Mt Isa, Dinosaur Trail, Porcupine Gorge to Winton

  Longreach, Australia
Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Sunday 29th July Lawn Hill - Mt Isa
DP tries to sleep through MP's packing, as she's had a few bad night's sleep, and hasn't been able to catch up in the mornings. Finally gives up, and we are off early to the World Heritage listed Riversleigh Fossil Site. Good gravel road all the way, find the site right beside the road. The Adel's Grove bus is there, so we are able to catch up with the tour long enough to find we don't need it. The information shelter is an artificial limestone cave, with pretty kitsch bas reliefs of prehistoric beasts. The actual fossils on the site are easily seen in the limestone, and are quite impressive.

003. Riversleigh - dinosaur fossil

There are drill holes and a drill rod in the limestone cap on the hill,

001. Riversleigh -rods from excavations

but there doesn't seem to have been a lot of excavation done. This is the only site open to the public, but there are lots more around.

002. Nothing much out here

Not far beyond the site, we cross the Gregory River on a 50m causeway, with deep water both sides, and quite a quick flow up to a foot deep. It is too fast for DP to walk across with the camera, which is a bit scary, so we take photos from the near side, and watch as a couple of 4WD's towing caravans cross.

04. First Gregory River crossing

We follow carefully in low range, then take photos from the far side.

05. We make first Gregory River crossing

The river is clean and very pretty. The second crossing is shallower, so DP walks across first.

007. Our second Gregory River crossing

06. Plenty of flow in the Gregory River

We strike another crossing on the O'Shannassy River which was not too bad - another pretty river, spoilt by the floating carcasses of a piglet and something bigger.

008. O'Shannassy River crossing

009. O'Shannassy River

The country is quite attractive - wide grassy plains, hills capped with red rock escarpments. The road deteriorates on the Gregory Downs-Camooweal Road section of the Isa Riversleigh Byway,

010. Along the Isa Riversleigh Byway

but then we reach the turnoff to the short cut to the Barkly Highway

011. Only 177 kms to Mt Isa

and the road improves to tar with occasional potholes. The Barkly Highway (The Overlander Highway) is a new, real highway, with good grades and long curves, a new surface and a 110 kmh speed limit.
The landscape has rugged hills with rock outcrops at the top. We see the mine chimneys of Mt Isa from a long way off, and pass the airport and industrial suburbs before coming into the town proper. Mt Isa , population 23,000 owes its existence to an immensely rich copper, silver, lead and zinc mine, and the lead smelter dominates the town, whereas the CBD is harder to find. Drive around looking at the town, then out to the Argylla Caravan Park. DP takes a long time organising a Donga room ($70 less 10% Big 4 discount -$64.70 per night), and comes back with the news that she has run into Wally and Ingrid, her brother's in-laws from Adelaide, who we haven't seen for about 15 years. We had no idea they were up here. It's definitely a small world! We catch up with them later in the crowded camp kitchen, where they have a 4o'clock free tea and scones for the campers. We talk to them at their camper caravan,

014. Dianne with Ingrid and Wally

then head out to look at the town lookout, and get a very ordinary MacDonalds no-name burger, and our first salad for quite a while, which may have been a mistake. Get a fair night's sleep, in spite of Mac-induced multiple toilet visits by DP, and trucks roaring past on the highway.
Monday 30th July &a mp;n bsp; Mt Isa- Richmond
Farewell Wally and Ingrid, and head into town, to the Riversleigh Exhibit at Outback at Isa. Get our tickets ($10 each), then DP internets while MP fills and checks the car while we wait for it to open. The Riversleigh exhibit is interesting, particularly the talk with the paleontologist, who shows us the process of dissolving the lime and leaving bones and teeth.
Do a serious assault on Coles supermarket, then head up to the lookout for a hot chicken lunch and photo of the town.

012. Mt Isa- the smelter dominates the town

013. Mt Isa lead smelter

It is now fairly late, so head for Richmond, stopping for a look at the abandoned Mary Kathleen uranium mining town, Cloncurry water supply dam, Cloncurry, and the Mary Kathleen park and machinery exhibit at Cloncurry. See a number of wedgetailed eagles eating carrion on the road.

015. Another wedge-tailed eagle

Did a quick swing through Julia Creek and on to Richmond, which looked surprisingly attractive, on a low ridge beside the Flinders River. There is a large artificial lake below the camping area, with the hospital on a point opposite. Book into the Bunkhouse (another Donga with no ensuite) at the Lakeview Caravan Park ($40 per night)
Touch base with Wally and Ingrid, who are also here, before driving the town and checking out the hole-in-one tee with its small hump of land in the centre of the lake. Fill with petrol for tomorrow, then have a beer with Wally and Ingrid in their surprisingly roomy camper caravan.
Have an excellent and well priced meal at the Royal Federal Hotel, two of us and a Mt Isa woman the only customers. Pretty good night in our donga with adjacent kitchen and toilets.
Tuesday 31st July Richmond - Porcupine Gorge
Richmond is one of the main towns on the Dinosaur Trail, and some of the best marine fossils in the world have been found in this region, as 100 million years ago it was part of an inland sea. Down to Kronosaurus Korner to take photos of the replica Kronosaurus in his pool on the corner,

016. Richmond -Replica of a kronosaurus,

and then into the museum ($22 for two entry). Exhibits are very well presented, and the nature of the finds tells us that the guesses they take in presenting the fully fleshed and coloured animals are maybe not as fanciful as most.

