June 1                     SWAN HILL HP ($A19)

Frost over the lawns again, time to head north. Farewell to Cliff, who wants to come with us, and we're back on the road. Retraced our route up the Murray Valley Highway, chasing the river through the orchards and vineyards it waters. Past a grove of cricket bat willows, then along the edge of the Piangil State Forest – this is Major Mitchell territory, the explorer who named Swan Hill and continued up the Murrumbidgee in the 1840's. There were many single kookaburras along the telegraph lines, a few pelicans and black swans on the ponds.

The road turned west with the Murray at BOUNDARY BEND, its confluence with the Murrumbidgee, the scenic banks home to a roadhouse and caravan park. Fields of bright green broccoli, 'Orange Pickers Wanted' signs outside the fruiting citrus orchards, almond trees, olive groves supplying an olive oil press: this could be the Mediterranean. Past the turning for Hattah, through which we'd driven from Mildura, but this time we continued to ROBINVALE (a vine-growing centre, pop 1,750). Across the Murray here to EUSTON, leaving Victoria for New South Wales, on a very narrow planked bridge which is being replaced by a concrete one. NSW Tourism's website is www.visitnsw.com.au.

On the Sturt Highway for the next 50 miles, meeting the Murray again at GOL GOL, where we lunched in a quiet riverside park. The toilet block had an outside tap labelled Filtered Drinking Water (from the Murray?) Didn't detour across the next bridge to Mildura (back in Victoria), bypassing it and driving straight to WENTWORTH, the Town on Two Rivers.

Wentworth is a historic port (1830s) at the meeting place of Australia's two greatest rivers. We were surprised to learn that the Darling at 2,740 km is longer than the Murray (2,530 km). The world's fourth largest river system is formed by the Murray-Darling Basin, where the Great Dividing Range prevents all the inland rivers from reaching the Pacific Ocean. The northern rivers, fed by summer monsoons, flow into the Darling while southern rivers, sourced by winter rains and spring snow thaws, flow into the Murray. The Wentworth area only gets 8 or 10 inches of rain in a good year (which this isn't), but has plentiful water year-round from the river system. All this was explained to us by a very enthusiastic senior volunteer in the Visitor Info Centre, who sent us off to see the confluence from a viewing tower near the No. 10 Lock and Weir.

Duly informed, we continued north on the Silver City Highway to the eponymous city of Broken Hill. The alternative road which follows the Darling River to Menindee is, sadly, unsealed after Pooncarie, so we couldn't follow in the tracks of Burke and Wills (perhaps just as well). Love Macca's remark that B&W would have got lost on the bitumen!

Our highway runs for 266 empty km, with nothing to break the drive except a single simple roadhouse about half way, at COOMBAH, where we had a brew-up. From the Mighty Murray to the Great Outback – red soil, saltbush, feral goats, a lone emu, a few kangaroos emerging as the sun went down in a glorious outback sunset. Nothing growing but saltbush, though we're still in the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone, which must extend beyond the orchards as far as the blighters can fly!

As dusk fell, the broken hills and lights of the outback mining town welcomed us and we settled at the caravan park on the Barrier Highway – we had at last rejoined our cross-country cycle route of 2000, as we stayed here in a cabin after the previous night at the Olary Hotel.

Much warmer here than at Swan Hill, now over 300 miles to the south.

Still a bit frosty up here in the hills (nearly 1,000 ft). Into BROKEN HILL to shop for food plus a new filter for the Brita water jug, after 8 weeks' use - from 'Big W', the hardware branch of Woolworths. The town is its own graphic testimony to its history, the 'mullocks' (slag-heaps) and headframes towering over the silver-lead-zinc mining city, the grand turn-of-the-century stone buildings and small miners' cottages, the gridwork of streets with names like Wolfram Lane, Bromide St, Sulphide St, Chloride St, Cobalt St, Crystal St, Beryl Lane and so on. The colours and light of the landscape have attracted artists and film-makers, an odd combination with the heavy industry.

