Day 6 - Ayrshire Hills to Camooweal

Big day with a couple of surprises along the way.

Quick Stats

• 5.5 hours on bike
• 595 km
• 2357 km total

I pack up camp, sweep out the bulldust and get on the bike. Leaving Winton Shire, I leave the last of the Jump-Ups and enter never ending mitchell grass plains. Nothing really to report here except continued amazing amounts of bird life - eagles, hawks, buzzards, herons, budgerigars, amazing to think how much life this flat land can support.

Entering Kynuna (population 20, well 19 since last month I'm told), I grab fuel and a brekky Burger from the local roadhouse. I'm immediately reminded again of the birdlife.

This pair, and their baby, have been coming to this roadhouse 10 years to scrounge food. The Australian Crane, or Brolga, are arguably the largest flighted birds in Australia and can get up to 1.8 metres in height.

Anyway, on to McKinley where the open grassland starts giving way to sparing gum forest. The smell of eucalypt fills my nose as they line the roadsides through to Cloncurry.

Eager to get Queensland behind me, I left Cloncurry expecting more of the same. Boy was I surprised to discover the Selwyn Range. Twisting roads through some pretty rugged mountains and gorges, I was enjoying it far too much to snap any shots, so heres someone elses photo.

The Selwyn Range is made up of Proterozoic rock and is heavily mineralized. Copper, gold, lead, zinc and apparently uranium.

One of the failed attempts at harvesting this is the abandoned Mary Kathleen Uranium mine, a quick detour. Built in the 50s, Rio Tinto set about developing this mine and associated town. Both abandoned in 1982 after the ore reserves were depleted.

These minerals are why my next stop, Mt Isa, continues to be a powerhouse for mining. And also where mining features at the forefront of the town (sorry, apparently Isa would rather be referred to as a city) both physically and in spirit. Save perhaps Queenstown in Tassie, where they play AFL in a gravel pit.

Opened way back in 1923 when a lone prospector stumbled on the mineral deposits, its been a functioning mine basically non-stop since that point.

Anyway, fuel, some supplies, a decent coffee and off I go to a motel for the night in Camooweal.

There's actually a pretty spectacular campsite next to town on the Camooweal billabong, but alas I need a shower and a washing machine.

Anyway, tomorrow will be a big day of mostly nothing to break the back of the red centre...