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 green salad. We head for Inner Springs tomorrow on our way to Cooktown.
July 31st: Awoke to a clear sky and we set off on our Lake Eyre flight, which was actually 5 hours of flying with a stopover at Birdsville for lunch. Seeing Lake Eyre North filled with water was one thing, but travelling over the Channel country where the Diamantina River and Coopers Creek, both in flood break up into a myriad of channels such that there is water from one horizon to the other, was truly spectacular! Coopers Creek has only just reached Lake Eyre. There is only local rain causing a little bit of filling only for south Lake Eyre, but there is no water yet going through the Goyder channel connecting the two halves of the Lake.We ate at the Birdsville Hotel then went to Birddvisitors centre to learn more about the Lake Eyre Basin. On the way back we saw Goyder lagoon which was a huge area of water. We also saw the Birdsville track flooded and it was easy to see way it is closed and will be for some time. We didn’t see as many birds as I thought we might. We saw pelican...





Spectacular gorge!
ReplyDeleteFUN FACT: Charters Towers town has a population of less than 10,000, yet it is home to the ‘Goldfield Ashes’, the southern hemisphere’s largest (and likely the world’s) annual amateur cricket carnival. Over 300 teams took part in the 3-day carnival in January 2026. Games were played on a variety of playing surfaces and spread across formal cricket grounds, parks, various sporting fields and school grounds.
ReplyDeletenever heard of it! Are our cousins from the Sub-continent represented? (Craig here)
DeleteA beautiful first sentence Suz ((Craig here)
ReplyDelete