After a week in the Eastern Macdonnells we wound our way slowly back to the Plenty Highway and east to Boulia. From Boulia we took the Kennedy Development Road back to Winton. This road takes us through the old settlement of Hamilton – once an interesting pub, now a roadside stop with remnants of the old settlement.
Hamilton 2012
Hamilton 1988
The roadside stop even has a shower – with cold and cold running water!
Remains of the old Hamilton stock yards.
This old windmill still pumps water up from underground to supply the shower.
Middleton Pub is further along the Kennedy Development Rd towards Winton. It has gone through a few changes over the years. The photo above is 2012 and the shot below is how it looked when we stopped there back in 1982.
Between Hamilton and Middleton are the Lilleyvale Hills – a spectacular range of jump ups protruding from the flat landscape
We found this wet teddy bear, overcome by the grandeur of it all, head buried in the sand.
The Cawnpore lookout provides a great panorama of the hills.
The Kennedy Development Road is normally a 360km single lane strip of bitumen connecting Boulia and Winton. Unfortunately about 20kms approaching Winton had been dug up to be resurfaced. This would have been OK except heavy rain had turned the detour into impassable bog.
There were two road trains bogged in the mud and two more, each loaded with 120 ton of cattle, stopped on the edge of the formed road. The drivers told us the road had been closed so we camped the night on the road behind them. (Big fines for driving on closed roads.) In the middle of the night another truck arrived and tried to drive around us, only to slide down, bogged in the side drain. Next morning road workers arrived with a grader to pull the road trains through.
We managed to churn our way through in front of the grader. Once in Winton we headed for the wash down hose at the saleyards to remove what looked like half a tone of thick sticky mud form under the truck.
By the time we reached Winton rain had set in so we headed for home
Splashing Paint 
Your mode of transport looks like a moon buggy and suits it’s location big time, the poor cattle being stuck in the mud truck for so long, my great grandfather was a boundry rider way back, wonder if that was some of his left over handywork, ie sunken posts. Look forward to touching you guys in real life when you get back, what an amazing Australian adventure, I admire you both big time.
Looks like you had an adventure out there, my brother used to drive out in those areas for many years and you were lucky to get through as sometimes it is days before you get through.
Wonderful photos and inspiring to paint. Something to look forward to here.
You have captured the beautiful in the every day. Inspiring – wishing you good painting.
Two northern councils are proposing development of the road which would allow for the transport of products from Far North Queensland to markets in New South Wales and Victoria considerably quicker than via existing coastal routes which have rougher terrain and are sometimes impassable due to floods.