Sunset of Mindil Beach Darwin.

We spent four days in Darwin. We did a day trip out to Litchfield National Park to see the waterfalls, billabongs and waterholes.
Whilst in Darwin we visited some of the WW2 sites such as the underground fuel tunnels and museums. Did you know that Darwin was bombed more times than Pearl Harbour. Something like 62 times in 22 months. 243 people were killed, mostly on ships. Eight ships were sunk in Darwin harbour. This was kept quiet at the time to avoid panic.
Parliament House now stands on the spot where the Post Office was. It was bombed and all 10 people living and working there were killed. A part of the original Post Office wall is still standing inside Parliament House.
We also did a tour of Parliament House which has a magnificent view of the ocean from almost every window.
The waterfront area is very pretty. Cullen Bay has lots of shops, restaurants and marina. The wharf area is under development and has a couple of new pools, a large wave pool and another with it’s own beach sand.
A highlight was a visit to the Mindil Beach Markets, a night market with art, craft, food and entertainment. A huge crowd gathered on the beach to watch the stunning sunset over the water.

Today we went on a 2 hour boat tour of Katherine Gorge. Another 36 degree day. The trip up the gorge was excellent. We did two gorges. We had to change boats at one point and get out of the first boat and walk over the rocks, stopping along the way to see the aboriginal rock art, to the second boat that took us up the second gorge. Then repeat the process in reverse to come back again.
Coming back the guide took the boat close along the shoreline looking for some freshwater crocs but we didn’t see any today.After our cruise we took a drive out to Edith Falls. It is a very picturesque waterhole with some waterfalls where lots of people were in swimming today.

The next day we headed for Katherine stopping at the thermal springs at Mataranka along the way. We didn’t go in the water as the pool is about 2 metres deep. The water there is a constant 32 degrees.
We found another thermal pool in the Katherine river and it wasn’t deep, so we spent a couple of hours in the lovely warm water there (32 degrees again) cooling off from the current August heatwave. It was 36 degrees.

Today we left Alice very early this morning and drove to Daly Waters. We are staying at the Hiway Inn, a roadhouse at the junction of the two highways. Just down the road is the famous Daly Waters pub which we visited this evening. The historic pub houses a collection of bras, undies, caps, hats, thongs and other knick knacks. Funny signs,such as “angle parking, any angle will do”.
There’s not much to see along the highway but we stopped at a couple of the roadhouses along the way, Aileron where they have a gigantic statue of the Aileron man on a hill and then Wycliiff Well, home of the most UFO sightings in Australia, strange lights in the sky, a bit like the Min Min lights near Boulia. We stopped briefly in Elliott and then we went to Newcastle Waters an old historic town where the highway used to go. There is a school and a park with statue of a drover stockman.
The next day we headed for Katherine stopping at the thermal springs at Mataranka along the way. We didn’t go in the water as the pool is about 2 metres deep. The water there is a constant 32 degrees.
We found another thermal pool in the Katherine river and it wasn’t deep, so we spent a couple of hours in the lovely warm water there (32 dgrees again) cooling off from the current August heatwave. It was 36 degrees.
Today we went on a 2 hour boat tour of Katherine Gorge. Another 36 degree day. The trip up the gorge was excellent. We did two gorges. We had to change boats at one point and get out of the first boat and walk over the rocks, stopping along the way to see the aboriginal rock art, to the second boat that took us up the second gorge. Then repeat the process in reverse to come back again.
Coming back the guide took the boat close along the shoreline looking for some freshwater crocs but we didn’t see any today.
After our cruise we took a drive out to Edith Fall. It is a very picturesque waterhole with some waterfalls where lots of people were in swimming today.

Tomorrow we will leave here fairly early (to beat the heat) and make our way to Darwin.

