Outback adventures part 4 - Croydon

- australia
After three hours of savannah with beautiful changing landscapes, lots of information about flora and fauna, a few stops here and there, and many stories about former train conductors who liked to drink and to speed, we stop for morning tea. Everyone grabs their personal Gulflander mug which we received when buying the ticket, and has coffee or tea with a blueberry muffin. We meet a Japanese senior cyclist who bikes around Australia and asks for a coffee which he is granted.

We hop on again and eventually arrive in Croydon where a welcoming committee is already expecting us. The lady from the Croydon general store offers everyone lifts to their respective accommodations (there’s just one hotel, and everyone who’s staying overnight is staying there). She also offers free tea and scones at her store/café. Another lady, this one from the tourist office, hands out maps and organizes accommodation for people who don’t have any yet. That’s me and Erwin, a Dutch train buff, who’s going to travel from China back home to the Netherlands by train (!) after his Australia stay. Tourist office lady almost seems to want to put me and Erwin into one room, but she reads my face well enough to abandon that idea immediately.

While I’m waiting for my room to get ready I walk across the street to the store for my free coffee and scone and start chatting with Owen from South Africa who was on the train as well. He keeps telling me that I pay too much for my rooms, and he is probably right. I don’t know it yet, but I’ll run into financial trouble a few days later.

Owen convinces me to have a beer in the hotel. Afterwards, I look for internet facilities, and having found them I realize that I missed the presidential election in the US! Everyone here only cared about the Melbourne Cup, a horse race, so I’m reading about the vote results in an email from Paul. I’m so glad Obama made it. No idea who won the Melbourne cup though.

It’s Wednesday, and Wednesday is roast day in Croydon. In both places where you can buy dinner, roast is served. Because it’s Wednesday. In my hotel, I can choose between roast beef and lamb roast. I check out Tony and Murray’s plates and decide to order just sides. The roast looks yummy, but I don’t feel like having a lot of meat today, and the sides look even better. I only pay half as much as if I had ordered meat and get served a huge plate of roasted potatoes, pumpkin, and corn, together with green peas, cabbage, and gravy. Delicious and more than plenty.

I chat a bit with a driller who bores holes for water for the Queensland government. Also, Tony and Murray usually come here for dinner, before going back to Normanton as they and their predecessors have done every Thursday for 121 years.

After another Bundaberg ginger beer (great stuff) on the hotel verandah as the sun sets over the savannah I go to bed since it’s 8 pm, and there’s not much else to do.

Mailbox of the Haydon cattle farm. The Gulflander delivers mail to remote places along the rail line.

Isn’t he a beauty?

Loving the red sand with the tall yellow grass and the green trees.

Croydon butcher.

Croydon bank (?).

Some other pretty Croydon building.


Another sunset.