Cloncurry to Clem Walton Park near Mary Kathleen, 60km W of Cloncurry, QLD

Wednesday 1st September 2021
Hi everyone, we are in Cloncurry this today staying in the Discovery Caravan Park just out of town. It was a very ordinary night’s sleep as it was right on the road and the road trains went passed all night. David looks like he has had no sleep at all. The caravan park is home to many, many miners – there are so many doings but they are very modern. They also provide a daily ally you can eat buffet for dinner for just $25 and it is apparently very good. Best of all was the old style shower nozzle and hot water. Yippee!!!!!

This morning we headed to the John Flynn Royal Flying Doctor Museum. We spent about 3 hours there reading so much information, watching a video of a couple of flights to the outback and a photo slideshow from John Flynn. It was very interesting. I have included a snippet of the information for you to read if you want to, or not id you don’t.

We then headed to Chinamans Creek Dam for lunch, then to the lookout and silo art. Then we were going to head east to Julia Creek but the Caravan Park was booked out so instead we headed west to the Ballara Heritage Mining Trail. We didn’t really look at the mining stuff but enjoyed the drive through the ranges to Fountain Springs which unfortunately the falls weren’t running but the reflection of the rocks in the little lake was spectacular – this was the location of the crocodile attack on Linda Koslawski in the first Crocodile Dundee Movie. You could barely see the water. The ranges look very similar to the West MacDonnell Ranges in Alice Springs.

Then to find a camp because yet again we got talking at the springs and it was getting late. Arriving at our camp at Clem Walton Nature Reserve which is a freebie camp on someone’s property. We had our first bit of rain since we left Port Douglas this evening just after we finished cleaning up, we got everything packed away and it pretty much stopped. So it was light rain and short lived, only about 10 minutes. It is 8.37pm and is currently 30°C.

: Spinifex Pigeon – testing out the new camera – we are so excited to be able to take wildlife photos again

: RFDS Museum – Population of Australia’s Inland, Circa 1915

: RFDS Museum – Bush Stories

: RFDS Museum – The Advent of the Aeroplane

: RFDS Museum – Location of Cloncurry Airport

: RFDS Museum – Fred McKay – Patrol Padre in north west Queensland

: RFDS Museum – The logo

: RFDS Museum – Explanation of the logo

: RFDS Museum – Methods of Operation and statistics

: RFDS Museum – Model of the first plane – Victory

: RFDS Museum – de Havilland DH50 Victory

: RFDS Museum – de Havilland DH83 Fox Moth

: RFDS Museum – Cessna 208B Grand Caravan

: RFDS Museum – Pilatus PC12 Swiss made

: RFDS Museum – These are the message containers they drop from the plane to assist with landing or to give other messages – the red cans were easy to see and the red and white flag helped them to be located once they were on the ground.

: RFDS Museum – This was the type of message in the can

: RFDS Museum – 1924 Dodge

: RFDS Museum – $20 note Honouring John Flynn

: A $20 note

: RFDS Museum – Remote controlled medicine

: RFDS Museum – Alfred Traeger invented the pedal radio

: RFDS Museum – They used this diagram and one the same of your front with numbers instead of letters to help determine where the pain was to help diagnose the problem.

: RFDS Museum – The Outback Pharmacy – Every homestead had a box which had all the medication that might need to be administered on Drs instruction via radio after diagnosis.

: RFDS Museum – Contents of the Outback Pharmacy – everything was numbered so the Dr could just say give 2 capsules of Amoxil (No ??) 3 times a day etc. To ensure the correct medication was given.

: RFDS Museum – Information about the School of the Air

: RFDS Museum – School of the Air classroom tools – microphone and transmitter/receiver I think

: RFDS Museum – Painting of John Flynn

: Kite at Chinaman’s Creek Dam

: View from Chinaman’s Dam lookout

: Water tank art at Chinaman’s Dam lookout..

: ..and again

: Picturesque drive on the Ballara Heritage Mining Trail

: Fountain Springs cliffs reflection in the water – This is where Linda was at the waterhole when the Croc jumped out of the water at her in the Crocodile Dundee movie