The following day we drove back to Alice Springs and stayed again at the same place as previously. We had two nights in Alice and yesterday we drove out to see Glen Helen Gorge, Ormiston Gorge, the Ochre Pits, Serpentine Gorge and Ellery Big Hole, all of which are accessible from the same highway so we went to Glen Helen first. It is very pretty but a little disappointing as a lot of the things to see are beyond the waterhole and there was no way to get there. Next we went to Ormiston Gorge which was much bigger than Glen Helen and the big surprise was the Ochre Pits. We weren’t sure whether or not to go and see them. We are so glad we did. They are amazing. The ochre pits, still used today, are at the site of a dry river bed and the cliffs beside the river, are coloured red, orange and yellow in waves of colour, reminding me very much of a marble cake.

You don’t realise just how far away you are from the things we usually take for granted. We went shopping in a Coles Supermarket and all the fresh foods sections were almost bare. I heard a lady say that the truck hadn’t been this week and to be careful of the use by date on the few perishables on the shelves.
Also, tonight at our motel they had put the biscuits in the fridge. They were individually wrapped packets and when we opened one a pile of ants came crawling out of the little holes in the biscuits, yuk. One way to ensure you stick to your diet I guess, as I certainly wasn’t eating the biscuits after that.
Today we left Alice very early this morning and drove to Daly Waters. We are staying at the Hiway Inn, a roadhouse at the junction of the two highways. Just down the road is the famous Daly Waters pub which we visited this evening. The historic pub houses a collection of bras, undies, caps, hats, thongs and other knick knacks. Funny signs,such as “angle parking, any angle will do”.
There’s not much to see along the highway but we stopped at a couple of the roadhouses along the way, Aileron where they have a gigantic statue of the Aileron man on a hill and then Wycliff Well, home of the most UFO sightings in Australia, strange lights in the sky, a bit like the Min Min lights near Boulia. We stopped briefly in Elliott and then we went to Newcastle Waters an old historic town where the highway used to go. There is a school and a park with statue of a drover stockman.Tomorrow we headed for Katherine stopping for a swim at the thermal springs at Mataranka.

The start of the walk is a set of stairs carved out of the stone walls of the canyon. It’s called heart attack hill and when you stand at the bottom at look up you can see why. It appears to be an almost vertical set of stairs. You are only allowed to go one way. You must complete this most challenging part of the walk at the beginning.
For today we chose to walk along the creek bed of Kings Creek. It’s an easy walk and climbs a little to a lookout platform where you are surrounded by the canyon walls.
First thing this morning Colin set off alone to do the rim walk. I decided not to do it. I didn’t like the look of the steps at the beginning. It is very steep and there is nothing to hang on to. I did a little practice on them yesterday and felt that as it got higher it would be scary.
Colin returned about 2 hours later from the rim walk. He thoroughly enjoyed the walk, was exhausted after the initial climb but after a short rest was ready for the remainder of the walk. He took lots of photos.
After the rim walk we went and did a couple of other walks in the area. We went to Kathleen Springs. That was a lovely easy walk and finishes up at a very picturesque waterhole. The inky black water reflects the white gum trees and surrounding deep orange domes of the canyon.
After the recent rain the wildflowers have begun to bloom and along this walk there were many pretty flowering shrubs and bushes. Also around the waterhole there were several clusters of ferns, not something I expected to see out here.

By the time we returned to the lookout all the Variety Bash cars had arrived in droves. There were vehicles done up like fire engines, another one with a house on top, one with bulls horns and people everywhere in whacky costumes.As you drive along the road towards Kings Canyon you can see the walls of the canyon on your right towering up alongside you. We drove into the car park and went to check out the rim walk. It was a bit late in the day to begin the walk as it takes a few hours to complete.

Today we left Uluru early but not before having another look at the rock. We then set off in the car towards Kings Canyon. It was raining again and in some sections along the road it was raining quite heavily.
Helen & Trevor had told us to make sure we stopped at the lookout at Mt Connor and climb the sand dune on the other side of the road. They didn’t say why and we expected it was to get a better look at Mt Connor. It was raining and cold but we set off up the sand dune. Boy, are we glad we did. Thank you Helen & Trevor. Over the top of the sand dune is Lake Armadeus, a salt lake with a small island in the middle. It is stunning. The salt turns the landscape a pinkish colour. Oh, and you do also get a better view of Mt Connor. There are no signs about the lake so it comes as a big surprise, one we wouldn’t have discovered if we hadn’t been told.

