20 July, South of Mt Garnet – It was almost sad to leave the little caravan park at Mt Carbine. The manager was so friendly and helpful in storing our van and keeping food cold for us. We were on the road by 9am and headed south, officially the start of the long slow trip home to Perth. Our drive took us through Mt Molloy, a very pretty little place with quaint buildings and a beautiful tree lined main street.
We had planned to fill with water at Mareeba, but the line of caravans was long and we estimated about an hour’s wait, so we pushed on to Atherton, finding a RV friendly tap in Tolga. The traffic around Mareeba and Atherton can be quite heavy and we were happy to get on the other side of these towns and headed towards Ravenshoe. The road between Atherton and Ravenshoe is extremely winding with terrifying drop offs on one side of the narrow road. Christine had drawn the short straw and the drive exhausted her, while I got to appreciate the amazing views. At one point, we passed over the highest road in Queensland.
Ravenshoe is a very beautiful rural town, once an important timber town. The main trees sought were red cedar and silky oak. A sign at a memorial to the trade proudly proclaimed that timber from Ravenshoe was used to create the speaker’s chair in the UK House of Parliament. A more modern standout is the bakery, which has an adjoining large outdoor seating area. It was well patronised and we only just resisted temptation.
Another incredible attraction was the caravan park, surely one of the quirkiest in the country. It is run by volunteers from the local steam train preservation society and is spread around the old train station and marshalling yards. There are lots of carriages, a whole steam train in working order and beautiful passenger carriages. All this and right in the middle of town. All proceeds go to the train maintenance fund. We were very tempted to stay, but we had nit really gone far enough for the day, so after a good walk and appreciation of the town, we continued south.
We passed through Mt Garnet and further on, stopped at a road side stop at the junction of the Kennedy Hwy and the Savanna Way for the night. By sundown, the gravel pit we were camped in was full of vans.
21 July, Hughenden – We had a 340km drive along the Kennedy Development Road. All bar 10km was sealed and generally in good condition. Around Lyndhurst Station, a couple of creeks flowed strongly across the road, not deep enough to worry us, but a big enough flow to require caution. At one of them, a motor cyclist had come off his bike in the river and drowned it. Fortunately, there was another caravan there and the couple were going to give him some assistance.
Nearing Hughenden, we stopped at Porcupine Gorge, a very large and spectacular gorge viewed from the top. What makes it really interesting is that there are three distinct layers to the gorge. The top layer is mostly basalt; the surrounding area being composed of relatively recent volcanic layers. As the river carved out the gorge, it eroded through two old sandstone layers being past river layers.
At Hughenden, we were lucky to bag a spot in the large free RV camp on the edge of town. Tourism numbers are starting to pick up as we go south. Talking to others, it might be necessary to start booking ahead as we go, something we don’t want to do, but may have no choice.
Hughenden is a neat little town with some buildings with character. It has a genuine “outback” feel about it. I loved the idea of covered parking in the middle of the street, very useful with summer temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees. Hughenden is also the start of the dinosaur country, many large fossil deposits having been discovered in the triangle of Hughenden, Longreach and Winton.
We enjoyed evening drinks and a chat with two other couple from the Riverina around Wagga Wagga.
22 July, Winton – We anticipated an early arrival in Winton, with a drive of only 217km. However, we did not anticipate the state of the road. Instead of hopping along at 90km/hr on a flat relatively straight road, we were reduced to 65-75km/hr because of the lumpy nature of the road. The surface itself was not too bad, it was the fact that the road was just a bitumen surface laid on top of the underlying soil, with no raised base to provide some stability. The surrounding country is mostly black soil plains, which moves as moisture content changes. The road was really bad.
There are only two towns between Hughenden and Winton, Stamford and Corfield. Neither had anything of interest about them. The thought of living out there was quite off-putting.
On approach from the north, Winton also appeared to be a very ugly place, with transport equipment and light engineering works scattered around fields of junk. However, the town itself is quite a picture, especially the main street, with some lovely old hotels and an old general store said to be the best preserved building of its type in Australia. The huge “Waltzing Matilda Centre” dominates, with its modern rammed earth structure.
We were still early enough to secure a spot in the Tattersall’s Hotel Caravan Park, a small but very convenient park right in the middle of town, with most sights within easy walking (not to mention a good pub across the road).
Once settled in, we walked down the main street, taking in the ambiance. Anywhere but the main street, Winton can only be described as ugly. The main street is one of the best rural streetscapes we have come across. It is busy, has some lovely old buildings and simply drips history. It is one of two towns to still have an open air theatre (Broome is the other one). During the day, you can just walk in and soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the museum depicting the past glories of the silver screen.
We visited the Waltzing Matilda Centre, a magnificent modern building, the old one burning down in 2015. The centre is mainly dedicated to Banjo Patterson’s Waltzing Matilda, written at a station nearby and first performed at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton. It is hard to imagine how a large museum can devote itself to a single song, yet it succeeds. The outside parts of the exhibition are devoted to Winton’s past and has some wonderful displays of materials and tools of times past. We loved the experience and spent a lot of time soaking up the extremely informative background notes. Christine was particularly taken with one exhibit that let her be a disc jockey, playing different versions of Waltzing Matilda spread across a very wide set of genres, from marching bands to rock music. It was interesting to see that Patterson himself was paid the princely sum of £5 for the lyrics, a fact he reflected on when departing Australia as a war correspondent to the Boer War and the troops were all singing Waltzing Matilda as they departed. It was a long visit, but incredibly rewarding.
Wandering back along the street, we felt compelled to sample the offerings at the Tattersalls Hotel, sharing stores and experiences with another couple who had spent time working in Port Headland and were now travelling. They too had suffered the horrors of the road from Hughenden.
23 July, Winton – In the morning, we drove the 24km out to the “Age of Dinosaurs” Centre. The Winton area contains the most important dinosaur fossils in Australia, both skeletons and footprints. The centre has been set up to record and display the discoveries. It is set along a long broken ridge called a jumpup, and the buildings have been specially designed to fit in with the landscape. Much use of rammed earth has been made.
The first tour was through a large exhibit which showed an ancient river edge that had been covered and fossilised, retaining a wide variety of footprints, including those of some huge sauropods and some tiny carnivorous creatures little bigger than chickens. There were also turtle tracks and crocodile claw marks. The whole 100m long slab of rock had been lifted from a creek in the area and relocated to the centre, removing it from harm and degradation from the elements.
Following that, we headed down the canyon walk, along a steel boardwalk and following the edge of the ridge. There were a lot of sculptures depicting the dinosaurs that have been found in the area, and the cycads and conifers that still exist today from Cretaceous times could be seen growing. It was very well done. Who doesn’t love dinosaurs?
We dropped back to the van for lunch before heading out to fuel up and check out the Musical Fence, a display of musical instruments constructed from junk. I displayed my total lack of drumming skills and made a couple of dull resonating sounds using the wire fence. After a bit of shopping, we dropped the car back and walked the main street agin, checking out Arno’s Wall. Arno was a local character who built a long stone wall filled with junk treasures from the town tip. It draws a lot of tourists and is a great piece of quirky fun. Then we picked up a shrimp trap for catching some prawns to use as bait in the river systems here and further south.
After a bit of a nap, we headed out to try the fishing. The closest hot spot was the Long Pool, on the Western River system. We were shocked at just how many people were camped out there, only a few kilometres out of town. It was so crowded, I started to wonder if we would find a spot with river access. When we did get to the water, we found lots of signs posted saying the water was contaminated and fishing was banned. The cause of the contamination was campers emptying toilets into the water. How sick. The whole “off-grid” camping thing is going too far at times.
We drove out a little further to Mistake Creek. There were a few camped there, but no contamination warnings. I managed a few small prawns in the trap and one good bite, but no fish. Nothing’s changed.
We have loved our time in Winton. It would be easy to stay on, but Longreach calls.
25-30 July, Longreach – Our developing issues with coolant loss from the radiator needed addressing. It was obvious that it was leaking from the heater system behind the dash because the passenger side carpet was getting quite wet. We had not noticed this for some time because it is covered with a heavy rubber mat. We booked it in to Longreach Motors for analysis. The result was not good, there were quite a few issues with the cooling system, and they needed addressing for the long trip home. Time was going to be an issue, because sourcing the parts may well take a week. Therefore, we committed to staying in the Longreach area for a week or maybe more, travelling no more than 100km out to Barcaldine and making use of some of the bush camps around while we waited. Later, after receiving a ridiculous quote of $5,000 to $10,000, we went to Hain Motors for a second opinion. They had similar time constraints but were great to work with and laughed at the quote from Longreach Motors. In the end, they fixed the issue to the point where they were very confident of us travelling back to Perth and eventually getting more done. The only thing will be we won’t have a heater on the way home. The bill was $300, a far cry from Longreach Motors.
We took advantage of our time here to soak up some of the tourist offerings, Longreach being one of Queensland’s premier destinations.
Stockman’s Hall of Fame – this outstanding facility is on the edge of town and consists of three parts, a film providing historical background to the stockman’s work, a museum display and a live performance. The film was both informative and entertaining. For the museum, we each received a lanyard and receiver with headphones. As we moved around the displays, the unit detected where we were and provided the appropriate commentary. There were a lot of personal stories from local identities. The display covered the life of the stockmen and women, the rural life of the district, the RFDS and the social life of the region. A leather worker had a display making an Australian stock whip, a unique design that incorporates a handle, or “stock”. Hence the name.
The highlight was the live display. The presenter and his wife worked us through the features of good stock horses and pack horses. The bond between him and his horses was very clear to see and the extent of trust from the horses was illustrated when he sent his stock whip cracking within a few inches of their ears and they didn’t flinch at all. He had some wonderful working dogs and the way they worked a small flock of sheep in a very confined space was amazing. The blend of information and humour that was woven through the show made it an outstanding performance.
Silver-Tails Rail Sunset – We booked a sunset rail trip on a pair of 50 year old diesel rail cars. After a welcoming champagne, we set off back on the line towards Winton, receiving an interesting commentary about the enormous Thompson River floodplain, which only a few months earlier this year had been nearly 10 kms wide and covering all the rail line and bridges. With the evening approaching, the wildlife was out and about. The emus were numerous, but the kangaroos were in plague proportions. It was fascinating to have kangaroos bounding alongside the train at a matching speed and watch the powerful legs work away.
We each received a golden tray with three amazing canapes, to keep us happy along the way. At the Darr River, about 25km out from Longreach, the train changed direction to run back. A very talented guitarist and vocalist entertained us as we rattled our way back to civilization, the setting sun creating some postcard scenery as we crossed rivers and billabongs. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.
Fishing on the Thompson River – Bill and Mary had managed to hire a pontoon boat equipped for fishing on the Thompson River, just out of town. We had both tried fishing from the shore, Bill catching a lovely 50cm yellow belly, but I, as usual, caught nothing. The pontoon boat was well set up with a BBQ and fridge, so we made a picnic day of it, taking some steak and sausages. It was a wonderful afternoon, the river so peaceful and calm, the temperature ideal and the fishing at least productive. I was lucky this time, catching a yellow belly, two sleepy cod and a small sooty grunter. Unfortunately, the others missed out. We watched the paddle steamer ply the river, loaded up with tourists, all waving and probably wishing they were fishing instead of listening to the commentry. The owner of the pontoon is going to buy a couple of dinghys to hire out, after a lot of interest. At $150 for 6 hours, I think his pontoon boat is a bit cheap, especially as it is licenced for 6.
Longreach Streetscape – The town is bigger than Winton but with an equally interesting streetscape. It is so good to walk the main street and pass a saddler, dropping in to absorb the beautiful smell of new leather. There is often the clip-clop sound of horses, as Cobb and Co coaches ply the streets. Longreach was a major centre for both passenger trade and freight, prior to the coming of the rail line. There are a couple of shops specializing in station clothing, with some amazing fleece lined checked shirts on display. The Merino Bakery is a famous drawcard, which we somehow managed to avoid succumbing to, other than a packet of bread rolls.
QANTAS Founders Museum – Despite Winton being the place where the first Board of QANTAS met, the hub of the early company was Longreach, flying south to Charleville and north-west to Katherine. The museum on the outskirts of town looks impressive, but we decided we had spent enough on attractions, and we are rather “museumed out”. We gave it a miss.
30-31 July, Barcaldine – It was a simple 107km drive east from Longreach to Barcaldine. The road was mostly good, except for the last 20km, where the dreaded wavy surface returned. The only town along the way was Ilfracombe, a small town whose main attraction is the famous Lynn Cameron Machinery Mile, a remarkable collection of over 170 pieces of vintage machinery lining one side of the road for a mile. There are early graders, rollers, diggers, ploughs, balers, trucks, workshop tools and a 1917 Ruston Proctor Tractor. It is quite a sight and makes a lot of caravanners stop in the town.
Barcaldine is remembered as the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party, formed as an outcome of the great Shearers Strike of 1891. The shearers camped nearby and met under a ghost gum in the main street to plan their campaign. The tree became known as “The Tree of Knowledge”. Unfortunately, some unknown person poisoned the tree in 2006. The dead remains have been treated and preserved, housed in a huge “sculpture” of timber canopy. A direct descendant, named the “Young-Un” was propagated from the tree before its poisoning and grows in the grounds of the Australian Workers Heritage Centre in the main street.
The streetscape is the equal of Winton and Longreach, with four old hotels showcasing things. Historical plaques reveal that most were burnt down between 1890 and 1930, something we found to be common in the outback rural towns. It is probably due to the use of kerosene lamps and candles, as well as dodgy electrical wiring.
We did little other than walk the streets and read the large volume of signage describing the historical buildings or sights. Bill and Mary came to us for lunch, on their way back to Longreach from Shandonvale Station Stay. They had had an amazing time and we were sorry that we hadn’t joined them at what appears to be an outstanding place to visit. It being the end of their trip, they gave us their left over food, filling our larder to the point we had to start up the car fridge to cope. Even better, they left us with a big bag of cooked red claw crayfish. They were prolific in the river at Shandonvale.
1-2 August, Lloyd Jones Weir – We relocated to a weir on the Alice River, a tributary of the Barcoo. This is a donation camp, although there was no donation box when we were there. The toilets are amazing, the equal of many ablutions on paid caravan parks, with flush toilets and running water basins. No wonder the place is often packed out. We managed a good spot which gave a good combination of sunshine for the solar panels and shade for comfort. It is a nice place to chill out, fish in the river (nothing caught but wonderful atmosphere) and watch the weekend football matches that we cared about. We need to do more of this, travel slowly and sit more. It is still too cold to head too far south.
3-5 August, Blackall – The road south to Blackall was beautiful, one of the best in Qld, for half the 107km, then the lumpy, bumpy and wavy stuff returned. We pulled in to Blackall and headed for the $10 a night camp along the edge of the Barcoo River. This is a wonderful camp, with numerous potable water taps around, toilets and a dump point across the road and an easy walk into the main street. We parked up near a beautiful sculputre of a wedge tailed eagle on its nest.
Blackall is famous for being the home of the “Black Stump”. Not always black, the stump was used as a major surveying mark during the big mapping of outback Qld in the 1870s. It was not black originally, but got that name after a bush fire. These days, the black stump has been “petrified”, preserved as a Bicentennial project.
It also played a part in the formation of the Australian Labor Party, with the first workers union being established here during the Great Shearers Strike.
The abundant warm artesian water means that the town has a spa and swimming pool. This one is a beauty, a full 50 metre pool with lap swimming, a sloping beach entry, two spars with bubbles, and a range of temperatures to suit all preferences. It has to be cooled from the 56 degrees that comes out of the ground to a toasty warm 38 degrees. We lazed around, swapped yarns with the many other travellers in the pool, and partook of the best icecreams in the country, fantastic huge cone servings chosen from a large flavour choice all for $3 a serve. Blackall is worth visiting just for the spa.
There is an amazing museum called Ram Park. Besides the usual collection of old things, they have assembled some wonderful buildings from around the region, the railway station and school from old Yalleroi, a station homestead and the old Blackall Rail station. There was some incredible stuff to see, but the highlight was the old curator, Stuart. We weren’t sure how old he was but his body certainly displayed the rigours of a life in the saddle. He has made sure that a great deal of the exhibits still work, ancient old engines that still start, pumps that can push out volumes of water, and wagons that could still cart freight. Stuart’s commentary was not for the faint hearted. It was so politically incorrect it was wonderful. He sniped at people for not keeping up, he referred to older women as the CWA brigade, he rubbished any guy with a grey beard. It was fun, but also the most informative thing we have experienced on our travels.
From 1906 to 1978, Blackall had a wool scour works 4kms out of town. Part of the attraction of Blackall for the location was the 56 degree artesian water, a perfect temperature for washing wool. Its closure, not only did it represent a loss of employment, but it also was a significant loss of history. A group of locals set about restoring the old works and getting it back to a working museum. The steam boilers still work, and are cranked up a couple of times a week. The old single cylinder steam engine still works, and is the same make and model as those we saw in London’s Tower Bridge. It is the only steam powered wool scour left in the Southern Hemisphere.
The mechanical ingenuity of the process line, which takes the wool and cleans it of vegetable matter, impurities and excess lanolin, is a sight to behold. It has over a kilometre of belt to drive all the machines. However, the thought of being a worker here in the 40 degree heat of summer is just crazy in today’s terms.
With little real optimism, we went out to the 5 Mile Pool on the Barcoo River to do a spot of fishing. It was very slow, and I only used 3 prawns for bait, losing one of those on a snag. However, I did catch a 32cm yellow belly, big enough to give us a couple of fillets for tea. Despite the slow action fishing wise, the setting was very pretty and relaxing.
From Blackall, we commence our journey south, technically on the way back home, but not in any hurry. We leave behind the rivers of the channel country, that all drain into Lake Eyre and vever actually reach the sea, to return to the Murray-Darling drainage system. The wonderful inland river systems of the Eastern States are sadly missed in Western Australia and have contributed so much to the character of what outback Queensland is today and has been in the past.
Great read…Thanks
ps…What’s your anti-aging secret