Cloncurry Qld

---

On the way to Cloncurry we stopped off to see two famous hotels, the Blue Heeler Hotel and the Walkabout Creek Hotel, from Crocodile Dundee fame.

Cloncurry has a long mining history, which is still active today. We visited the Underground Mining Museum, which contained a tree stump with the initials of Burke and Wills from their fateful Northern Australian expedition. We then visited the Royal Flying Doctor and Australian Inland Mission Museum. The first Royal Flying Doctor plane took off from Cloncurry in 1928, and remains a valuable medical lifeline for outback stations and communities. The Rev John Flynn established religious services for remote areas in Cloncurry in 1915.

Chinaman Creek Dam and Lookout was a great place to look out over Cloncurry, where you can see the real outback across the landscape.

As we were driving to fill up with petrol on our way out of Cloncurry, I noticed our old neighbour from many years ago at Kariong, Rhonda, however, by the time we had turned around she was gone. We thought that would be the last we would see of our former friend.

One of our regrets was not sighting the Cloncurry Parrot, despite much birdwatching.

---