Winton to Mt Isa

Our next day was one of travelling mainly through the countryside, with very few towns.

The landscape continued to be flat, but with huge expanses of pasture.

There were the occasional jump up.

The first settlement we came to was Kynuna, which consisted of "The Blue Heeler" pub, a fuel depot, and not much more.  Only a couple of houses.

Next was Mackinlay, which is slightly larger and famous for having the Walkabout Hotel, as featured in the movie "Crocodile Dundee".  I think I will have to watch the movie again, as it was released so long ago and I can't remember too much about it.

Of course, I do remember the line "You call that a knife?  THIS is a knife."  The barman very kindly produces a prop to hold with the cut out of Hoges.

We enjoyed a very tasty lunch here.  There were only three things on the menu, burger, steak sandwich or chilli chicken wrap.  Mick had a steak sanger and I the wrap.  The burgers looked good too.

Out the back is the bar they used in the movie.

As we continued north we started to come across lots of floodways, creeks and rivers, most dry now, but some with water.  We were entering Channel Country.

The road train configurations started to change too, as more mining ore carrying trucks were on the road.

We came to Cloncurry, where we had initially thought we would stay for the night, but as we were making good time, we kept on our way.

The Cloncurry River was rather impressive.

What do you make of this sign?  Mick decided that we need to watch out for "CARniverous cows",  Boom, Boom.

Looking ahead we noticed quite a hilly range.  We thought we would just be up and over it, but no, it continued all the way to Mt Isa, about 100kms of it.  We learnt later that this is the Selwyn Range.  We had no idea to expect hills, just expecting it to continue flat.

The next thing we started to encounter were termite mounds. They live on the spinafex apparently.  Some beside the road had been dressed up.

It was a bit sad when we saw this sign.  We had not seen any fast food chain store since Parkes, a couple of hours up the road from home.

We topped the hill, and there she was, Mount Isa's chimney stacks.  Yuck, look at that smoke.  Tomorrow we would explore it all.