We got up early this morning to view a sunrise and there was not a cloud in the sky. The gale force winds of yesterday were gone. It is an icy cold morning and the huge crowd that had gathered were heavily rugged up against the cold. Some people had little portable gas stoves and were cooking sausages and eggs etc.
We waited and eventually Uluru began to change colour and become a brilliant orange colour as the sun lit it up. Quite an awesome sight.
We left Uluru and headed over to the Olgas or Kata Tjuka. There are a couple of walks that you can do. We chose one walk that takes you up over some rock and you get a magnificent view back over the valley and the walks continues on to Walpa Gorge, a small picturesque waterhole. From there we went to the Valley of the Winds walk. We didn’t complete the walk but went as far as the first lookout.
We then returned to Uluru and found a nice picnic spot for lunch and were soon joined by some fellow travellers. We have met a lot of people along the way and often see people several times along the route. Everyone is very friendly. Most people wave as they pass you on the road.
I cant get over how green everything is. I expected it to be so much drier with much less vegetation. I thought it would be just sand dunes and Spinifex. You’ll see from the photos, there’s one section on the walk around the base of Uluru that is very lush and green. I was very surprised.
Uluru is amazing when you get up close to it. It has caves with drawings and paintings, a waterhole and huge gouged out holes, the inside of which look like honeycomb. There are gentle folds and creases and deep crevices. There are small shrubs and bushes that grow somehow in a crevice or a hole. You can see where water has cascaded down and left a darkish stain. At any time during the day and from any angle the rock is for ever changing colour. The most dramatic changes are of course, at sunrise and sunset.
The more you walk around the rock and get up close to it, the more shapes, textures and colours you see.
It rained quite heavily overnight which surprised us.
Our first day at Uluru was so windy that the climb to the top was closed. I only needed to look at it to know that there was no way I was going up there. Colin thought he would probably climb, however the next day when the walk was open we watched people climbing. The first section has no rail to hold on to and people were crawling on the hands and knees. Some people coming back down were really struggling with this non hand rail portion, several people sat on the rock and “bottom” walked down. After watching these people Colin decided not to climb either.Today the temperature climbed to 34 degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so we knew that sunset would something really special tonight. Hundreds of people lined up along the fence at the sunset viewing spot. Eventually the sun began to disappear on the horizon and the shadow crept up over the rock until it was completely in shadow

