We left town and drove west on the Flinders Hwy. Diesel was $1.26 in Townsville, but Steve planned to stop to refuel at Charters Towers just over an hour later. I did wonder at his sanity bit was well and truly proved wrong when he triumphantly pulled up at the Puma where it was $1.22!! Go Steve!
As always, I was struck by how remote Townsville is. It really is a town in the outback. Only 30 minutes out of town we are in an area where it hasn't rained for four years and they are herds of painfully bony cattle and horses everywhere. Really teally tough.
Further on we see mini twisters ripping across dusty paddocks and we lose count of how many dead kangaroos we see beside the highway.
We stop briefly in Hughenden to have our picture taken with a dinosaur. The whole area between Hughenden, Richmond and Winton is known as the Dinosaur Trail and is essentially the Dinosaur capital of Australia. Another time we are going to come back and explore the area more thoroughly.
We were hoping to arrive at Richmond in time to visit the Kronosaurus Korner dinosaur museum but we're too late. We filled up with diesel ($1.43!) and pressed on another 50km and set up camp at Maxwellton Rest Stop at 4.45pm, which is just a few picnic tables and toilets on the roadside. Good enough after being on the road for over 6 hours!
It had hit 38 degrees by then, and the flies were revolting and completely immune to Aerogard Tropical although Off! did have some effect! Hotdogs for dinner - nice n easy! Followed by a glass of wine whilst we watched the amazing sunset.
The dogs had travelled brilliantly and loved running around eating roo poo snacks all evening!! Dan (the teenager) was great and even asked what jobs he could do to help set up camp :)
A couple of road trains stopped in briefly but left after using the toilets. All in all a pretty quiet place to stop for the night.
After sundown the flies went to bed and the temp dropped to a more comfortable 32 degrees and there was a nice breeze blowing. As a billion stars came out together with a blood red crescent moon we felt very happy just chatting in the dark. We did spot a feral cat lurking around at one point but it took off when it saw the dogs.
We unzipped all the windows in the van and just slept on a sheet. 
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