Hughenden

21 June

From Mount Isa we aimed the car and camper trailer at Hughenden. We stopped at Julia Creek for lunch along the way. Julia Creek is a pretty little town and after having lunch decided to fill the camelbacks with water. The camelbacks have been used everyday and have been extremely useful both when hiking and even when we are driving. Our lunch must have disguised the taste of the Artesian water that this town uses for later on when we had a drink the water tasted disgusting. Linda was the only one who did not fill up her water supply and we spent the rest of the trip drinking her water.

When we arrived at Hughenden we booked into a caravan park and after speaking to a few people decided we should spend 2 nights here instead of just overnight. That night the park was having a fundraising for the Royal Flying Doctor and they had a sausage sizzle with an entertainer. The entertainer was a country and western singer who was quite good and, although they had under budgeted with the number of sausages, the night was a success and quite a few dollars were made for the cause.

22 June

Exhibition at Hughenden Visitor Centre

Porcupine Gorge

This morning we woke and headed off to the Hughenden Information Centre which had a Dinosaur Exhibition and a sound and light show on the formation of Pocupine Gorge. The dinosaur exhibition was about the dinosaur fossils in the area that had been discovered. This area is quite rich in dinosaur fossils and everywhere you go there seems to be a replica of a dinosaur, in particular Muttabuttasaurus. The sound and light show, a movie, was very good and set the scene for our trip to see Porcupine National Park which has inside it Porcupine Gorge. After seeing Porcupine Gorge Lookout which gave a good overview of the site we headed down into Porcupine Gorge. The Gorge walk was quite energetic and by the time we arrived the boys were happy to spend time by the waters edge. The water was fairly cold and rather than swim we spent time skimming stones and lobbing them into small pockets created in the side of the gorge. Porcupine Gorge, although very pretty, was to us just another gorge of which we have seen plenty and many better. If I had seen this gorge in isolation to the rest of the places we have been I would probably think this is a special place but to us it was just another gorge.  The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing while Tom and Declan went to the skate park with their scooters. They have really enjoyed spending time at the skate parks whenever we are near one.