From Mt Isa we travelled to Tennant Creek where we stayed overnight before heading on to Alice Springs.
We stayed in a motel in Tennant Creek and they had a sign in the room advising to keep the door shut as lizards, spiders, gecko’s, ants and other insects would enter the room. Don’t think they mentioned snakes, but that’s more than enough creepy crawlies there to ensure I kept the door closed.
Not very far out of Tennant Creek are the Devils Marbles. You cant miss them, they are almost at the edge of the highway. These giant granite boulders are known as Karlu Karlu and are sacred to the aboriginals. The boulders sit atop one another in piles and side by side, some balanced so precariously you think they will topple over any minute.
We arrived in Alice Springs yesterday and we are staying at a nice resort with little villas. It’s a bit of an oasis with green lawns and palm trees. At the end of the street the East McDonnell ranges rise dramatically. Across the road is the Todd River, well river bed to be exact. It is just sand. We have seen many completely dry rivers and creeks but none as big as the Todd.
Today we have visited Hermannsberg, Standley Chasm and Simpsons Gap. We drove out of Alice towards Hermannsberg with the West McDonnell Ranges looming around and ahead of us. The deep red mountains with sparse vegetation rise dramatically and tower above us as the road snakes alongside these mountains.
We arrived at Hermannsberg an old Lutheran Mission. The historical buildings are whitewashed German farm style buildings. Hermannsberg was home to Albert Namitjera and there is an art gallery with a large number of Albert and other member of the Namitjera family paintings as well as other artists.
Our next stop was Standley Chasm. The best time to be there is midday and one hour before and one hour after. It was nearly 1pm by the time we got there.
A short relatively easy walk scrabbling over some rocks, past the snow white gum trees and you reach the chasm, a small gap between these giant towering mountains. The sun shines on the walls of the chasm turning them a blaze of fiery red. The mountains tower above you and you feel like an ant standing there.
Then it was on to Simpsons Gap. If you are very lucky you may see some black footed rock wallabies but we didn’t see any today. Possibly scared off the hoardes of school kids on an excursion. This is another beautiful spot with a dry river bed, the Fincke River and where the gap is, is a large picturesque waterhole and the towering walls of the gap are reflected in the still waters of the waterhole.
Our drive back into Alice with mountains all around us, we notice they have changed dramatically in colour in the different light. Some have changed from the vibrant red to pinkish colours, some are purple and some are quite blue in colour.
The scenery is absolutely breathtaking.
Our next place to visit is the Old Telegraph Station in Alice and alongside the Todd River. Established in 1872 to relay messages between Darwin and Adelaide, it is the best preserved of the 12 stations along the Overland Telegraph Line. It was a telegraph station for 60 years and then became a school for aborigal children. The township of Alice Springs takes its name from the waterhole a short distance from there.
We then went up to Anzac Hill to await the beautiful sunset. I got some good sunset photos.
We set off early this morning from the Alice for the long drive to Uluru. There’s not a lot to see, a few roadhouses along the way and that’s about it.
It was extremely windy today. There was a crosswind and we had Spinifex barrelling across the road in front of us and red sand drifting across the road. Huge clouds of red dust could be seen for miles from vehicles using the unsealed roads nearby.
We stopped at a parking bay with picnic benches for lunch. It was blowing a gale and we had salad for lunch. It was so windy, the lettuce was being blown out of our bowls. You are probably thinking “why didn’t they just sit in the car” well, after nearly 4 hours couped up in the car anything was preferable to being in the car.
Not long before we arrived in Uluru we came to Mt Connor, often mistaken for Uluru. It is a large rock all by itself and it’s easy to see how it could be mistaken for Uluru.
Finally Uluru comes into view, dominating the landscape this deep red rock takes your breath away as you view it for the first time.
The wind is still gale force and as we went the National Park we are informed that the climb up the rock is closed due to the wind. We drove all around the rock, parked the car and got out to get a closer look but we didn’t walk all the way around it. We will do that tomorrow after watching the sunrise and hopefully it wont be as windy as today.
We watched the sunset tonight but unfortunately there was a lot of clouds. We have another opportunity tomorrow night to see a sunset.

We also visited the underground hospital today. In the grounds of the hospital an underground shelter was built during the war, after the bombing of Darwin, just in case Mt Isa was bombed. It never was, but the shelter was used many times during air sirens, patients were moved from the main hospital to the underground hospital.
It has been restored with the help of photographs taken at the time to exactly how it was during the war. The original 1920’s hospital is still there today as well in the grounds of the current hospital and next to the underground hospital. It now houses a collection of medical and dental equipment that make me glad we weren’t around then for what looks like it be more at home in a torture chamber.
We have been in a motel here that has had not had hot water since the day we checked in. I mentioned this of course, every day hoping that it would be resolved. The plumber came and said they needed the gas man, the gas man came, did something I think but there is still no hot water. The manager told me tonight that the gas man is no longer answering his phone. So it looks like a cold shower again in the morning. The water was slightly warm, not icy cold thankfully.Anyway, the manager has given us a discount, one free night’s accommodation and a further $45.00 reduction off the other night so we are very happy with that.

