My bro-in-law Roy suggested we stay with his mate Mick when we got to Winton and it turned out that this was a good move as Mick and his wife Tammy ran a nice little van park complete with night-time entertainment in the form of bush poets and roast dinners– all good fun. He also took us out in his minivan to see the famous footprints of the dinosaur stampede that occurred 90 million years ago out there. Now getting there involved going over a fair bit of rough road and dodging the fauna on the way. There was a lot of road-kill out there and unfortunately Mick added to it slightly when a small lamb dressed in camouflage gear (fleece was coated in the local dirt and so difficult to see) made a vain dash across the road...unsuccessfully. The gay banter inside the van dried up precisely as the “bump” was felt and for the next ten minutes there was no talk at all. Thomas received a bruise to his upper arm in the shape of five fingertips as Marg witnessed the impact. This was nothing of course, compared with what the lamb felt.
Actually the road noise from the van and the rough track made any talk inside the van quite difficult, to the extent that any interesting information that Mick uttered had to be relayed to the back of the van seat by seat. As we passed a road intersection Mick told me that up that road was a “jump-up” (mesa) where they filmed the French version of the “Survivor” TV show last year and that it was in the summer when it was up to 48 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately my sister Mal in the back seat got the message that last summer there was a car accident up that road and they found a French survivor in 48 degree heat wearing a jumper.
As for the fossil museum at the end of the road, it was really interesting, even intriguing, how a bunch of dinosaur tracks can be captured in time like that. The palaeontologists have concocted a theory about it all happening in a short space of time as a herd of little dinosaurs were stampeded by a big predator on the muddy bank of a water-hole – but my question is, what happened the next day that the footprints weren’t over-ridden by other dinosaurs coming down for a drink? Or the day after that? Oh well, I was never cut out to be a palaeontologist (I can only spell it thanks to Bill Gates).
From Winton we drove on to Cloncurry and Mount Isa. We spent three days at the Isa to take in the sights. The highlight was the mine tour where our host Bill showed us what it was like in the early days of mining silver, lead and zinc – the hard way! Bill was a tough old bloke with an absolute passion for mining and a great sense of humour to boot. And, you got to dress up like a miner too. As we were issued our gear Mal put the boots on and asked Bill, “Excuse me, are these shoes supposed to be heavy?” Bill almost had apoplexy. I’m sure that sort of question wasn’t asked when Bill first started out in the mining game.
We did strike gold at the Isa – in the Buffalo Club. Roy suggested we play Keno while we dined and blow me if we didn’t pick up $80 in prize money. Buoyed with success, we tried it again the next night as we dined at the Irish Club and yep, another $80 came our way. That’s where the rich vein ran out as no further attempts at the game have resulted in any of our numbers coming up. So ends my career as a high roller.
That was our last night together as a group. Tom and Marg are heading for Lawn Hill in the Gulf country – he’s been trying to get there for three years but circumstances have yet to be kind. The rest of us are heading for Richmond...Queensland!
Footnote: If you got this far through the blog, you're entitled to a surprise. Maurs and I are going to be grandparents. We just found out that Renee and Justin are expecting - bub is due in January. We're pretty thrilled and it looks like the Returd Highway may need to pass through Melbourne around that time.
Ciao
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