Playing catch-up now we are finally back in internet range again. We awoke with the morning chorus on Wednesday morning and enjoyed a cuppa sitting on our little deck with the sun coming up. Then the camp manager ferried our group and our cases down to the Normanton Station for our Gulflander adventure.
Normanton Station
In the station was a blackboard listing all the inane comments that have been made to the staff over the years. What on earth is “lite water”?. There was an unusual sign in the toilets too, which made us smile – not a sign we come across back home.
Signs at the station
And there’s the train, all ready and waiting. This train is a bit of an oddity and is said to go from “nowhere to nowhere”. The Normanton to Croydon railway line has remained fully isolated from the Queensland Rail Network. This remote railway line is Heritage listed and the only line in Queensland still measured in miles. Today most of the line retains the original rail and sleepers laid in the late 1880s. An ingenious steel sleeper system allows seasonal flood waters to flow gently over the line to prevent flood damage during the heavy wet season, a design not found anywhere else in the world.
This was never going to be a fast trip, and we trundled along at about 25 miles per hour, clackity clack, clackity clack, dropping of mail here and there, and tooting and waving at the maintenance gangs beside the railway line. Our morning tea stop was at Black Bull Siding, which has been a refreshment stop since 1890. The train staff set the hot water, tea, coffee and muffins out and and we got to take our souvenir enamel mug home with us.
Our morning tea stop
We were seated in the front carriage right behind the driver so certainly had a good view.
This line has had quite a history, working for the first 30 years in the gold rush. When the gold disappeared, it ran for the next 60 years servicing the local cattle properties. But from the 1970s another change took place, and these days the Gulflander is involved in tourism.
A couple of happy campers
Our 94 mile journey finished at Croydon and we were collected in a large 4WD bus and taken to the “oldest store in Australia”, built in 1894 – a real old fashioned shop indeed. Then we climbed back into the bus for the fairly long trip to Forsayth.
Stopping off at the Cumberland Chimney – which was originally part of the Cumberland gold mine. There is a rather pretty lake, and what was quite interesting to us, this area was jam packed full of caravans and campers enjoying a few days of freedom camping.
Cumberland Chimney
We were staying for the next two nights at Finnegan's Rest, a rather rustic motor camp. Very big on corrugated iron in interior design, we noticed. This product was used in the bathroom, and for the headboard too.
Our accommodation at Forsayth
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