Sunday, Jul 15, 2018 at 16:38
Some years back, when I was still managing a station on the Diamantina, we had a couple in a Hema Nissan wagon
rock up, obviously a bit bushed, even with all their u-beaut GPS gadgetry.
They'd turned off the
Winton-
Boulia bitumen, intending I believe, to drive through an old gazetted road to Springvale station. We maintained the first 25 odd kms ourselves, for easy access for incoming double decker road trains, so was very
well used and they followed this through to the
homestead, about another 90 kms. Why they, or their gadgetry, didn't keep them going onto Springvale I don't know, but it would have been an arduous task, as sections of the track were rarely graded.
In course of conversation, I asked if they could remove this track from their maps, which they appear to have done. It is still marked in the Topo map though, in the Hema 4WD Map set.
And for history buffs, this gazetted road was, I believe, part of the planned railway alignment from
Winton to Springvale Station. Construction of the line only ventured west of
Winton for about 50 Kms, before I think WWI intervened, and it was never completed.
Bob
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