TOD Tour, Day 63 - Carnarvon Gorge NP to Mount Morgan

An early start for a long day.

It was a lovely three night stay at Carnarvon Gorge NP and it left us glad that we decided the detour inland was worth it.

After leaving the park, we stopped at the last of the crossings of Carnarvon Creek before joining the Carnarvon Highway for the first leg of today's trip to Rolleston. The local Apex Clubs have combined  to amalgamate the wreckage of a aircraft crash that occurred in the area over Rewan Station on 16th November, 1943, killing all 19 of the air crew and passengers on board. The Dakota C-47A of the USAF 21st Troop Carier Squadron had left Batchelor Airfield in the Northern Territory that morning and was bound for Archerfield Airfield in Brisbane but broke up midair during a violent storm and the wreckage came to earth over a wide area on Rewan, centred mostly on Carnarvon Creek.

Previously, pieces had been displayed in a few local locations but the Apex Clubs relocated them all to this one display and opened it on Anzac Day in 2004, beside the Carnarvon Access Road. One entire wing, mangled and torn and a the opposite wingtip are on display, along with parts of one of the engines and the struts that supported part of the undercarriage.

Our stop at Rolleston for fuel and morning tea ended up being a longer one than planned but by late morning we were underway again and stopped for lunch at Dawson River ... where we had camped four nights earlier. The Avan drew more questions from other carvaners ... a regular feature of this road trip.

Banana recreation

Our last stop for the day was a short one at Banana. Yes. It's a place in Queensland and it's named after ... a bullock! Banana was a bullock with a yellow coloured hide who was used to lead cows about paddocks. When it died in a gully, it was buried there and later, as a village and then a town sprang up around the gully, the inhabitants named the place using that great Australian tradition of place name originality, Banana Gully. It became shortened to Banana and now the local government area bears the name.

I got a photo.

The last 140kms to Mount Morgan seemed to pass quickly and close to 4:00pm, with 380ms under our belt for the day - one of our longest of the TOD Tour to date - we were setting up in Mount Morgan at probably the friendliest caravan park we have ever stayed in. Apart from a wealth of information about the town and what there was to see, we were also given four eggs which had been laid that morning, on the premises and an invitation to help ourselves tot he vegetable and herb gardens! The amenities were clean the camp kitchen had crockery, cutlery, TV, bbqs, condiments, toaster, jug and a pizza oven!

All this for $25/night!

Had an interesting chat to some new chums from Oxford in England - Ross and Chris - a young couple on a working visa. They picked our travel brains for spots to see. Nice folks but then you meet a lot of them on the road ... like the bloke who warned us before we took in Rolleston that we had left a window open on the van.

Rockhampton tomorrow.