After enjoying the morning tour at Paronella Park, we headed south into Outback Queensland. What a change of scenery! The landscape became a lot drier and the dense tropical plants changed to sparse grasslands. We experienced our first road trains- some up to 4 trailers long. With both of us sharing the driving, we soon got used to passing these beasts of the outback.

That night, we stopped at the Oasis Roadhouse, The Lynd. It was a nice little roadhouse, with a trampoline and lovely outdoor eating area. The kids were fascinated by the number of white moths in the bathroom and Kaytlin enjoyed following the pony around.

We wanted to short cut through to Hughenden, rather than take the diversion out to Charters Towers. So based on some local advice, we decided to tackle the Kennedy Development road between The Lynd and Hughenden. We expected to have at least 100km of graded road- but the road proved to be an experience to say the least! 2 water crossings and 4 hours later, we were still going. We would hit a black top section and become excited that ‘we had made it’ through the rough stuff- only to hit the dirt again several km down the track. We learnt later that the worst sections of the road are being tarred first- thus resulting in random black top sections. Needless to say, it was quite an experience with the van and car being covered in mud!

63km north of Hughenden, we pulled into Porcupine Gorge. Porcupine Gorge is nicknamed ‘The Little Grand Canyon’ and truely it was grand. Perhaps not as grand as the American one- but amazing to the say the least.

Arriving into Hughenden, we made a visit to Hughie- the resident Muttaburrasaurus, followed by a trip into the Flinders Discovery Centre. This was a wonderful experience for the kids as they had a whole kids section set up with puzzles, games and dress ups. Apart from the display of fossils, gemstones and minerals, there was also a section on sheep farming.

That night, we stayed at the Allan Terry Caravan Park in Hughenden. The kids enjoyed riding their bikes and we had a lovely bbq in the well-equipped camp kitchen.

The following morning, we went past the Rotunda and made a visit to the Coolabah Tree. This was a great opportunity to break into song with Australia’s unofficial anthem Waltzing Matilda. Continuing past the Flinders river was our first experience with how dry the area is. Whilst this river flows full in the summer wet season, it was simply a big sandpit whilst we were there.