Day 16 Kynuna to McKinlay

I was wrong about Kynuna, it was a much bigger town than I thought, there were five houses!

It was only 74 kms from Kynuna to McKinlay and I can imagine you thinking we’d never make it to the Gulf if that’s a far as we travelled every time we moved on but I had rocks in my head.

Twenty years ago we visited Boulia for the first time and I was intrigued by the “mushroom rocks” people had lining their garden beds etc. I wanted to get a couple but was told they came from a place much further out and we weren’t ready to take any diversions. Last year we returned to Boulia and tried again but were told we had to go back the way we’d come to a derelict place called Hamilton then take the road to McKinlay a distance of about 220 kms. We were on our way back to SA at that point so gave up again. This year we decided to give it one more go so came to McKinlay and asked about the rocks. The publican said we had to go to Boulia! What we actually needed was the road which connects the two towns and today we made it.

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This area was once under the Eromanga Sea which dried up 50000 years ago about the same time as the dinosaurs died out. You can find information online if you search for “Moon Rocks”.

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There is some mining in the area for silver but also get some lead and zinc. It’s underground mining.

The old fences we see fascinate me, they must have been standing for about 150 years.

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We arrived in McKinlay before 10:00 and there were already caravans parked out the front and people posing for photos in front of the pub even though it wasn’t yet open. The reason McKinlay has tourists stopping is that the pub was the setting for the movie, “Crocodile Dundee” and memorabilia is all over it. The actual bar was too small for some of the shooting so a replica was built and then left for the Hotel to use.

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There are some interesting buildings around the town. I think only tough crims would have survived “the lockup” on hot days.

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Of course we saw some birds today.

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A couple of helicopters landed just across the road from other campers this evening and the pilots came into the Pub. Maybe that’s a regular happening on Friday nights.