017. Fossils - Richmond museum

018 Fossils - Richmond museum

Spend a couple of hours there, then take photos of the "moon rocks" in the town (these rocks are pushed to the surface by the expansion of the black soil plains as they dry out, and quite often contain fossils).

019. Richmond - "Moon rocks"

Head out to Hughenden, taking photos of the green landscape,

020. Green landscape before Hughenden

and an excellent large flock of brolgas.

021. Wildlife - lots of brolgas

Have a quick look at Hughenden, book into the national Park at Porcupine Gorge by internet ($9 for the night), taking a punt on which site as there is no map, then head out. Still green, but climb into low, flat topped hills. Stop at a number of interest points, including Bottle Tree Ridge,

022. Bottle Tree Ridge, Porcupine Gorge

at the start of the gorge, and the very impressive Porcupine Gorge Lookout. The gorge is fairly wide, with sheer cliffs on the west, slopes below a rock cap on the east, and a narrow channel cut through the sandstone floor of the gorge for the creek itself, which has deep pools and potholes.

023. Porcupine Gorge lookout

The gorge is much wider at the camp site, with sloping sides, and the same flat sandstone floor. Certainly not as dramatic as further back, which is a bit of a disappointment. We are glad we picked (by chance) the best of the available campsites, but it is still flat and rocky, with minimal shade. Manage to get some tent pegs in, set up camp and walk out to look at the view over the gorge. Stay a while as the sun goes down, and see travellers from an Alice Springs-Cairns-Darwin adventure bus struggle up to the top. It is a couple of hundred metres down to the water, so decide it is too late for us, but a couple of young men duck down for a swim before dark, and return in a surprisingly short time, in spite of the signs saying half hour down, one hour back.
Lazy meal of bread and canned ham, no fires. Visited by a small unafraid rufous bettong,

024. Wildlife - rufous bettong

which is halfway between a wallaby and a possum.
The camp is half full, with a big group of male bushwalker types, the two boys in a falcon wagon, a couple in a campervan, and two girls and an Hispanic boy in a car.
Photograph a very red full moon rising, then to bed.

025. Full moon rising, Porcupine Gorge

Wednesday 1st August Porcupine Gorge - Winton
Early start, leave camp as-is, and head down the gorge while it is still cool and in shadow. Not a bad track, and get down in 20 minutes. Decide to follow advice and head upstream looking for narrower gorge, and deeper water, but find that while the gorge gets narrower, it doesn't get steeper in the walls. We cross the stream on stepping stones, then see an enormous wedgetailed eagle. It is so big that MP, looking through his sunglasses, thinks it is a burnt log on the top of a cliff. There are a lot of crows protesting against its presence.
Get up to some reasonable pools and cliffs with caves before giving it away and heading back.

026. Porcupine Gorge

027. The Pyramid, Porcupine Gorge

Decide to head downstream, past the pyramid rock which figures strongly in our photos. We cross large expanses of relatively flat sandstone with potholes and stagnant pools before pushing our way through the densely vegetated boulder field to pools and rapids below the pyramid. This scenery is better, but with Lawn Hill still fresh in our mind, we'd had too high expectations. Have another canned ham sandwich and head up. MP goes ahead, taking 16 minutes for the climb, a bit better than the 60 on the sign, and DP also makes it in good time.
We pack up our camp, and are away by 11am. Back for another look at Hughenden, taking photos of the windmill emblem and loca fibreglassl dinosaur, then off down the Kennedy Developmental Road to Winton.
A lot of flat, green land on this road. Get photos of a wedgetail eagle feeding on road kill, which turns out to be another wedgetail. A lot of narrow, potholed tar road to Winton.
Can't get a start in the preferred campground with the campfire show and feed, and can't find much else, as there is some sort of conference going on in town. The landmark North Gregory hotel had very ordinary upstairs rooms, but finally get a room at the Matilda Motel, an older style motel, but it has a good bed, hot, if sulphurous water (from an artesian bore), a fridge and TV ($79 per night)
Look at the RSL next door, but prices are not low, and the food looks ordinary. Walk the town, rejecting the North Gregory, as a bit pretentious, the middle hotel as deserted, and finally accepting the Tatts Hotel, as well presented, popular, and surprisingly cosmopolitan. Get excellent fillet mignon and vegetable lasagna with salad, plus Jacobs Creek mini-champagne. Definitely the best meal we had the whole trip!

028. Dining at Tatts Hotel, Winton

The hotelier seems to be in touch with the real world. Talk to Kiwi couple on next table, then back to the motel to watch a Chaser repeat on TV.