On Thursday, I drove down Cloncurry to meet the new Governor-General David Hurley.

The governor-general and wife Linda were on a two day visit to the region to visit Cloncurry and Julia Creek.

The Governor-General said both districts were bouncing back from the floods thanks to the resilience of the communities and they were "an inspiration to all of us".

I caught with him at the Stockman's Challenge where he and Mrs Hurley donned the Cloncurry Lions' aprons and helped serve a community barbecue before watching some of the action in the campdraft arena.

After a visit to a property and another community gathering at the Chinaman Creek dam the Hurleys boarded a train for the three hour trip to Julia Creek where they were guests of honour at the flood recovery thank you dinner on Friday night.

Sadly I was unable to attend as I had to be back in Mount Isa Thursday evening and was there scheduled to drive down to the Simpson Desert on the weekend.

It was my first trip south this year, as the Boulia Easter races were cancelled after the floods.

The country was looking lovely and green towards the Channel Country but still desperately brown looking the west.

The contrast was most apparent from the Vaughan Johnson lookout on the border of the Boulia and Diamantina shires, where looking east was a verdant sea of green past the yellow flowers. But looking west was more parched showing the arbitrary nature of the big wet.

I drove on to Bedourie for the camel racing on Saturday. The crowd was well down on last year due to the timing of the Big Red Bash which was delayed a week to accommodate headliners Midnight Oil.

Those that showed up enjoyed a great day of camels and pig racing as well as the usual woodchopping, damper making and novelty fun runs on the track.

I'm back in the Isa for a couple of days before backtracking to catch the Oils in the desert, leaving Wednesday. Diesel and Dust indeed, bring it on.

- Derek Barry