Winton, Queensland

Well I have finally got to Winton, Queensland. I tried to get here last year but that didn't happen. The reason I wanted to get here was to visit two very important Dinosaur locations, but guess what! The first few days we have been here it has rained so much the roads to the locations I wanted to visit were closed. So we've extended our time in Winton and hope the road dries out quickly. In the meantime I have visited a few other things Winton has to offer.

Arno's Wall

Who was Arno? Arno Grotjahn as a young man spent his time as a merchant seaman travelling the world. When he immigrated to Australia from Germany he spent his time around Winton opal mining. But then I think he spent quite a long time building this 70 metre long and two metres high wall. This wall is such an amazing piece of art constructed of concrete and rock bought from Arno's opal mine in Opalton. It is also studded with everything you could think of, lawn mower parts, sinks, typewriters, sewing machines, whole motorbikes even Batman got a show.

Fans, Lawnmower  parts and old Typewriters

Two Motorcycles!!!

Even an old AGA oven - they cost a fortune

Anyone lost a hubcap??

Even Batman makes an appearance

Main street in Winton

It is said that on 6 April 1895 Banjo Patterson first performed the famous bush ballad "Waltzing Matilda"at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton.

A statue of Banjo Patterson

The words of Waltzing Matilda

This hotel still stands in the main street after a history of demolition, burning down and being rebuilt.

The art deco style North Gregory Hotel

Wintons main street also has some other charming old historic buildings.

The Tattersalls Hotel which is just across the road from where we are camped

The Australia Hotel is no longer open

The Post Office is a beautiful building

The Musical Fence

In 2003 this fence was built making it the first musical fence in the world. It was designed by percussion and composer Graeme Leak. As I walked up to the fence I could hear a humming sound which was the wind blowing along the fence and echoing in the two wooden box resonators. As well as the fence there are a number of other musical instruments made out of junk. I have seen this on TV before and wanted to visit and have a go. So I grabbed a stick and a small metal pipe and walked around having a play of all the instruments. It was a great fun way to start my day.

The Musical Fence

Not sure what this instrument would be called....

......or this one - but it sounded good and it was fun.

The drum set was made out of all sorts of junk.

Porcupine Gorge National Park

Porcupine Gorge has been formed by Porcupine Creek carving this impressive canyon over hundreds of millions of years. It is easy to see the layers of Basalt, Mudstone, Conglomerate, Dark Sanstone and at the base of the gorge the White Sandstone. From the lookout you get a great view and a feel of just how deep the gorge is, which is approx. 120 metres.

Porcupine Gorge

In the widest section of the gorge, the eroding action of the creek has created the Pyramid, an isolated monolith of multicoloured sandstone rising from the floor of the gorge. 

There was also a 2.4km walk from the rim to the sandstone bottom and silly me decided to do the walk. The information brochure said " Grade: Medium". Ha what a laugh! Walking down wasn't to bad but it was probably 90% rock steps. The Porcupine Creek was still flowing, only with a small amount of water. It was quite pretty with the different colours of the rocks and the waterholes that still remained as the water level dropped. But I knew I was going have to tackle all those steps going back up the hill. I took my shoes off and cooled down my feet in the flowing creek, then several times I scooped up water in my hat and tipped it over my head in preparation for my climb. Oh my it was very difficult, I had to really motivate myself all the way up. But I know one thing for sure - I DON'T ever want to do that climb ever again, ever. I am very proud of myself for doing it, but I still don't want to do it EVER again!!! 

The Pyramid

The last few steps 

Beautiful cool water

Along the drive to the National Park there were a couple of interesting things to look at. Close to the road edge was what has been named "Ebony and Ivory" - two entwined trees, one black, one white.

Ebony and Ivory

Mailmans Grave - it is believed that in the early months of 1886, the
 packhorse mailman was speared by a group of hostile Aborigines 
from the top of the hill. He was buried where he was found. 

Unmarked Grave - there are two stories being told about this tiny grave. One is that the grave is that of an old Chinese man found dead along this road and the second is that the grave is that of an Aboriginal girl named Minnie Waite who perished either by foul means or of exposure when trying to walk to Hughenden some 52 kms away.

Crocodile Dundee Walkabout Hotel, McKinlay

As usual our last night in Mount Isa we went out for dinner. This time is was a visit to the Mount Isa Irish Club. The meal was pretty good but my main fascination was to why an Irish Club in Mount Isa would have a Melbourne tram inside the building, featuring as it's Tram Stop Cafe?? 

Mount Isa Mine at night

Tram Stop Cafe

Next morning it was off to McKinlay. McKinlay was named after the Australian explorer John McKinlay who passed through the area in 1862 during his epic travels from Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria in search of the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills. 

The local police station lock up
 - although it's not used as it doesn't comply with standards

Queensland's smallest library - used as the tour office in the movie

This building has had many uses included being a Pool Hall

We decided to have a couple of nights at the Walkabout Creek Hotel which was featured in the Crocodile Dundee movies starring Paul Hogan.  With a population of only 20 there is not much to see in this little village but there is a lot of history. The new owners of two years have done a lot to give the tourists a real Crocodile Dundee feel. Only recently they were contacted by the personal assistant of John Cornell "Strep" who in the past was Paul Hogans manager to see if the hotel would like all the artefacts from the sets from the pub scenes of the first two movies. Of course the pub owners jumped at the chance. John Cornell had kept all the paraphernalia in a storage unit for 30 years and had decided it was time for others to enjoy it.

Walkabout Creek Hotel

A replica of the vehicle they used in the movie

The actual bar, bottles, barrel, boar's head and swizzle sticks
 used in the first two Crocodile Dundee movies. 

