Day 38- Richmond to Cloncurry

We called into the Kronosaurus Discovery Centre on the way out of town to have our fossil finds identified. No paleantologists in there (we were pretty early!) but the girls at the tourist desk apparently know a bit and they said the bone that i thought looked like a fin or flipper is actually a jaw bone. While i was in chatting, Tim took the boys to the park across the road. It had a big slide of rollers that the boys thought was great. They went bump:bump:bump:shudder:shudder:shudder as they rolled down it and Darcy cackled himself the whole time.

Was a fight to get them back in the car for the looooong trip to Cloncurry. About 300km of booooooooring road. We were not looking forward to it all that much cos we expected it to be a slow trip. Another couple we got chatting to at the van park had come that way and said it was a horrible road. Well, they have obviously not travelled from Undara to Charters Towers or they would have seen a horrible road. While there were certainly some doozies of bumps that launched the truck two foot off the ground (i even hit my head on the roof at one point!) and there were a few pot holes etc it was generally not too bad.

But the scenery. Oh. My. God. Grass and more grass and more grass and more grass and more grass and more grass, oh! a tree! and more grass and more grass and more grass. The kids travelled really well though.

We were greeted in Cloncurry by a sign that proudly boasted about Cloncurry having the hottest recorded temperature in Australia of 53.1'C. Lovely. It was not quite that hot but it was pushing it :) We were going to have a look through the John Flynn Memorial which shows the history of the Royal Flying Doctors which was started in Cloncurry but it was really expensive ($12 each) and we were not that keen so we headed out to our camp instead.
We had decided to stay at Wal's camp seeing as we were just wanting an overnight stop and they had a cheap camp. Not sure if it was the best decision in hindsight cos it was just soooooo hot and the camp is mostly all gravel and there was no power so we could not use our air con. And did i mention that it was hot? But we were there and the kids we wanting out of the truck so we made camp and then got out of there to go find a breeze.
Headed out to Chinaman's Creek Dam which was a nice big dam. Had a refreshing swim to cool off and then drove up to have a look over Cloncurry from the lookout. Not much to see but the rocky little mountains around town are quite pretty.

Then we did a quick lap back through town looking for the house that Mum and Dad and i lived in for 6months when we lived out here 32 years ago! They knew it was near the swimming pool and a church and the street turned off the main road.... well, it took a couple of laps but we found it. I obviously remember nothing of it so was no help.

Called out to a really great playground that is out at the Mary Kathleen Museum. Had heaps of great play equipment. Even had little spinning disc things that i am sure are banned everywhere else just in case you have too much fun spinning yourself stupid. We obviously all had to have a go and i spun so much i actually fell off the darn thing and had to sit on the floor for a minute to stop my head spinning. They have BBQs and stuff there too and it would make a fantastic day stop (would also make a great overnight stop if you were allowed to camp there). Back to camp. Bit hot! So we sat around outside trying to find a breeze. The kids did not seem to mind though and happily played with the rocks. We were running seriously low of fresh vegies and meat so we made an egg and potato salad for dinner with sausages. I stuck some left over spinach and some sliced prunes in mine and it was actually really nice! Who'd have thought!

I fell asleep putting Darcy to bed (again). I dragged myself out of bed at 9:30 for a cold milo and then went back to bed to try to sleep in the heat. Tim sat outside in his chair and dozed while watching the stars.