FNQ Discovery Drive Tour

There’ll be a lot to do on the trip, and rest assured a couple of surprises will be popping up along the way.

Once we leave the coast, we’ll be heading for Charters Towers, in its day one of
the richest gold mining towns in Queensland. From there we make for Hughenden, perched on the edge of an ancient inland sea, and home to the Flinders Discovery Centre. Here you will not only get to meet “Hughie”, the 7-metre tall Muttaburrasaurus, but you’ll marvel at the world-class display of ancient fossils. North Queensland evenings are ideal for relaxing, so after the stones ‘n bones, why not take a drink and some cheese and watch the sunset from Mount Walker?

Julia Creek is our next port of call. Here we’ll meet a special little mate, the endangered
Julia Creek Dunnart. From there we head to Cloncurry for 2 nights, stopping on the way
for a real bucket-list item, lunch at Crocodile Dundee’s Walkabout Creek Hotel.

The day following our arrival in Cloncurry will be spent viewing the wonderful exhibits
at the John Flynn Museum and then the Cloncurry Unearthed Museum.
Mount Isa is next on the itinerary, and we head there via a slight detour in order to take
in the sights of Mary Kathleen. This place, an abandoned uranium mining town, is an
absolute hidden gem. Mount Isa is a great spot to resupply if you find yourself getting low on essentials.

After The Isa comes Boulia and its well-known Min-Min Encounter Show. Are Min-Min lights real, or just a figment of outback imagination? This is certainly the place to find out more about them.

From Boulia, we head for Winton, first lunching at the Middleton Hotel, one the most isolated pubs in Queensland.

We will then spend 2 nights in Winton, which gives us all a stretch of time to catch up on washing and other chores. We highly recommend that you allow a day to spend at the Waltzing Matilda Centre, which, as the brochures say, is maybe the only (certainly the first) museum in the world built around a song. You will also find here displays tracing the local origin of QANTAS, Australia’s national airline.

Our last stop before heading home to Townsville will be Torrens Creek, population 20, and home to some splendid national parks and lookouts. The tour will treat you to a meal at the Torrens Creek Hotel, where you’ll probably get to meet most of the locals!
Once back in Townsville, we will gather for the last time to share memories around a farewell dinner.