Our route basically took us due East, quite a change from our generally northerly heading of the past three weeks. Unfortunately, we spent much of the morning pushing into a pretty steady headwind.
With road trains zooming by us at pretty regular intervals, the cautious approach was for all four of us to get right off the road. This had been relatively easy along the Birdsville Track and other unsealed sections, as these monster rigs were easy to see and hear in the dust storm they created. On the Mt Isa to Cloncurry Highway though, we had plenty of twists and turns to negotiate, and a couple of times the road trains managed to sneak by the eagle eyes of our Tail End Charlie causing some undue excitement for us all.
Unfortunately, the headwinds and traffic on this stretch detracted from some lovely rolling countryside, punctuated with some spectacular rock outcrops, covered with thick scrub, shrubs and plenty of trees.
We rolled into Cloncurry in the early afternoon and headed straight for the bakery on the recommendation of the lass that cut Ric's hair in Mt Isa. We enjoyed the odd sausage roll and sticky bun, and discovered the best coffee we had enjoyed since leaving Sydney. Pete - a notoriously tough coffee connoisseur - awarded the bakery 9 out of 10!
After a quick clean up at the designated campsite, we headed along to the Royal Flying Doctor museum/John Flynn art gallery. The museum does a terrific job in recreating/telling the story of the establishment of the RFDS over the last 100 years. There are models, replicas, plenty of photos and lots of stories about the doctors, nurses and pilots and the people they served. It's well worth a visit and a bargain at $10.00.
Ric took himself off for another run while Pete and Dom checked out the local pubs. We dined on some terrific spaghetti bolognese, and hit the hay nice and early.
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