Today we visited the School of the Air. That was fantastic. We were there for just over an hour and were able to listen in on two lessons, one for Year 1 kids and the other for Year 3 kids. The on air, (it’s actually a telephone and a computer link up), lessons go for 30 minutes. The rest of the time the kids are working on their computer and/or books by themselves. A lot of the kids have a governess to assist as home tutor or the parent does it. The school in the Isa looks after 160 kids in a 2000km radius, that’s the largest area covered by one school in Australia.
The school looks like just any other school, with projects, drawings, photos, posters etc plastered all over the walls, it just doesn’t have any kids. I always think of the kids whose parents own the station as being the pupils which of course they are but there’s also an awful lot of kids whose parents are fencing contractors, sheep shearers and itinerant workers. There was a photo on the wall of one little boy whose “classroom” was a table under a tree and a satellite phone. Apparently you have to remain perfectly still with no background noise for the sat phones to work.
Workbooks and lesson materials are packaged up and sent out to students in the mail every 10 weeks, 10 weeks in advance as some of the very remote stations only receive their mail once a month, others may have to drive 200-300 kms to go and collect their mail.The cost of educating a child in a remote location is about $18,000 per year. Families often have to pay over $100.00 a month for their internet connections. There’s no broadband for most of these students.

The next day we went on a tour of the Hard Times Mine, an underground mine tour which involves getting into orange overalls, a hard hat, a thick belt to which you attach a very heavy battery pack and a light that is clipped onto your helmut, oh yes and a pair of gumboots. Of course this took some time to get organised with a group of about 20 people. We got in the cage and descended down into the mine. Our tour was very comprehensive, our guide Trevor has been an underground miner for many years. He showed us the various drills that are used and even turned them on and let everyone have a go at drilling. There are a lot of trucks down there that will never come to the surface again as it’s just too expensive to bring them up.
It was a terrific insight into the life of an underground miner and how hard it used to be and even today with all the technology and a lot of the trucks being driven by remote control it’s still a lot of hard and dangerous work.
After the mine tour we took a short drive out to Lake Moondarra. The locals call it the outback ocean. There were some boats out on the lake and some people in swimming. It is very picturesque. The lake is huge and has several islands in the middle. There is also a dam and we walked out along the dam wall for an even better view.
The rugged red mountains that surround the lake intensify the sparkling blue waters of the lake and the surrounding green parklands with picnic tables and bbq’s.

We arrived in Mt Isa on this the last day of the Mt Isa Rodeo. We planned it that way. We had been told about the rodeo and knew accommodation was hard to get but we also wanted to see a rodeo so we planned to be here on the last day.
We spent this afternoon at the rodeo, looking very much like a couple of city slickers amongst the RM Williams moleskins, checked shirts, boots and akubra hats.
I had a ball. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if watching cowboys being bucked off a bull or a horse was my thing but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It gets quite exciting watching them hang on and willing them to stay on the bull. It’s pretty dangerous stuff, one guy almost got gored by the bulls horns and the audience gasped. After the rodeo we went up to the city lookout to watch the sunset

We headed out on the highway again this morning headed for Mount Isa. The scenery around us was almost completely flat expect for a few hills that are called jump ups. There are quite a few trees and we learnt from Charlie that they are mostly cassis trees and gidgee. Gidgee is a noxious weed that the farmers try to control the spread of. The deep red parched earth grows mostly only Spinifex. It too, is useless as cattle feed and we saw few cattle.
There are two towns between Winton and Cloncurry, Kynuna and McKinlay. The McKinlay pub is famous as the pub used in the movie Crocodile Dundee.
We stopped in Cloncurry and then headed on towards Mt Isa, stopping briefly at the Burke & Wills memorial just outside of Cloncurry.The landscape changed dramatically as we switched highways from the Landsborough Highway to the Barkly Highway. The road was no longer flat and straight, but curving and hilly and all around us were towering jagged peaks of rough red mountains all the way into Mt Isa.

