Normanton to Chinamans Dam

Normanton to Burke & Wills Roadhouse

We weren’t wildly sorry to leave Normanton, it just wasn’t for us.

The people – especially in the shops, were nice and friendly and the VIC was great, but it just wasn’t a place that we’d be in a screeching hurry to get back to.
Something just felt a bit off about the ‘vibe’ to us…

We did of course also get to see the Purple Pub, which we forgot to mention in our last post, so we’ll include the photo of that below ◡̈

It took the better part of 2½ hours for us to do this next leg, and we stopped along the way for the dogs (& us) to stretch legs and have a wander.

We rolled into the Burke & Wills Roadhouse around 11:40, and went in to see about parking up for the evening behind the Roadhouse.

We chose to have an off-grid site – which means no power or water is supplied – so $15 later and we were all set to pick wherever we’d like to park ourselves for the night.

Can’t complain about that!

Just as an aside, even though we are self-contained and have a toilet and shower, we like to use public amenities whenever we can, to save emptying our clean-water tanks and filling up our other tanks (grey and black).

The RoadHouse has these facilities available for those staying onsite.

Whist our freezer has been running off our newly installed lithium for the last two weeks- and working like a bloody trooper we might add! – this was the first time we’d be running the entire house off the system for a decent length of time.

Of course it handled the lack of 240v just how it should, and we’d barely made a dent in the batteries by the time we were next packed up and ready to leave.

And by the time we made it to our next stop, between the very poor (100w) solar panel that we currently have, and the dcdc charger – which charges the house batteries while driving – we were back to 100% on the panel that monitors the lithium batteries.

Quamby

Along the way to our next overnight stay, we stopped in to the quaint Quamby Pub – which was established in 1860, to give the dogs and ourselves a stretch, and to treat ourselves to morning tea – which consisted of a shared coffee and muffin.

Quamby was once a little railway town that existed to serve the regions thriving cattle and mining industries. The newly renovated and operating Quamby Pub is also known as ‘the Pub in the Scrub’.

Accommodation is available including camping and onsite units, and there is also an annual Quamby Rodeo, held in July of each year.

It’s a pretty little place which has recently been given a facelift by the new owners, and the outdoor seating area was nice.

We had initially thought we might have stayed the night here, but decided against it, and headed onward to Cloncurry.

Cloncurry

We ended up staying two nights at the Oasis Caravan Park in ‘the Curry’ and took the opportunity to not just do our regular laundry, but to also wash our sheets and hang them out in the sunshine.

$4 a load is hard to pass up!

We saw some lovely artworks while we were there, and saw the biggest windmill that either of us had ever seen before, at the Information Centre.

In an entertaining turn of events, the folks who are currently running the Park where we stayed, turned out to be previous Clients of the Tall One.

Chinamans Dam

Further West we headed – but first we stopped off at Chinamans Dam, as the Short One wanted to see a particular Eagle sculpture there that she’d been rather taken with after seeing photos.

Whilst we got to see the Eagle, and take some photos of our own, it was too early in the day to be able to see it properly in all its glory, as it was still in the shadows whilst we were there.

A lil disappointing.
Oh well, just means we’ll have to go back! ◡̈

We drove further on toward the Lake itself though, and got to enjoy the peaceful stillness there, and to see some more lovely large-scale art works.
There’s a great playground area for kids there, as well as some Community facilities.

Whilst it’s a bitumen road in, some parts of it are quite narrow, and we found getting back up the hill from the shoreline to be a bit of hard wheel-spinning slog.
Because the bus is so heavy – and we couldn’t get a decent ‘run up’ to the hill due to a sharp corner – it’s was a bit tense there for a second… but we made it! Phewww!

Until next time – happy travels; and make the moments matter.

The Purple Pub in Normanton