Heading east on the Barrier Highway, we quickly left all trace of the town behind. Past a sign telling us to forward our clocks by 30 mins for Eastern Standard Time (Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland and NSW except Broken Hill, which clings to Central Standard Time with NT and SA). As we hadn't put them back yesterday, it didn't matter! Another sign indicated that we were leaving the Fruit Fly Free Zone, quite a relief. Red earth and scrub, the 25-Mile Creek (25 miles after Broken Hill) bone dry, like all the others we crossed. Plenty of road-kill to fatten the ravens, crows and wedgetail eagles – wonder where they nest?

After 80 empty kms the Little Topar Roadhouse appeared on the horizon, offering fuel, food, simple rooms and a dry-composting dunny. A couple of miles further is the left turn for Hazelvale Emu Farm & Camping, a mile up a dusty track. Five years ago, we'd enjoyed a splendid evening there, taking dinner (cooked under the stars in a bush oven), bed and breakfast with the lone emu farmer. Today we were sad to see the sign had been taken down, the gate was locked, it seemed Roy's hard work had not paid off.

Over 100 very empty kms of Barrier Highway till our next cycle staging point, the town of WILCANNIA on the Darling River. Once a very busy port in the days of the paddle steamers, taking wool to Adelaide, it is now in decline with a largely Aboriginal population of 1,000. The Wilcannia Motel we had stayed at, the general store and roadhouse are still in business, and some sandstone Colonial-era buildings such as that housing the Central Darling Shire offices, but many other shops and houses boarded up. Made lunch by the Darling, which looks very low and still. We walked to look at the rotting wooden wharf and the 2 ages of bridge – the early steel centre-lift bridge and the newer concrete one carrying the Barrier Highway across the river. A dozen black cockatoos took to the air with a flash of red tails as soon as our camera approached their roost, on the river bank.

Another 100 km of straight highway, rolling gently, to our next cycling stage, the Emmdale Roadhouse (no accommodation, we'd just pitched the tent in the thorny paddock and eaten supper with the hosts). It is still open today, but a For Sale notice hangs on the fence. Stop for a brew up and take photos of a family of 3 emus grazing nearby.

The final 160 km is even emptier, if that is possible. Even the traffic (mostly trucks and caravans) has disappeared since Wilcannia. The only signs of life are feral goats, a few live kangaroos and the odd mob of sheep where a windmill-pump indicated a waterhole. Couldn't recognise the place we'd camped in the bush, with no landmarks.

Pleased to get a signal on the ABC Radio National for some of the day, listening to the 2 current serials: Sarah Turnbull's 'Almost French' (an Australian girl living in Paris) and 'Life of Pi', a Booker Prize winner by an Indian named Patel. Frustrating that we only catch odd episodes of each. When radio reception fades, between towns, we listen to our small CD collection (choice of Macca, Eva Cassidy or a classical collection)!

Finally COBAR hove into view, a working copper-mining town, smaller than Broken Hill but with a good caravan park on the road in (giving a $A1 discount for cash payment!) This is the crossroads with the Kidman Highway and tomorrow we turn north, leaving our cycle route which continued east to Nyngan.

For more information, have a look at: www.cobar.nsw.gov.au, www.kidmanway.org.au and www.outbacknsw.org.au/cobar.

No ground frost this morning, the caravan park busy with Aussie grey nomads heading north for winter sun. In Cobar the Library offered free internet: a chance to check our bank balances and incoming emails. The Great Cobar Heritage Centre and Visitor Info, in a splendid copper company building, has a dump point and water for vans. We couldn't help them with their appeal for information about the Copper Ram (a town icon), stolen from outside the Centre recently!

