Suzanne & Nic Outback Caravan Trip 2025

3rd June 2026: got off to a reasonably early start and looked at the many buildings tastefully restored to their 1880’s appearance when Charters Towers was a wealthy gold rich town. We drove out of town on the Gregory Developmental Road and then the Kennedy developmental road, both roads in good order with light traffic of trucks and caravans in both directions. As we travel north the vegetation is changing to semi- tropical with vines clinging to trees like furniture coverings in a dryish eucalyptus forest, with many trees showing epiphytic growth after fires. We saw our first wedge-tailed Eagle for the trip - a single one- and then a new bird for me- the pheasant coucal by the side of the road. We saw a second one a distance further on . We reached Mt Garnet and saw the race track made famous by the Picnic Races. About 20km further on we came to Innot Hot Springs where we were booked into the caravan park. We set up on our unpowered site and then went to bathe in the pools of various...

 2nd June 2026: Awoke to a golden morning light on the gum trees and the sweet notes of the butcherbirds. We packed up and turned  on the Kennedy Development road in the direction of Hughenden. We visited the Lookout over porcupine Gorge downstream of Pyramid Rock and it was far more spectacular as the Porcupine Creek ran along the bottom of high sandstone gorge walls 120 million years old with a layer of basalt on top. We then took a Google directed shortcut to Prairie but had to turn back when we came to a place where the road across the Flinders River was entirely washed away. We backtracked and had to go via Hughenden along the Flinders Way to Charters Towers. It was a town filled with some attractive building left over from when CT was in its heyday gold mining days. We filled up with diesel and had a large shop at Woolworths before heading to the Charters Towers Tourist Park for a drive-thru site. I cooked a vegetables and salmon and pasta in cheese sauce affair with a g...

 1sr June 2026: Today we walked down into Porcupine Gorge with its most prominent landmark Pyramid rock at one end with a network of pools at the base at the end of a river running down the centre of the gorge. We reached Pyramid Rock and then crossed to the other side of the river across rocks where Nic got his feet wet. We made our way back up the far side of the gorge walking over rocks then scrambling down some more until we reached a place where we could cross the river back to the campsite side. This time it was my turn to get wet feet! We continued walking upstream, (after a delay for me to empty my shoes of water and wring out my socks)-and found a lunch spot under a shady tree. We kept walking as far as we could in search of an elusive waterfall at the end of the gorge, but we couldn’t progress any further without taking to the water, so we turned back. Nic made great progress, with me bringing up the rear by quite a long way as we climbed up the many steps out of the gorg...

 31st May 2026: We left Winton after an unsuccessful attempt to visit the Chinese vegetable garden of Willie Mae. We headed out to Hughenden, a 3.5 hour trip. The land was pretty dry without much vegetation or signs of animal life! We saw lots of kites- black and whistling and then groups of Drought master cattle. We stopped in Hughenden at the Flinders Discovery Centre- the only thing on offer in this very small town! We saw more dinosaur bones, read about sheep and quickly passed over more memorabilia! We headed to Porcupine Gorge National Park where I had booked us a camping site, some distance from other campers. We walked to the Gorge and back (2.7km) just as the sun was setting. I successfully set up Starlink on the caravan roof then made a sort of vegetable hot pot stir fry using the carrots, parsnip zucchini, capsicum, onions and mushrooms I had on hand, together with a tin of salmon each with pasta. It is so nice to be in a National park rather than a caravan park!  W...

 30th May 2026: Spent most of the day at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs exhibits.we started with the Fossil Preparation Laboratory, which showed how bones are protected at the site where they were excavated and then processed some years later at the Fossil Prep laboratory. They teach volunteers how to do the intricate painstaking work required with a dental drill (pneumatic scribes).We met volunteers who come back for periods of time year after year. Eventually the fossil is infiltrated by a sort of plastic material to preserve its shape and mounted in some way. Next we saw a display of bones of dinosaurs found around Winton in the Collection Room. They were those of sauropod Diamantinasaurus, sauropod Savannasaurus, the most complete theropod dinosaur Australovenator,  crocodile Confractosuchus, abs pterosaurus Ferrodraco.  We then were transported to the March of the Dinosaurs: the 54 meter long Snake Creek track site removed from its original site on a property near W...