but would find it hard to justify spending any more than 2 nights here unless of course you (a) had a boat, (b) wanted to fish all day and everyday or (c) wanted to escape the winter and do (a),(b) or just sit around and do nothing at all - paying of course a pretty penny to do so!

We drove back through Normanton and stopped at some of their older buildings that feature on their heritage walk. Some lovely old Queenslander buildings with the raised floors and big verandahs and some with lots of history attached. We stopped and looked at the monster replica crocodile Krys - its an actual size replica of the biggest crocodile ever caught. Shot of course cause you wouldn't mess around with that thing. Cayla easily fit into its mouth with room for a brother or sister easily accommodated as well I'd think!

We also stopped at the Purple Pub and the Lime Green Butcher. The Gulflander train was in and so we stopped at the station for a quick look at the train - and a look for green frogs in the toilets which the kids found amusing once again!

From there it was back on the road heading East towards the coast.

We stopped for lunch and a good look around the pretty town of Croydon. It's heritage precinct is a great way of keeping their town alive. I think though that their unofficial claim to fame must be that of the toilet capital of Queensland - there are more toilets here in this town than people I would suggest ! The Gulflander stops here and this once booming gold town - which at one stage had 36 pubs - has a lot to show. Lots of the by gone era still litter the streets in the form of old rusting machinery used for crushing rock or old boilers - they all tell a story of trying to dig out a living in some harsh country. The town at one stage spanned over 100kms! The old wooden buildings are in excellent condition too and house much of the history of the town.

From Croydon it was onto Georgetown . It's again a great little outback country town. We were lucky to get 2 sites at the park seeing as the rodeo is on this weekend - its going to get really busy here!

We had a swim in the local pool this afternoon - its free but you need a token to unlock the hydraulic door into it. A beautifully kept pool and grassed surrounds - no wonder it's gated!

We've been to a couple of rodeos before in Moruya so we sort of knew what to expect - it was just the size and scale we didn't have a clue about. As it was, the rodeo tonight was just a taste. We expected a one night only affair under the lights but it's an all weekend event and tonight's the only night event ! We've got our wristbands to float in and out as we choose.

Tonight it was the bucking cow riding and bareback barrel racing.

We were only going to stay the night but it looks like its busy ahead of us ( where we want to head to on our way to Cairns) and so we may need to stop an extra night here - no complaints - it's a lovely place.