The Kidman Way (a narrow road running north for 100 miles to Bourke) is named after Sir Sidney Kidman, the 'Cattle King' – on his death in 1935 he owned over 100 sheep and cattle stations. There was absolutely nothing along the way apart from a couple of rest areas and the boundary post of the Shires of Cobar (= the area of Tasmania) and Bourke (= Denmark!) Very little traffic indeed, just a few emus running through the bush, until fields of cotton heralded the approach to BOURKE, where we met the broader Mitchell Highway from Nyngan, the railway and the Darling River.

The friendly volunteer in the Visitor Centre at the old railway station played us a video about the history of the port and made us coffee, all free of charge. Again, there was a dump/water point outside and more information leaflets than we could carry. Bourke was the furthest port up the Darling, handling wool and produce brought by camel or bullock carts for shipping to the south coast by paddlesteamers towing barges. Now, the town has been saved from decline by its irrigation scheme, enabling a cotton and citrus fruit industry to thrive.

Made our way to the site of the historic wharf (abandoned for the last 70 years). The river was still as a lake, the redgums on both banks full of white corellas, squawking and flapping, occasionally wheeling high over the water before resettling densely on the branches. Perhaps they were spooked by a pair of wedgetail eagles soaring high above.

The first lock on the Darling was opened a few miles downstream, and the first bridge across it was built here in 1883, 2 years before the railway came. We find these Victorian dates and achievements an amazing part of British history in this far-flung colony. Major Mitchell was the early explorer of the area, naming his Fort Bourke Stockade after the Governor of the Colony in 1835. There are several historic buildings (ie over a century old), but we saw more Aboriginee housing than elegant architecture.

'Back o' Bourke' is an Australian term for the back of beyond, the remote outback, the 'never never': an area and a concept dear to many writers, from Henry Lawson to modern bush poets. Scottish stockman/poet Will Ogilvie wrote: "That's where the wildest floods have birth, out of the nakedest ends of the earth, out at the back o' Bourke … It's the bitterest land of sweat and sorrow, but if I were free I'd be off tomorrow, out at the back o' Bourke". Historian Charles Bean summed it up in 1908: "There exists inside coastal Australia a second Australia, of which most of our people know very little … The core of Australia, the real red Australia of the ages." That's the Australia we love to travel through.

There is a caravan park in the town but we drove 7 kms north up the Mitchell Highway, crossing the river on the modern Gateway Bridge alongside the lift-up North Bourke Bridge, the first one built over the Darling in the 1880's, now only safe for pedestrians. The old Back o'Bourke pub on the north bank is the meeting place of the Bourke Bush Poets.

Our somewhat pretentious 'Camp Resort' has amenities labelled 'Cowgirls' and 'Cowboys', calls its cabins Stockman's Suites, and offers sausage sizzles with bush poetry two nights a week (but not tonight – we did our own bangers and mash!) It also sold bags of sweet local oranges for $A1.

Today we put the air-con on when we arrived at camp, rather than the heating, what a contrast. The night air is still and warm, the sky like a black velvet blanket. Trousers give way to shorts again, chocolate bars go back in the fridge.

For more information, see: www.visitbourke.com, www.backobourke.com.au and www.outbackbeds.com.au.

Sunday means Macca's on the Radio (7 am-10 am) and we're eating porage. Then we hit the Mitchell Highway northwards, a ribbon of black tarmac through the mulga scrub, the red ochre of the soil the predominant colour contrasting with the wide horizon blue. The road followed the Warrego River, invisible to our west. A dead sheep gave the crows a taste of mutton, as well as the usual kangaroo carcasses and an emu which didn't make it to the other side.

We scarcely noticed ENGONNIA after 60 km but paused 34 km later at BARRINGUN, just before the Queensland border. Here, the last pub in NSW, the Tattersall Hotel, was once a Cobb & Co coaching inn. The Bush Tucker Inn, on the opposite side of the road, advertised food, petrol and a caravan park, but looked like a rusty tin shack.

