Day 095, Thursday, 2 July 2009

Distance travelled – 155.1 km
Avg speed – 22.8 kph (the same as our bikes)
Max speed – 45.5 kph

Croydon to Normanton

We took the Gulflander railmotor alias the “Tin Hare” today from Croydon to Normanton. This is a heritage listed train line and is one of the ‘must do’ train rides in the world.

Originally built in 1888 to service the gold fields around Croydon the track was very likely the first in the world to use steel sleepers with 99% of the original sleepers still in use. Because of the annual flooding between Croydon and the river port of Normanton the steel sleeper design allowed the track to be laid directly on the flood plain, without the use of a raised ballast bed needed by timber sleepers, so the floodwaters simply flowed over the tracks preventing it from being washed away. A ballast bed helps create the smooth ride so the lack of ballast is why the Gulflander as such a characteristically rough ride. The 152km trip takes just over 5 hours and the side to side and up and down motion of the train eventually starts rocking you to sleep until the train goes over a big bump in the track.

The driver delivers an interesting commentary and stops at points of interest along the way. Today we stopped at an old mine works for morning tea and a complex of bower bird nests. They say they will stop the train at anything of interest to the passengers but we did not test this our ourselves. We did however, have to slow down to negotiate our way through two mobs of cattle being mustered.

There were only 15 passengers, and our bikes had the centre carriage to themselves. Run by Queensland Rail the helpful no problem attitude of the Gulflander staff to carrying our bikes and trailers was in stark contrast to the treatment we received in Cairns when we enquired about using QR’s Karanda Train to get up onto the tablelands. In Cairns they would carry the bikes and not our trailers. The reasons given seemed very lame – they had limited space because of their PA system and space also had to be made available for prams. The station supervisor agreed they would not refuse to carry a pram even if a lot turned up on the day. We could not see the difference between a pram and our much smaller trailers. So thank you to the staff of the Gulflander for giving us the opportunity to expereince this must do journey.

Zoom into the map and use the 'Satellite' layer to see our new location.

Securing our bikes ready for their journey on the Gulflander

Denise in the Gulflander Railmotor 93.

Cattle on the tracks.

Cattle on the tracks.

Morning tea at Blackbull

Bower bird bower

Smooth track ahead.

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