Today we went on a day tour to Carisbrooke sheep and cattle station and the Lark Quarry dinosaur trackways. Our guide for the day was Charlie, the owner of Carisbrooke Station. He picked us up at 8am this morning and drove us about 120kms out to Carisbrooke. I would have to say today has been a real highlight.
Charlie took us onto his private property. He drove us up to a gorge with the most breathtaking views of the valley below and the rugged red mountains of the gorge. He showed us the rugged mountains called the three sisters, Mary, Maude and Kate.
We stopped at the old opal mine and while Charlie made a pot of billy tea we all fossicked for opals. I found three rocks that have some opal in them. I was quite excited with my find.
We drove all around the gorge, taking in the many viewpoints and at some spots climbed down the very steep and rough pathways deeper into the gorge.
Charlie knows every inch of the property He was born in Winton nearly 80 years ago and has owned Carisbrooke since the early 1960’s. He took us to all the best viewpoints. We had a picnic lunch at a lovely spot overlooking the three sisters. We saw the old homestead of Old Cork Station which is now abandoned dilapidated ruin.
Our next stop was Lark Quarry which is home to the dinosaur trackway where we saw the footprints of hundreds of dinosaurs running away from a much bigger dinosaur and dates back to one hundred million years ago. The footprints, fossils and dinosaur bones were discovered in the 1960’s and is still being uncovered.
Then Charlie drove us back to Carisbrooke and down to the grazing low lands where their sheep and cattle are. We then had afternoon tea and he drove us back into Winton.
We arrived back in town just in time to join in with the caravaners for a campfire roast dinner and listen to the bush poet who happened to be a former Canberra girl who was the boss of the Public Service Union for about 15 years and now travels the country in her motorhome performing her bush poetry/comedy routine at caravan parks around the country. She was very good. It was a good evening.

There is an open air deck chair movie theatre with the largest deck chair in the world. There’s a few museums and a musical fence, which is a wire fence that can be played as a musical instrument and the only permanent one of its kind in the world. I would love to have heard it being played properly.

Winton was originally called Pelican Waterhole, not sure why. The towns water comes from the Artesian Basin and it has a strong odour of sulphur. When you first smell the water it is quite off putting. They suggest you fill a container, let it stand and chill the water for excellent drinking water. It is excellent drinking water and I have some chilling now for our onward journey tomorrow.
Winton has a number of attractions and Arno’s wall is one of the wacky ones. It is contructed from concrete and rock and is studded with old lawnmover parts, boat propellers, old machinery, old typewriters, several complete motorcycles, just about everything you can imagine including the kitchen sink.

We left Longreach and headed out on the highway to Winton about 177kms from Longreach. We pre-booked our accommodation as we were told it was busy. We booked into the Matilda Holiday Park and are staying in a cabin.
We arrived in Winton reasonably early this morning and have spent the day exploring the town. We visited the Waltzing Matilda Museum which was very interesting. I particularly liked the hologram 3d thing. Real people superimposed over pictures of things, very clever. I could watch that sort of thing all day. Its the only museum in the world dedicated to a song. We also ran into a couple that we met on the river cruise in Emerald and we had dinner with them at the local pub, well one of the local pubs, there’s about four. This was is called Tattersall’s and several people had recommended the meals there.

Longreach to Winton

We left Longreach and headed out on the highway to Winton about 170kms from Longreach. We pre-booked our accommodation as we were told it was busy and we did have to ring around a bit before we found a vacancy. We booked into the Matilda Holiday Park and are staying in a cabin.
We arrived in Winton reasonably early this morning and have spent the day exploring the town. We visited the Waltzing Matilda Museum which was very interesting. I particularly liked the hologram 3d thing. Real people superimposed over pictures of things, very clever. I could watch that sort of thing all day.
There were a couple of other museums and displays to look at. We also ran into a couple that we met on the river cruise in Emerald and we had dinner with them tonight at the local pub, well one of the local pubs, there’s about four.
We have met other people too that we have met in other towns. I am sure we will meet this couple, Sue & Peter, again as they are going in the same direction as us.
Tomorrow morning we are going out to Lark Quarry to see the dinosaur tracks and also to Carisbrook Station, a cattle station. Should be an interesting day.