Across the Dog Fence and over the border into the Sunshine State. The sky was filling with swirling white cloud, overlaid with puffy smaller clouds – beautiful. The highway, now subtitled Matilda Way, led another 120 km to CUNNAMULLA, a wool and beef town at a stock-route crossroads on the Warrego River, home to 1,200 souls and the world's largest woolshed! We stopped for lunch and a fill of diesel (8 cents a litre cheaper in Queensland, with State subsidy). There is a caravan park in the town, and also camping at the Nardoo Station, 38 km further up the Mitchell Highway, which now followed a railway line.

Half way between Cunnamulla and Charleville (100 km from each) is the tiny railway town of WYANDRA. The small population (60) is trying to attract outback tourists and even offered free powered caravan sites and toilets on a paddock by the school. The roads are busy with thousands of migrants from Victoria and NSW heading north for the winter, and a few were camped here. We continued through the Mitchell grass flats and bushland to CHARLEVILLE, (pop 3,500) complete with Flying Dr Service covering an area the size of Britain, and a School of the Air (or School of Distant Education).

The Cobb & Co Caravan Park was practically full, the Top Tourist had no powered sites at all – the grey nomads had arrived ahead of us and we finally realised that May-Sept (winter) is the peak season in the northern half of this vast and timeless land! We took an en-suite cabin ($A54), rather than squat in the dust, and enjoyed the space and the TV for a change – a programme debunking the Dan Brown phenomenon 'The Da Vinci Code', followed by a documentary about Elvis with some poignant songs, then Billy Connolly for laughs. The road climbed imperceptibly all day, rising from 400 ft to almost 1,000 ft, but no chill factor – it gets warmer each day and stays light a little longer.

For more on Cunnamulla/Wyandra, see www.paroo.info and for Charleville, see www.murweh.qld.gov.au (Visitor Info Centre sites). Queensland Tourism's site is www.tq.com.au. A few statistics which surprised us: the area of Queensland is about 7 times larger than Great Britain, more than twice the size of Texas, and nearly a quarter of the land area of Australia! It has 300 days of sunshine per year, and more sheep than people: 4-5 million head, against a population of just under 3,900,000.

A distinct change in the landscape as we drove north, with more trees (including Boab or Bottle Trees – useful in drought as cattle can eat the soft tissue in the swollen trunk), fresh green grass on the verges rather than red dust, even cacti. There was a little muddy water in the creek-beds we crossed. Coffee break after 85 km at AUGATHELLA (pop 580) in the park by the (dry) Warrego River, where there was a tap and toilets but a No Camping sign.

The Landsborough Highway, named after the man who explored the region in 1862 looking for Burke & Wills, continued relentlessly north. Over the next 100 km stretch, we climbed to over 1,500 ft before cresting a rise and dropping into the vast Lake Eyre-Coopers Creek catchment area. During the 20 km across this to TAMBO, we stopped to allow a mob of cattle cross the road, herded by 2 genuine drovers on horseback – a good photo opportunity! Lunch parked by the lake in Tambo (pop 700), a quick refuel and another 100 km of highway following the Barcoo River to BLACKALL, a merino wool town with a Big Ram, about 2,000 people and 18 inches average annual rainfall.

Here we sought out the famous Black Stump ('Beyond the Black Stump' is another name for Australia's wild west). We were strangely unimpressed by the tree stump, on which surveyors rested their theodolites when mapping Queensland in the 1880's – perhaps because it's been replaced by a different fossilised specimen. We felt no urge to visit the only steam-powered wool-washing shed left in Australia (and, no doubt, the world), but couldn't miss the Thomas Mitchell clocktower on the main street (the Major discovered Blackall in 1846 – what was there to discover then, we wondered?) Another memorial marks the first meeting of the shearers' union in 1886, to become the basis of the Australian Labour Party. Resisted the temptation of the caravan park and continued north for another 100 km to meet the Capricorn Highway (as in Tropic of Capricorn) and the railway.

