Normanton trip

Okay, so this happened a few weekends ago, but I went up to Normanton a few weekends ago.

My former colleague Nicola has left the Star for greener pastures in Port Augusta. Her partner Luke is based in Normanton in the short term flying planes around. So I decided to go up and hang out with him.

It's about 500 kilometres, so a fair old drive. Luckily I got to take a work car in exchange for a few stories. It's actually not a bad drive. It's good to get a feel for just how far everything is up here - because apparently driving three days up here didn't quite get that across...

I saw the sun trying the break through the clouds and thought I'd stop to take this photo.
And this is what the road was like for a large part of the drive!
As I said, Luke's a pilot. He had to do a little bit of work on Saturday, but we just hung out in the King Air he flies around. I had a lot of questions.

One of Normanton's tourist draw cards is its old train station with this train that runs once a week. The track is actually this special design that requires no ballast under the tracks. Basically it was designed like that because it's underwater for half the year and it wouldn't work. The sleepers are hollow metal but packed with earth apparently. I'm not sure of the exact physics, but it clearly still works.

Normanton is the place where the world's largest recorded crocodile was killed. It's 8.6 metres long and there's actually a replica of it in the main street, which I can't believe I forgot to take a photo of!

On Saturday night we went down to the town's wharf in the river to try to spot croc eyes with a torch. I was certain we'd see something, but alas, nothing! Still, this photo was funny when I was eight, funny now.

It was great to go and hang out with Luke. At this point I hadn't been out of Mount Isa for a while, so it was much needed. And plus, Luke makes a mean gourmet bacon and eggs.