Croydon – Einasleigh River

Happy Birthday to Steve, Happy Birthday to Steve, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to Steve! 47 Today! Hip Hip Horay!

Got a late start after a late night of trying to sleep in a 35o day that was refusing to drop a degree at all into the night. Its been incredibly hot. I don’t know how we’re going to go going further north! Eeek!

Had another drive around town to check out all the nooks and crannies. Its an interesting town. Population was 322, and at its peak in the 1880’s it was 30,000. You can see around the lovely perfectly laid out town with the usual wide streets and manicured verges and roads in a grid pattern, that the town was quite large, but a large proportion of the buildings are missing with large blocks of vacant land. It almost looks like the houses around town are dotted in parks. The local junk collector had the most incredible collection of old utes from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. The are rusting away in huge big piles to one end of town. There was also a huge old steam engine for sale. Will send to Patrick to pass on to Philippa. It still had all its pistons – Steve was impressed to see one so old and still intact.

Anyway one of the large vacant blocks in town has been converted to a caravan park by the local shire. It was really lovely and nice facilities and for $15.50PN it was great value – it even had a pool!

Moved on from Croydon to Georgetown. The population is 300 but it’s a really cute spot. We’ve seen the biggest mango tree we’ve ever seen! They apparently have one of their own in Australian Idol as they had signs up everywhere to vote for them. Unfortunately, just for something different, we didn’t have mobile service so we couldn’t vote. The town was really happy for him. Anyway go Mitchell! Whoever you are!

Decided to head towards Mount Surprise and stopped half way there on a creek bed so Steve could go do a bit of fossicking as the area around Croydon and Georgetown has gold sitting on the surface that washes down to streams in the wet. It gets caught up in river beds at the base of trees etc. So Steve the expert miner said. He has is Miners Licence at home.

Had the most amazing night under the stars in the middle of nowhere. I’ve never seen the Milky Way as brilliant as I’ve ever seen it. We spent an amazing few hours under the starts and retired to the finals in the 2nd Series of The Sopranos.