Here, at BARCALDINE (pop 1,800) made tea outside the railway station (the 'Spirit of the Outback' takes nearly 24 hrs to arrive from Brisbane), by a 200-year-old ghost gum tree. During the Great Shearers Strike in 1891, the men met under its branches and it has been preserved in memory of 13 strike leaders sent to jail.

Now, significantly, we turned west, the road running just below the Tropic, following the railway for 80 km to the little town of ILFRACOMBE (pop 185) and a final 25 km to LONGREACH on the Thompson River. Though Barcaldine had 2 busy competing caravan parks, and Ilframcombe another, both caravan parks in Longreach were full! The Matilda Way is a popular route and Longreach (with 4,500 inhabitants) has the twin attractions of the Qantas Museum and the Stockman's Hall of Fame. To avoid a claustrophobic dusty corner, we again took a cabin, costing $A63. There was free entertainment in the evening round a campfire, in the form of singer-songwriter-comedian (and former rodeo rider) Tom McIvor, who amused for an hour or so. Learnt that Slim Dusty (country music legend) died recently, as Tom sang a tribute.

For more on the above towns, see Visitor Information Centre websites: www.tambo.qld.gov.au www.blackall.qld.gov.au www.barcaldine.qld.gov.au www.ilfracombe.qld.gov.au www.longreach.qld.gov.au

Longreach has many paying attractions (you can even take a 1.5 hour tour of the local college for $5 – see students at work and have a cup of tea!) We chose to visit the Boeing 747 'City of Bunbury' jumbo jet which landed at Longreach Airport in Nov 2002, after 23 years of service for Qantas, carrying 5.4 million passengers. It is next to the Qantas Founders Outback Museum, with a separate entry fee for the hourly guided tour ($A12, seniors $A10). The first available tour was at 1.30 pm, so spent a useful morning working on the free internet-email in the town library. Tried to get a newspaper but they didn't arrive until the afternoon! The Tropic of Capricorn line on Eagle Street (all the streets were named after birds) separated the Torrid Zone from the Temperate Zone (torrid is us!)

The tour of the 747 was extremely interesting, especially to frequent flyers. Everything was explained and viewed, from the wheels to the amazingly small cockpit. The only jumbo jet open for public inspection - the town was evacuated and roads closed while it came in to land by the original Qantas hangar (Queensland and Northern Territories Aerial Service), where the world's second oldest airline began in 1920.

Well impressed, we drove north-west, a long empty stretch of road to the remote home of 'Waltzing Matilda' at WINTON. The only caravan park (apart from 20 free places without electricity behind the North Gregory Hotel) is a small Top Tourist park, busy but not full. We ordered the evening meal (served at 6.30 pm round the campfire for $A10 each) and were disappointed with a school-dinner meal of rissoles in gravy, luke-warm veg and tea/coffee. But again there was free entertainment, this time a real Bush Poet. Milton Taylor, retired shearer, gave a virtuoso performance, 2 hours of recitation of classic and modern verse, as well as some of his own verses. Learnt that 'Clancy of the Overflow' (in 'The Man from Snowy River') was Clancy McNamara, a several-times-great-uncle of Macca.

For more on Winton, see www.experiencewinton.com.au

A family of 3 Brolgas was strutting round the van as we breakfasted, unperturbed by an approaching camera. These cranes stand 1.5 m tall, grey legs and feathers, red necks, long probing beaks and a harsh cry. And they can fly.

Walked Winton's main street and posted cards before leaving. Learnt of the town's links with Banjo Paterson's Andy ("Andy sang, Andy watched, Andy waited till his billy boiled …") and of its earlier history and link with Winton, Bournemouth – the home of good friends! It's a remote town almost in the centre of Queensland. About 60 miles north of the Tropic of Capricorn, it is 400 miles west of the Pacific Ocean and Great Barrier Reef and about the same distance east of the border with the Northern Territory. The nearest towns are Longreach (110 miles south-east), Hughenden (140 miles north-east) and Cloncurry (200 miles north-west).

