7th June 2010 - Mt Isa to Normanton

Distance travelled: 506
Cumulative distance: 13,506

Yesterday Colin discovered his luggage rack had fractured so he organised a local welder called "Stick-it" to fix it at 8am this morning. I was forced to have breakfast at MacDonalds as I misunderstood the eating arrangements and Colin had already feasted on the Irish Club's special breakfast prior to having his luggage rack fixed. We eventually left Mt. Isa at 9.30 am and headed for Cloncurry. The road was like Pitt Street as it was wall to wall caravans and trucks. This is the main road east from Mt. isa to Townsville on the coast so I guess that's why it is busy. We eventually got past all the traffic and headed down the open road. There was a memorial to Burke and Wills at the side of the road and Colin did his duty and took a photo. He has been really good at taking photos all through this trip probably because I didn't bring a camera and have had limited success with my video camera. The scenery on this leg to Cloncurry is quite interesting with small hills and the road cutting through them to provide a vista across the plains. The scrub is all green due to the recent rains. All the rain in this area runs back to the Lake Eyre catchment thousands of kilometres away in central Australia. It takes months to reach Lake Eyre and most of the rivers and creeks here are dry now. We refueled at Cloncurry the town where the Royal Flying Doctor service started and headed north for Normanton. Halfway there there is a roadhouse called Burke & Wills which is well set up with plenty of shade and restaurant and bar. It is the junction of the Cloncurry to Normanton and Burketown to Julia Creek roads. This is what is called Gulf Country the largest shire in Australia; 68,000 square kms and 26,000 people!! We had lunch at the Burke & Wills roadhouse where we met three bikers from Adelaide going in the opposite direction to us. They were heading back to Adelaide via Alice Springs etc. The weather is getting warmer as we head north and by the time we reached Normanton we were expiring with the heat and quickly changed our riding gear for shorts etc.
Our pub did not look too inviting but the room is great. Down the road is the Purple Pub which has some sort of dodgy reputation. We are having dinner there.