Today’s plan for Day 8 of our Outback Queensland Adventure was to visit the Walkabout Creek Hotel on our long drive to Mount Isa.
Most caravan parks on the trip so far require that you are out of the park by 10am and Matilda Country Tourist Park was the same.
So the morning ritual started off with breakfast and packing up the camper trailer.
My good friends at Google Maps tell me the drive from Winton to Mount Isa will take approximately 5 hours.
This would be a drive time without stopping, towing a caravan, and also without a car full of kids.
Therefore we expected it to take a little longer than this.
We said goodbye to Winton around 9.45am and hit the road to our first stop, the Walkabout Creek Hotel.
We made the decision to visit the Walkabout Creek Hotel because Crocodile Dundee is such an iconic Australian movie and until recently was Australia’s highest grossing film as well.
If you need to get petrol or diesel just out of Winton we stopped off at the Kynuna Roadhouse.
We weren’t empty, just making sure we had enough in the tank to get though to Cloncurry and Mount Isa if needed.
Better to be prepared than run out of gas on the highway somewhere.
The petrol and diesel pricing at the Kynuna Roadhouse wasn’t too bad either.
From there is was just straight driving to the Walkabout Creek Hotel in McKinlay.
Where is the Walkabout Creek Hotel?
Here is the drive time from Winton to the Walkabout Creek Hotel for you, it took around 2 hours and forty minutes.
There certainly was a lot of people and cars here when we arrived.
So we piled out of the Mazda and headed inside to see what the fuss was about and also to see if we could get some lunch too.
There is certainly plenty to look at in the Walkabout Creek Hotel as you can see in the video.
Not too much significance for the kids though looking around, so they won’t realise the significance of visiting this hotel until they are a little older.
The menu at the Walkabout Creek Hotel is pretty much pizza and burgers, and there wasn’t too many places for us to set up our tribe to eat.
We were expecting a bit more in the menu options too, ahhh well, we still got to see the hotel.
So we decided to just have a look around and then carry on to Mount Isa.
A few facts about Walkabout Creek Hotel
The Walkabout Creek Hotel is on the Landsborough Highway in-between Winton and Mount Isa.
It was called originally the Federal Hotel and it was built in 1900.
The hotel was relocated about a kilometre to be closer to the highway after the redirection of the highway.
The hotel was also renovated when relocated.
Walkabout Creek Hotel is most famous for being recognised as the pub in the Paul Hogan movie Crocodile Dundee which is written about Michael J. “Crocodile” Dundee adventures.
The hotel with other buildings in the town of McKinlay were featured in this Australian film.
The Walkabout Creek Hotel property has 18 rooms.
There is a caravan park with 30 powered and unpowered sites as well as the two residential houses.
The last owner, Paul Collins, had owned the hotel for 28 years before he sold it in 2014.
The current owners are Frank and Debbie Wust, you can see Frank in the video above at the end.
At the end of April in 2016 there were celebrations at the Walkabout Creek Hotel to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Crocodile Dundee film.
The Walkabout Creek Hotel doesn’t have a website currently, so if you want to check them out and see what’s going on at the hotel or book, here is Facebook page, Walkabout Creek Facebook.
From the Walkabout Creek Hotel, and McKinlay we drove to Cloncurry to and stopped for lunch at the Puma Roadhouse there.
The meals weren’t too bad there, so we had egg and lettuce sandwiches with hot chips and then headed off to Mount Isa Caravan Park for the booking in and set up of the Jayco.
The road to Mount Isa
The roads from Winton to Mount Isa are pretty straight and long.
There is plenty to look at too on the way as the landscape is different again than the last drives between the towns.
The whole trip took us 6 hours and 15 minutes as we finally arrived in Mount Isa just after 4pm.
This timing was perfect, just enough time to set up the camper trailer and get ready for the night time routine.
I’ll write about the caravan park in my next instalment, Day 8 Part 2.
Liked reading this? Head to Day 8 Part 2 here, Outback Queensland Road Trip Day 8 Part 2.
Or you can head back to the start of our trip here, Outback Queensland Road Trip.
What did we do or see today?
Drive to Mount Isa
Visited the Walkabout Creek Hotel
Walkabout Creek Hotel
27 Middleton St
Mckinlay Qld 4823
P 07 4746 8424
Booked into Mount Isa Caravan Park – See Address Below
Where did we stay in Mount Isa?
Mount Isa Caravan Park
112 Marian St
Pioneer Qld 4825
P 07 4743 3252
Give them a call or book through their website here, Mount Isa Caravan Park.
Just watch out if you are on your mobile phone looking at or booking on the Mount Isa Caravan Park website, the photo sizes are big on the website and when you click on facilities to look at the park they can suck you monthly data limit dry.
What distance did we drive today?
Winton to Mount Isa
Total travelled = 468 km
Tally of roadkills spotted for Outback Queensland Road Trip = 164
Liked reading this? Head to Day 8 Part 2 here, Outback Queensland Road Trip Day 8 Part 2.
Or you can head back to the start of our trip here, Outback Queensland Road Trip.