The town was founded in 1876 by Albert Allen. He was a policeman in the town of Aramac (about 140 miles east), but gave that up in 1875, loaded his drays and moved west to the banks of the Western River. He set up camp at a place which, for obvious reasons, he called 'Pelican Waterhole'. There he built a hotel and general store for passing travellers, stockmen, pastoralists and prospectors.

He was flooded out during the wet season of 1876 and moved his hotel and store to what is now the centre of Winton, appointing himself the unofficial postmaster. Soon tiring of writing 'Pelican Waterhole' on letters and packets, he renamed his small settlement after his birthplace - Winton, a suburb of Bournemouth in England.

In 1879 an official post office was established and in 1881 the first bank moved in – the Queensland National Bank.

In 1895 the classic Australian song 'Waltzing Matilda' had its first public performance in the town's North Gregory Hotel. The words were written by "Banjo" Paterson, a Sydney lawyer, and the music by Christina MacPherson while Banjo was staying on her family's nearby Dagwood Sheep Station.

In 1920, the Winton Club hosted the first meeting of what was to become Australia's international airline: QANTAS (Queensland And Northern Territories Aerial Service). The outback airline set up its first airfield and hangars at nearby Longreach.

By 1945 the population of Winton, which had been as high as 3,500, fell to 1,600. Today it has stabilised at about 900 with growing tourist activity. Its attractions include 3,000 dinosaur footprints in the nearby Lark Quarry (70 miles of gravel road away) and a Waltzing Matilda Centre in the town. The litter bins are fibreglass dinosaur feet and the post office sold cuddly dinosaurs, as well as Jolly Swagmen – something for everyone! Opal mining continues at nearby Opalton and every September, in odd-numbered years, there is a crayfish Derby. It also has what is claimed to be the world's only musical fence where any passer-by can strike up a tune.

Not least, the town is proud of its public water supply which comes from the Great Australian Artesian Basin, 4,000 ft underground. The water emerges at about 80°C but is allowed to cool to about 50°C before being circulated round the town. There is a smell of hydrogen sulphide gas which soon dissipates when the water is allowed to stand or boiled prior to chilling for drinking. However, visitors are warned: "Please note that the tap water may also cause silver jewellery to tarnish".

We left the 'Matilda Way' here, so missing Kynuna, whose hotel makes a rival claim to the first performance of the song! Our route followed a freight railway line on a development road through empty bushland – the trees always on the horizon. A couple of dead sheep attracted several wedgetail eagles, wheeling impatiently overhead when our arrival disturbed their meal. Tiny settlements on the way: after 80 km CORFIELD (pop 20) had a pub and a tennis court, another 70 km to STAMFORD (pop 3) with just a roadhouse. Places which come to life for the annual horse races. The new road was still being sealed for the last 10 km, before HUGHENDEN hove into view, with its 1,500 inhabitants. Here we met the Flinders Highway (or 'Overlanders Way'), running east-west alongside the railway, from the coast at Townsville to Mount Isa.

The small caravan park opposite the shunting yard was just that – a place to rest, shower, do the laundry – no campfires or bush poets! For entertainment we could swim in the town's free 33-metre-long outdoor pool, right next door: very refreshing (air temperature in the 80's, water cold! Shopped at the local bakery and butcher's (prize-winning pungent garlic & herb pork sausages).

Still no signal on the mobile phone since Longreach (whatever the Telstra coverage map says!) A good feeling of isolation under the incredibly starry night sky.

