I've got myself to Cairns on the Pacific Coast of Queensland in Australia. Cairns sits high in the tropics, and is the gateway to the northern parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
I'm not here for the reef, but Cairns will be my base for exploring three oddball trains in the vicinity. I'm using vicinity in an Oz context, as the first one starts out at Normanton, a small town at the SE of the Gulf of Carpentaria - the big bite taken out of the top part of Queensland, which gives us Queensland's distinctive pointy shape. Normanton is more than 700kms away, and I'll be there after a ten-hour ride on a regular scheduled bus serving the route.
But that's tomorrow and it'll take me from this tropical rainforest town and tourist hotspot, well into savannah country which is not often on holiday-makers' lists.
I'll post details and pix of my rides over the next few days. I've been enjoying the warmth of the tropics after travelling about 3000kms by air from my home town in the chilly southern state of Victoria yesterday.
I want to post this pic which presented itself to me as I flanneurred myself about this morning. I reckon it says a good bit about us Aussies.
Australian and British troops fought a major WWII battle in the desert sands of north Africa against Rommel's Afrika Corps. They endured all the privations of a desert campaign, far from home, and with supply-lines frequently broken. It's fair to say they often didn't have much water.
So this is how Cairns has commemorated their service:
I'm not here for the reef, but Cairns will be my base for exploring three oddball trains in the vicinity. I'm using vicinity in an Oz context, as the first one starts out at Normanton, a small town at the SE of the Gulf of Carpentaria - the big bite taken out of the top part of Queensland, which gives us Queensland's distinctive pointy shape. Normanton is more than 700kms away, and I'll be there after a ten-hour ride on a regular scheduled bus serving the route.
But that's tomorrow and it'll take me from this tropical rainforest town and tourist hotspot, well into savannah country which is not often on holiday-makers' lists.
I'll post details and pix of my rides over the next few days. I've been enjoying the warmth of the tropics after travelling about 3000kms by air from my home town in the chilly southern state of Victoria yesterday.
I want to post this pic which presented itself to me as I flanneurred myself about this morning. I reckon it says a good bit about us Aussies.
Australian and British troops fought a major WWII battle in the desert sands of north Africa against Rommel's Afrika Corps. They endured all the privations of a desert campaign, far from home, and with supply-lines frequently broken. It's fair to say they often didn't have much water.
So this is how Cairns has commemorated their service: