Longreach to Mt Isa

What a full week !!  Longreach was a very busy place – the van park was huge and yet each night it was nearly full.  The rush north by the grey nomads and fishermen is in full swing. 
The Stockman’s Hall of Fame is very large and very interesting.  While there are lots of displays, there is also a lot of reading to do.  The show put on by one man, his dogs, horses, a camel and a bullock team was the highlight for me.  He puts on a very entertaining show telling story about the bush through song, poetry, and yarns.  The man has excellent control over his animals and the bullock team was good where he collects a log and after towing it into the stadium, loads it onto a dray in a couple of minutes.

  Stockmans Hall of Fame

  Outdoor Stockmans Show

 Garry gets friendly with 2 bullocks

Next day we tackled the Qantas Founders Museum.  This is an excellent display of all things to do with the airline.  They have a good collection of planes from the old timber and cloth biplanes that can carry only 2 passengers, DC3, 707, and a 747.  Unfortunately the 747 was not open as the nose wheel has sunk into the ground.  Apparently they have parked it on top of old fuel tanks and the spilt fuel has softened the ground.  Repairs are under way.  A Catalina flying boat has recently been added to the display.  Qantas flew a fleet of these planes during WW2 from Perth to India and Africa.  The missions were a secret and the Japanese, who control large chunks of the Indian Ocean at the time, never uncovered the flights.

 Garry in the DC3

 and in the 4 seater - the pilot sat in an open cockpit above and behind the passengers - cosy!!

Before we left we decided to go on a Cobb and Co stagecoach ride.  It was that or the River Cruise at sunset.  We heard some good things about the cruises and bush dinners but thought that the coach ride sounded different.  It was great.  The ride starts in town but goes out of town into the bush and onto the original Thargomindah to Longreach Coach Road.  It was very interesting and gave you a good idea of what travels was like in the old days – dusty, rough, and cramped.  The ride is run by the Station Store which is a tourist business set up by a grazing family during the last drought as an extra source of income.  It has grown very successfully.  While on the coach ride, the driver pointed out the masses of Gidyea bugs travelling west on the ground.  This indicated rain coming and sure enough several days later it rained.

 The staged photo

 Carol ready for the ride

Heading further west we stopped at Winton for a couple of nights.  A few towns are on bore water but Winton was the place where you cannot mistake it.  The water tastes fine but it stinks.  Sticking your face into a bowl of running water first thing in the morning to clean your teeth sure, establishes if there is anything loose in the top of your stomach!!  Once boiled it is fine and we drank plenty of it.  Winton is the start of the Dinosaur Country and we visited two really interesting places.  Lark Quarry is about 110 kms south of Winton and is a really good display of dinosaur footprints in mud that has turned to stone and been preserved perfectly for millions of years.  There are 3 distinct types of dinosaur – a small ‘chook’ sized one, a middle 2 metre high one, and a large 10 tonne sized one.  The ‘proper’ names are Coelurosaurs, Ornithopods, and a much larger carnosaur Australovenator wintonensis.  The display is really worth the drive and the other fossils on display are excellent.  The Age of Dinosaurs is another good display and is located just east of town on a hill that enables views to the horizon of the flat country around us.  This display is based on collections of dinosaur bones (fossilised) found in the surrounding countryside by graziers.  The bones are forced up through the black soil and eventually sit on the surface amongst the grass.  However, by the time they reach the surface they have shattered and are found in many hundreds or thousands of pieces which then have to be put back together like a 3D jigsaw.  The work is amazing and they have collected the most complete skeletons of 4 different dinosaurs which are now used as the standard to identify dinosaur finds around the world.  Very interesting but this display is a little expensive as it is privately run.

 Lark Quarry dinosaur footprints. The large ones are in the bright light spots. The smaller ones are evrywhere but harder to see.

 Fossilised dinosaur bone at Age of Dinosaurs. The white bone beside it is the same thigh bone from a bullock.

 Pelvis, thigh, leg and toe bones from a large dinosaur. The most compete skeleton in the world.

 Garry beside a mid-size herbivore model.

Winton contained a few surprises. Arno’s Wall is a tourist attraction and is the side fence of an opal miners house block.  The wall is made of concrete and has all kinds of metal household objects built into it.  There are motor bikes, concrete mixers, typewriters, washing machines, steel wheels, etc.  Arno is obviously very eccentric.  There are several Opal Stores in town selling Opal and one cutter still working.

 Arno's wall Winton

 Two T-model Fords in the Truck and Heritage Museum Winton.  The one on the right is the 'Camper' model. It has twin single beds in the back and not many other conveniences.

I called and saw the grave of our grandfather, Franklin Charles Miles who is in the RSL section of the cemetry having served in the Boer War.  Diesel is up to $1.63 / litre and tomatoes have hit $10 a kilo.  The Pelican Van Park is busy and has outdoor fake grass matting on most sites for the annex. It is a good clean idea.

Moving on to Mt Isa we passed through McKinlay where the pub was built for the Croc Dundee movie and also Cloncurry.  Mining is evident in the region by the 4 trailer road trains and the expanding township with full motels and donga camps throughout town.  We pulled up for lunch at the Chinaman’s Creek Dam which is a very nice lake in the middle of dry rocky hilly countryside.  It has a good picnic area but camping overnight is not allowed. 

 Pretty empty scenary between Winton and Cloncurry.

 Chinaman's Creek Dam outside Cloncurry

Mt Isa has about 30,000 residents and has all the services and shops you need.  It is an outback town with views dominated by the mine and processing facilities.  Gardening is not high on the list out here.  Garry went on a tour of a small underground mine in town which has been built for training and inducting employees for the real mine.  Carol visited an underground hospital built in WW2.  The display also included a lot of old medical equipment.  Lake Moondarra is full and is larger than we expected.  Water is not a problem after the last couple of wet years and the bush appears lush.  The dam wall was built in 1956/7 and was a rock wall covered on the water side by concrete.  Construction was commenced by Utah Construction Co. but 18 months in there was a large flood which damaged the partly constructed wall significantly.  After the clean up, Utah left and the dam was finished by Thiess Brothers. The dam was funded by Mt Isa Mines and was the largest privately funded water storage in Queensland.  The grass has died after the last couple of dry months but there is more cattle feed than I remember from my last two trips out here.

 Survey Theoolite in mine tour Mt Isa

 Main mine and facilities beside town centre

 Underground Hospital ward

 X-ray machine from the 50's - note the lead curtain for the nurse to stand behind

 Lake Moondarra

 Very inquisitive peacocks in park at the lake

The main mine here produces silver, lead, zinc and copper and has markets for as much as they can produce.  There are 27 other mines in the district.  Apparently China is buying all the lead produced and is stockpiling it for the future?? 

On our last night we went to the Irish Club which is the largest club in Mt Isa.  The food was good and the coffee shop was interesting.  It is a full sized Melbourne tram that has been refurbished and sits indoors decked out as a dining car – very impressive.

On our first night in Mt Isa we sat through our first thunder storm.  It rained all night and the wind was strong.  The temperature dropped and by the time the rain stopped it was windy and very cold.  No damage to the gear so we are off to the Territory tomorrow with a strong wind at our backs.

Brisbane to Longreach - The Big Lap Part 2

Our Yeppoon trip from Brisbane went well with Faysie in good form and our stored goods looking Ok.  We spent the weekend with Henry and Charlie who kept us busy on the beach while their Mum and Dad enjoyed a peaceful time.  Everyone is keeping well.  Our house still looks as if it is being well looked after and the rent is still coming in.

 Our house in Yeppoon

Just as we were leaving the van went in for its repairs and was finished on Friday 11 May.  We got ourselves organised and stocked it on Thursday and left on Friday after the last decal was attached.  They appear to have done a good job and everything is working as it should.

The last week in Brisbane was leading up to Mother’s Day and Isobel’s school put on a special Morning Tea which Carol got to attend.  Isobel took part in the morning assembly and then stood up in front of her class and the Mums and Grandmas and made the welcome address.  Carol said she spoke very well.  The school do a great job making everyone feel included and welcome; it was a very nice morning.  On the Thursday nite before we left Isobel took us out to ‘Sizzles’ for our farewell dinner.  David, Shaneen and Will joined us and we had a good catch up.  Will is turning 5 this week.  The girls filled up on salad bar and deserts and enjoyed playing with Will and his birthday toy.

 Proud Mums & Grandmums

After our goodbyes to Kirsty, Ben and the girls we picked the van up and made it to ‘Stanmore’ where Andrew is in the middle of his 15^th season picking cotton.  This year he has a new 6 row picker and some ‘fresh off the boat’ Irish backpackers.  Nicholas and Danielle are all growed up now.  They both have their own cars now. Nick has a ute to carry his motorbike around and Dani has a nice little Corolla in which she is learning to drive.  We spent a good night catching up and Garry spent a couple of hours out on the picker with Andrew.  The ride home in the back of the ute at 10pm was fresh.

From Dalby we made Roma and stayed a couple of nights to sort out the van again.  We also wanted to visit the Big Rig as we have seen it many times as we have rushed throooough Roma on our way to somewhere else.  The Oil & Gas story is good and we were surprised by the adjoining parks and BBQ areas along the creek.  They have a miniature train track which runs often and has 15 minute rides for the kids for only $2.  It is worth a stopover.  We also visited the largest bottle tree which is over 9 feet around. 

 Oil Pump at the Big Rig, Roma

 Roma's Big bottle tree - 9ft around

I was unsure of the road condition west of Roma and enquired at the van park.  The guy told me it was a one lane bitumen road and was in poor condition.  In fact it is 2 lanes and is excellent.  It is no doubt better than Toowoomba to Dalby which is a disgrace.  It is the roughest bumpiest piece of bitumen we have driven over.  Roma to Charleville to Blackall is a great road but the kangaroos are thick after the good couple of wet seasons.

Charleville is a real outback town with many shop buildings dating from early last century.  One in particular still has the big white ‘V’ painted on the red brick wall from the day Japan surrendered in 1945 at the end of WW2.  We took an evening tour of the Cosmos Centre which is a tourist attraction featuring a look at the night sky through very powerful telescopes.  It is a great facility.  The telescopes (3 of) are housed in a long dark building in which the roof rolls back after everyone’s eyes have become accustomed to the dark.  The scopes are computer controlled so that they locate the target we want to see and track it so that everyone gets a chance to look at each object(s) for a good time.  We saw blue and yellow stars close together (binary stars)(different colours = different ages), systems of over a million stars in one group, Saturn with its rings perfectly clear as you see it books, and more.  It was a very interesting event but sitting in the open in the dark in the middle of a cold snap made it memorable.  Blankets were provided and welcome.  The whole sky was so clear and with so little surrounding light was a great show – highly recommended.

 One of the Telescopes at Charleville Cosmos Centre

 Rainmaking Canon from 1910 - unsuccessful

 Carols new best friend a 6 wk old German short haired pointer

 Augathellas Big Meat Ant

 Tambo waterhole and rest area - original hole dug by horse drawn scoop.

 Tambo Post & Telegraph Museum - the first phone I remember in our Hospital Road house in Emerald.

Wandering on to Blackall, we set up camp beside the Barcoo River ($5 per van per night) along with more than 20 other vans.  The camp area is huge and we were still 20m apart.  The town supplies free hot showers and toilets in the adjacent street.  We had a good walk around Blackall next morning seeing the Big Ram, a wool dray, old farm machinery, a fossilised tree stump, a distinctive Masonic building, the Black Stump, and the Pioneer Artesian Bore – the first Govt bore sunk in Queensland.  The bore water comes from over 800m underground and is around 60 deg C.  In the evening we enjoyed a tour of the Blackall Wool Scour which the only remaining steam driven shearing shed and wool scour (wool washer).  All of the machinery was in perfect working order except for the steam boiler.  The first 2 boilers are still in place but steam is now produced by a new diesel/electric boiler.  A single steam drive engine runs the 20 stand shearing shed, 2 bale presses, 2 X 5 tank wool scours (washers), 2 steam dryers, and several conveyors included a belt to load bales onto the train. A small workshop with several steam driven grinders, saws, etc area also run off the engine.  The old steam boilers used to burn 1.5 ton of gidyea wood a day and the shed processed more than 100,000 sheep per season.  The wool scour operated from 1908 until 1978.  Jackie (John) Howe was a local who shore sheep locally until he was 39 having set a record for shearing sheep that was never beaten.  At 39 he bought 2 pubs in town, a sheep station, and was the local Ford dealer.  He died at 59 of an inflamed liver – any connection to the 2 pubs I wonder?  Jackie never shore in the Wool Scour as he had retired to the pubs before it was built. Following the tour we enjoyed dinner in the kitchen used by the employees at the scour.  Dinner was curry lamb and rice and stew and dumplings followed by a jelly and custard, steamed pudding, butterscotch tart, and blamonge (?).  It was great old fashioned cooking and an enjoyable night spent with a dozen or so locals.

 Wool dray at Blackall - carried 12 ton of wool oulled by bullocks

 The Big Ram

 The original Black Stump - a survey point sadly burned and replaced with a petrified stump.

 Steam driven artesian bore percussion drill rig from the 1890's

 Locals visit the Barcoo River camp each afternoon. They have 16 buggies & sulkies made from scrap at the dump.

Barcaldine was a stopover next and we visited the Australian Workers Heritage Museum.  This was a good facility and contained many good heritage displays including a complete old primary school which bought back memories as it was exactly the same layout and design as the Emerald State School that I attended a year or two ago.  We also checked out the dead remains of the ‘tree of knowledge’ (?) which is now covered by a huge modern ugly structure paid for by the tax payers of Queensland.  It was interesting to see that none of the major shearers strikes that led to the formation of the ALP were successful; each failing by the use of non-union workers or by the arrest and jailing of the strike leaders.  The adjacent Railway Station was interesting.  Before leaving town Carol took my photo in front of the Barcaldine Hospital which was my birthplace only 56 years ago.

 Blackall Wool Scour tour guide 'Beaver' - also the washer upper after dinner.

 Workers Heritage Centre - only 685kms left to Mt Isa

 Counters from the old Emerald Post Office

 Garry returns to his place of birth

Ilfracombe was the next stop heading west which has the largest display of antique machinery we have seen anywhere.  When I came through in 1971 with my parents, the collection of old farm machinery had commenced and consisted of about 10 pieces and a single shed.  Today the machinery stretches along the northern side of the highway for nearly 2 kms.  There are hundreds of farm machines, trucks, dozers, graders, and several buildings with great displays in them.

 Machine or beast ?  Part if the Machinery Mile at Ilfracombe

 Walking Arm artesian bore drill rig

We have made it to Longreach in time for the Annual Show for the next 2 days but are assured that the touristy things will still be open so it’s off to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame tomorrow.  That will be in next week’s blog.

Brisbane #4

Our posts have slowed down of late but we have been keeping busy.


Our van repairs have commenced and will be finished by early next week.  We have elected to have an additional water tank fitted to the van at the same time so we now plan to pick up the van and head west at the end of next week.  When free camping, we have found that we run out of water before battery power so this will extend our stays away from town.


In the mean time we have welcomed a new granddaughter, Grace Edith. She is beautiful and healthy and is already settling into a good routine. Mum is also well and came through the birth Ok.

 Proud Grandma.Grandad, Isobel,Madelaine, and Grace

 Four weeks old already

Grace's big sisters both love her and want to help look after her.

We have also caught up with Fabian and Brendan and their families over the Easter Holiday period. That was great as they are all healthy and happy.


I also got involved in a couple of projects in the last few weeks with the most enjoyable being the conversion of the girls cubby house into the same style as the old Queenslander of the main house.  The cubby travelled quite well from Dysart and has found a new home on the caravan pad in the back yard (a hint there me thinks??).  We added battens beneath the veranda, drop down pailings from the roof line and painted the cubby the same as the main house.  We also removed a narrow deck and garden between the pool and the house and covered the area in a new deck.  A couple of days hammering on my knees reminded me that I ain’t as fit as I used to be.

 One nice Cubby

We watched the ANZAC Day march in Brisbane which was moving as usual.  There aren’t many old diggers left but the ranks of Vietnam Vets are strong and good to see.  Isobel and Ben marched in their local march with the school.  It was small but very convenient at the end of the street and a short walk away for us. It was good to catch up with David, Shaneen and Will after the march in the city.

 Isobel and Ben on ANZAC Day

 City march

We spent a nice relaxing weekend at Crystal Creek over a weekend recently and gave Barry a bit of a hand with mowing and painting. You can just hear the serenity from there.

I have still been playing with the camera and got a couple of nice shots of the city from Southbank during a full moon recently.

 City centre from Southbank

 Uni with a full moon

We have taken a road trip to Yeppoon for the weekend to visit Carol’s Mum and check the storage shed to leave some last stuff behind and retrieve a few things that we can’t do without (including a bloody great heavy sewing machine!!!).


Till next week when the postings should return to their regular weekly report from the road……….

Brisbane #3

We have enjoyed a few trips away including our trip to Mapleton where we took the van and stayed in the Lilypond Van Park.  It is right in Mapleton but back from the road enough to be very quiet and still a short walk to the pub, shops, and great views over the Sunshine Coast.  A very enjoyable weekend which will be remembered for the final 20 metres of the trip.  Backing into a narrow gateway off a busy street among parked cars has its risks.  We are now finding all about how difficult it is to get a small mark on the rear corner of the van repaired quickly.  No major damage, just time consuming repairs.

 Henry with his sports award from a couple of weeks ago.

The next weekend was busy with a trip to Noosa on Friday to catch up Brendan and Michelle and spend the day with Henry and Charlie.  The boys loved the beach and we spent a long time in the surf.  The water was very rough but Coolum Beach was great with smaller waves in close for them to ride their boogie boards in.  We then went out to Yandina and did the Ginger Factory over.  The highlight was the train ride around the grounds.

 Charlie at Coolum

 Henry catching a wave

 On board the Ginger Factory Train

 After the ride

 If only we could eat him...

We spent the next couple of nights at Murwillumbah with Barry.  Their was some work to be done in the yard although the yard is now under control and can be mowed pretty quickly.  The weather kept us inside mostly but didn’t prevent a raging rubbish fire being constructed.  It was even cold enough to light the fireplace on Sunday night.  The creek that we had worked to clear after Christmas was very different after the recent heavy rains and was now much wider, cleaner and very soothing.  Baz’s workman has also progressed the modifications a lot and the house now looks much better than when he bought it.  

My main project in Brisbane this week has been the location and refurbishing of the girls cubby house which finally arrived from Dysart.  I enjoyed working with wood again and after relocating the rock wall to suit the current pad, we added battens under the cubby to match the house. 

While the van was being serviced we had the electrics on the Landcruiser checked out to try to locate the problem with the black pin on the trailer plug connection.  The problem turned out to be the electric brake controller which had failed.  The guys at Arrow that replaced my controller had the same controller on their work vehicle and it had failed only a few days earlier.  Their controller had turned the vehicles brake lights on in the middle of the night and flattened the battery.  This reminded me of the strange things happening on Russ & Janes car in Tamworth with the same controller in it.  Needless to say, we installed a different (better??) brake controller.  It is a Guardian IQ Controller from Hayman Reese and cost $360 installed.

We have planned the route we intend taking on our lap west and now have a rough idea of the fuel and park fee costs we will be up for.  To see all of Australia that we haven’t seen yet we have more than 45,000 kms ahead.  Making the plan is the easy bit and our collection of reports on attractions ‘not to be missed’ continues to grow.

 The cubby going in to place via crane truck.  No pressure - just had to re-drill and bolt 9 legs on to it while the crane suspended it in place.

 The cubby in place at last !! Note :- No room underneath for the van?

 Girls best 'patient' friend

 Grandma and Girls watching the gardening

 Kirsty and Ben at 9 months

Bunnings is the nearest hardware and after several trips in my Home Hardware shirt they got sick of it and asked why I was wearing it.  I told them it was because they had not given me a Bunnings one.  Now Ben has a new green Bunnings T-shirt !!! 

Queensland 2

We are both being kept busy and are finding plenty of different things to do.

During the week we heard about the WOW Sight and Sound demise and called into a store to look at the “Receivers” Sale. The ads did say ‘up to’ 30% off and showed a TV price marked down 30%.  That was it.  Everything else was 5,10 or 20% off a very high retail price.  We bought nothing and joined the hundreds of other disgruntled shoppers leaving empty handed.  Most product was priced more expensively than we could have bought elsewhere and that was after the discounts.  The queues at the checkout were still long though – go figure??

A note for other caravanners :--  I may have mentioned to some that we have changed our internal lights over to LED’s.  I initially bought 2 to try them and once satisfied bought another box of 12 to change the whole van over.  The first 2 cost $25 each from Kratzmann’s and are still working fine.  The next 12 we bought on the WWW from an outlet we saw at last year’s caravan show and paid only $16 each.  These were bought from ‘Dreamlighting’ in Brisbane.  For whatever reason, 4 of them have failed in only 3 months.  They are supposed to last for 3,000 hours.  On most, a little square circuit on the back of the light has fallen off with all 4 solder points letting go and on two of them a couple of the LED’s have also fallen off.  In short, I have once again learned that you get what you pay for and I have returned to Kratzmanns’ for more expensive ones.

This weekend we are having a long weekend relaxing in Mapleton.  The Eumundi Markets are still huge and very popular but after 2 hours browsing, we only chose a dress and a bunch of bananas.  A picnic at the beach and a long slow read of the paper made up for it.

The weather is warm during the day but the breeze in late afternoons is cool and makes for beautiful sleeping conditions.  After so much rain over summer the country looks very lush, clean and green.  I am surprised how much real estate values have fallen.  There seems to be good value around the Sunshine Coast and hinterland at the moment with really nice properties available in the $300K to $500K range.  I even saw one unit advertised for $179,000 rented for $260/week.

Till next week…………….

Queensland

Our southward journey is over for the moment.  We have commenced our trip back north heading for Darwin for the winter. 

Kirsty’s baby is due in a few weeks and they have moved into their new home.  It is a renovated Queenslander style house that is very neat and has all the mod cons including a pool and a van slab off the end of the driveway.  There are, however, numerous small jobs that need Dad’s attention and Mum’s help with setting up the house is always appreciated.

The two ‘preppys’ are both doing really well at their first year of ‘school’.  Elliot received an award for using “beautiful manners all week” and was so proud to show us when we met up in Lithgow. He has since recieved another award.  This week Isobel also received an award for “asking lots of interesting questions and being interested in learning”.  Isobel was also excited although she was a bit hesitant about getting up in front of assembly to receive the certificate.  Henry also has recieved a "Good Sportsmanship Award" for his participation in Tennis for PE.  He is so happy to win a sports award.

 Elliot with his two awards.

 Isobel on parade with her award

 Two cuties after dropping their big siblings off at prep - Madelaine and Owen (Scott and Kates middle boy) Mads is the one talking!!

Seems like we dodged a bullet leaving NSW where all the rain has been falling.  There has been rain up here but only showers.

As we will hanging around for a few weeks we may only update every fortnight for the next couple of times.