For more on Hughenden, visit www.flinders.qld.gov.au

The Outback gradually gave way to trees, with small termite mounds punctuating the red earth. All the creeks were flat dry sand, mocked by signs saying 'Floodway' or 'Road subject to flooding' with depth markers. Again, a series of minute settlements along the railway: PRAIRIE (pop 40) with an old coaching hotel, TORRENS CREEK (pop 15), where the Exchange Hotel-Motel-Caravan Park begs for your business: 'Stop for a feed before we both starve'! We did stop for a walk and found a tiny shop, a post office, a police station, a cemetery. To the north of our road lay the Porcupine Gorge National Park, accessed by dirt road.

PENTLAND, 100 km before Charters Towers, again offered a hotel-motel-caravan park, as did BALFE'S CREEK and then HOMESTEAD, 30 km further on. Every village (a word not used in Australia) is hanging on to life, trying to tempt travellers to pause. We felt guilty in our self-sufficient vehicle: cyclists would appreciate and use these hostelries, but no-one is riding here.

About 2 km before CHARTERS TOWERS, the outback behind us, we settled on the shady green Top Tourist park. Took an en-suite site, an excellent idea unknown in Europe – camp alongside your own private toilet-shower compartment for a few dollars morel.

'The Towers' is a substantial city built on goldmining, with plenty of heritage-listed buildings – splendid banks, hotels, post office, library: the School of Mines, the vast cemetery and the newspaper offices of the 'Northern Miner' say it all. Modern heritage too, in the form of Woolworth's, Tandy Electrics and fast food places. Even a cinema and no less than 4 caravan parks.

Spent a day getting back in touch with the world via text messages and email, though Hotmail was 'down' for the morning. The library unusually charges $A5 per hour for access and does not allow the use of a USB Flashdrive, so we worked in the computer shop, with better equipment at $A6 per hour.

Today (Saturday) is the start of a long weekend holiday to mark the Queen's Birthday, which is not a public holiday in the UK!

The Gregory Developmental Road, running north-west from Charters Towers, is part of the Great Inland Way. In fact this northern section is just a very narrow 'Beef Road' for stock movement, much of it just a truck width with gravel verges and occasional 2-lane stretches. It climbed from around 800 ft to a max of 1,627 ft before dropping to 1,500 ft at Greenvale, the first settlement after more than 200 km. See www.greatinlandway.org.au for the whole route, from Dubbo (NSW) to Cairns (Queensland).

After 33 km an easily missed sign indicates a right turn for Big Bend, 2 km along a track. We parked and walked to see the eastern fringe of a 100-km-long lava flow known as the Great Basalt Wall. There were black volcanic boulders at the bend in the Burdekin River, which the lava diverted to form a pool at Echo Hole. A couple of fishermen were camped on the bank (today is Saturday of the Queen's Birthday Holiday long weekend). Perhaps the geological formations are more impressive at Red Falls, 44 km along a track west of the highway?

13 km further on, we crossed Fletcher Creek, where the free campground by the river was busy with vans and tents. The foundations of the older bridge and track to nearby Dalrymple were visible – a short-lived goldrush town, destroyed by flood in 1870. Continuing north, the creeks became dry, and the parched grass beneath the trees was studded with hundreds of small pointed termite mounds. Very little life, on or off the road – just 2 emus strutting by. What a length of leg – 'emu drumsticks with rice would be nice' sings Rolf Harris!

About halfway to Greenvale, at 106 km from Charters Towers, the Blue Waters Roadhouse offers fuel and refreshment, opposite a cattle station with Brahman cows, well suited to the heat and dust from their breeding in India.

The old railway line (Townsville-Greenvale) followed the road for the rest of the way, but the rails and sleepers had been removed, since the town's nickel mine (once the biggest in the southern hemisphere) closed in 1992 after only 20 years' working.

GREENVALE itself is still open (just). The service station has closed down and the Three Rivers Hotel, though still in business, is for sale. (Immortalised in Stan Coster & Slim Dusty's song, known to us via John Williamson.) The quiet little caravan park doubles as a hardware and transport business, with a flock of tame galahs (pink and grey parrots). Sadly, we are told that the annual rodeo is no longer held because of Public Liability Insurance problems.