Sunday, June 1, 2014

Thursday 29th May Normanton – Forsayth



Today Barry & I go our own way for 3 nights heading to Forsayth where we are booked on the Savannahlander Outback rail experience, a tour that departs on Friday morning to Einsleigh by train and then back to Forsayth on a bus.  Have just spotted some beautiful Jabiru’s on the side of the road, they are a striking looking bird, very regal looking pose with their nose in the air……  Hoping to see The Gulflander Train which runs between Normanton and Croydon at our morning tea break.  Yahoo…… have just spotted a magnificent eagle in the middle of the road feeding on roadkill.  This time I was ready and got some good pictures.  They are the best, I absolutely love them.  Missed out on seeing the Gulflander arrive at Blackbull Siding where we stopped for morning tea.  Arrival time for the train was 10.00am so didn’t hang around as Maree, Paul, Max & Carol still have a fairly big day ahead of them with 450kms to Archer Creek where they plan on staying tonight, and besides we saw it on our last trip.  10 to 10 and 50kms west of Croydon we have just passed The Gulflander, us heading to Croydon and them heading to Normanton.  It gave us a toot so happy about that.  A very pleasant 26 degrees at 10.00am.  Next stop Georgetown where we part ways for 3 days.  A bit windy and gusty at the moment as we travel on the Development Rd/Savannah Way, but absolutely no complaints about the road so far, there has been a lot of work done on it since we travelled it in 2007.  Unfortunately it is not all good, there are still a lot of kms with a narrow strip of asphalt not wide enough for 2 cars.  Just passed The Cumberland Chimney 20kms west of Georgetown, didn’t stop this time as we stopped to have a look the last time we went through this way.  Lunch at Georgetown and then on our way to Forsayth, started out OK with made road and them quickly deteriorated as we travelled 13kms on unmade road that was quite corrugated and rough.  Not looking forward to the trip back out.  Hope the train trip is worth it.  Caravan Park is a little run down but nice and quiet and I am just about to walk over the road to take pictures of The Savannahlander arriving this evening. When the train came into town there were 6 or 8 of the local kids that came racing down to get a ride on the train when it turned around to face the other way.  There was lots of laughing and screaming going on and they all had a ball.
Went for a little explore around the town and found The Charleston Cemetary on the outskirts as well as the site where the old township of Charleston once sat.  I managed to take some photos of some of the old graves, some dating back to 1875.  I find that fascinating to think that there were people living here that long ago.  It still appears to be the middle of nowhere to me.  A little 4WD along the track into the site capped off the experience for me.  A nice quiet night tonight with fresh prawns from Karumba for dinner, as well as cooked bananas in their skin with chocolate and cream…yummy, this life just keeps getting harder and harder…!!!!! Need to be up early in the morning to be on the Savannahlander by 8.00am for our train trip to Einsleigh.










No comments:

Post a Comment