Then whilst talking to the pub owner he asked if we would like to jump in his car and go for a drive around this tiny in size but big in history village.  Of course we jumped at the chance. Prior to being featured in the movies the pub was called the Federal Hotel, but when the movies became so popular there was a name change. The pub was also originally down the what was then the main road but when it needed to be re stumped it was moved onto the now highway. From what I could tell it certainly does get a lot of visitors dropping in to checkout this Aussie Icon.

The once main street of  McKinlay

We also went for a drive up the road (80 kms) to another interesting pub,The Blue Heeler Pub. It's literally a pub in the middle of nowhere. But this pub has an interesting history as it is said to be where the famous Banjo Patterson wrote the iconic Australian song Waltzing Matilda.

Kynuna Blue Heeler Pub

The walls and ceiling of the main bar area re covered in names.
The earliest I could see was 1994

During our last night we had quite a lot of rain and we were greeted by a bit of flooding at our front door when we woke up. Oh well it's not the first time I've been flooded as I was a lot back in my tent camping days.

Here come the clouds

Our little lake we woke to. 

It's very flat flat land out here, and a lot of sky

More interesting landscape - well the clouds are at least

Historic Village Herberton

This amazing historic village owes it's existence firstly to Herberton's pioneers  and then also to the people who have collected old buildings, hundreds of artefacts from the past, many many old cars tractors, bottles, records and so much more.

Back to school in the 1800's, early 1900's

I have been to historic villages before, such as Sovereign Hill in Ballarat but this one has literally thousands upon thousands of pieces of history collected from the area. I was also totally amazed in the organization of everything and how clean everything was.

Day's Garage held so many beautiful vehicles

A funeral wagon

This toy store had so many amazing toys

 All the buildings, except Tin Pannikin Pub dates from Herberton's foundation years in the 1880's and almost all the buildings are as they were originally constructed.

Everything was so clean

The products in the pharmacy were mind blowing

Paronella Park, Mena Creek

This was my second visit to Paronella Park and I know I will be back here again in the future. To anyone who hasn't visited Paronella Park it is hard to describe its amazingness.

Lovers Lane

Paronella Park was the dream of Jose' Paronella way back in the early 1900's when he arrived in Queensland from Catalonia in Northern Spain. He chose this 13 acres in this special part of Australia to create his castle, picnic areas beside Mena Creek, tennis courts, tunnels and bridges. Then he wrapped it all up in some 7000 tropical plants and trees.

To the right of the waterfall is the Hydro Electric plant Jose built

As well of this amazing place Jose's story is extremely interesting as well, although it is way to long to tell here. If you are interested I have included a link so you can read Jose' Paronella's story.

Part of the beauty is the moss and plants creeping over the structures

 Another one of Jose's incredible feats was his hydro electric plant. He created Queensland's first hydro electric plant in 1933 to power the 13 acre park, and the castle grounds were ready to welcome the public in 1935. After many years, floods and cyclones the hydro stopped working but in 2009 the refurbishment of the original hydro turbine once again saw power to the park. The hydro also supplies power to the small settlement on Mena Creek.

The night time view of the castle is amazing

As I have mentioned Paronella Park has been through many floods and cyclones but in 1993 when the current owners Mark and Judy took over they discovered the almost lost park and envisaged reviving Jose's dream, which I am happy to say they have done.

The lights on the waterfall at night is spectacular

This is an amazing place to visit and I urge everyone to put this on your bucket list. The entry per adult is $44 but that includes a day tour, a night tour and the availability to come back for a free visit within the following two years.

Naracoorte, South Australia

From Berri we headed to the tiny settlement of Wellington, located on the Murray River just upstream to where it empties into Lake Alexandrina. 

"The Narrows" where Lake Alexandrina meets Lake Albert

After a few relaxing days there, we set off for our little home now - Naracoorte. Along the journey we stopped off at the township of "Keith". There is nothing really special about Keith, some nice little shops, but it tugs at my heart strings a bit when I drive through as Keith was my Dad's name. My Dad never travelled much and never visited this township. I remember when I first visited here I took a photo of the town sign to show him and he was pretty chuffed to have a town with his name. Once again I took a photo of the town sign and I could just feel that

Dad was at last visiting the town with me.

Keith - this town tugs at my heart strings xx

Now we are in Naracoorte for a while. We are actually staying in the local showgrounds. It's pretty good here, clean toilets and showers, cheaper than the caravan park, nice people, and best of all beautiful green grass surrounding us.

 

Nature gave us a beautiful welcome on our first night

 Naracoorte with a population of approx. 5000 people is situated on the beginning of the Limestone Coast. and was formed from the merger of two towns, Kincraig, founded in 1845 by Scottish explorer William Macintosh, and Naracoorte, established as a government settlement in 1847. The name has gone through a number of spellings, and is believed to be derived from the Aboriginal words for "place of running water" or "large waterhole". It grew during the 1950's as a survive town for people going to and from the Victorian Gold rush.

This is definitely the most colourful Police Station and Courthouse I have ever seen

 

This area was also built on the sheep's back -
if only this shearing shed could talk, imagine the stories!!

Probably the main tourist attraction in the area are the Naracoorte Caves. Yesterday we visited the Wonambi Fossil Centre and delved into the history of Australia's mega-fauna. We also visited one of the caves "Wet Cave". This wasn't the best cave I have ever been in but still interesting. Next week we are intending on visiting the "Victoria Fossil Cave" that has the privilege of being classed as a World Heritage Area.

The entrance of "Wet Cave"

I don't think I would have liked to run into this guy back then!!