Today we visited the Qantas Founders Museum and the Stockmans Hall of Fame. We arrived at the Qantas museum right on 9am and didn’t leave until after midday. We did a tour of the two aeroplanes they have there, a 747 and a 707. We saw the black box of the 747 and guess what, the black box is not black, it’s orange. We saw into the cockpit and the working parts of the air conditioning system, the cargo hold and the toilet shute, which does not empty mid air but is emptied on the ground by a truck called the honey pot.
We had our photo taken standing in the intake to the engine. Then it was time to go and have a look at the 707 which was purchased back from the Saudi’s a couple of years ago. The plane was originally Qantas’s first jet and sold many times and converted into a luxury jet in to 70’s, the Saudi’s were the last owners of the jet and they wanted to sell it. It was stored at Southend in England and an engineer who had originally worked on the jet found it there, in desperate need of restoration so it was purchased by the museum from the Saudi’s with a great deal of negotiation taking place to clinch the deal.
Before the jet could be shown to the public a number of conditions were written in the contract of sale, one being that the Saudi owners dining table and writing desk had to be removed from the plane. A Persian carpet had to be removed and all the gold taps had to be removed and finally no-one was to be allowed to take photographs inside the plane. All of these things were agreed to and the sale went ahead.
The plane has wood panelling throughout, seating for only 26 passengers, a large double bed with ensuite including a shower. The toilet looks like a very comfortable leather lounge chair and the crew were looked after with sheepskin covers of the seats in the cockpit.
We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the Qantas Museum. Across the road was the Stockmans Hall of Fame which we visited afterwards. We arrived there in time to see the show which showcases the talents of the working sheep dogs and the sheep they are rounding up. The drover doing the commentary was quite a character and an excellent handler of the animals, not to mention his great skills at cracking an 8 foot long whip.
He demonstrated the training of the dogs by telling them when they could bark and when they had to be quiet. He said it is essential that the dogs do not bark if you are droving cattle. The reason being, the barking will spook the cattle and you will have a stampede.
We spent a very interesting hour watching the drover and his animals. We then watched a short movie about the outback and then toured the exhibits of the museum.The two museums took up the majority of the day.

In my last email I forget to mention the little township of Ilfracombe, about 26kms before Longreach. We stopped there briefly. The historic Wellshot Hotel has a fascinating assortment of hats, mostly akubras and well worn adorning it’s walls and the ceiling is covered with Australian and foreign currency notes.
Ilfracombe is also home to one of the most extensive historical machinery displays in Australia. The open air museum i know as the Great Machinery Mile and all sorts of machinery, some rare line the side of the highway.

From Barcaldine we drove on to Longreach arriving here late this afternoon so we are staying two nights.
This evening we went on a sunset dinner cruise on the Thomson River. When we arrived at our motel and enquired at the reception about the cruises and were told they were all booked out for tonight and tomorrow. I decided to ring up anyway and the lady in the office said there was a cruise about to depart and if we were ready she would come to our motel, pick us up and drive us to the river where the boat was. She picked us up in the company mini bus and drove us out to the boat.We enjoyed a lovely evening cruise, watched a magical sunset, saw an almost full moon and saw some turtles in a small turtle rookery. After sunset we had a two course dinner on board the boat as it meandered along the river. A bus took us back to our accommodation at the end of the cruise.

Longreach

We left Mackay yesterday morning via the Peak Downs Highway to Clermont. Clermont which dates back to 1861 is famous for the big flood of 1901, many people were killed, the town was 10 metres under water and there is a replica of a piano stuck in a tree. The real piano rotted away long ago.
Our next stop along the highway was Capella. The distinct Peak Range is a group of gigantic dome topped mountains just north of the town and there is a viewpoint for taking some photos.
Then it was on to Emerald in the middle of the gemfields surrounded by towns such as Rubyvale, Sapphire and Anakie. We visited each of these towns and tried our hand at sapphire fossicking at Rubyvale. We bought a bucket of “wash” ie a bucket full of rocks and dirt and you sift through it again and again and wash it in water again and again. We got very grubby and very hot but it was heaps of fun and we have a handful of tiny sapphires. Sapphires, by the way, come in just about every colour in the rainbow, clear, yellow, orange, brown and of course blue which of course makes it really difficult for the untrained eye to spot a gem. We found a few and then a lady who works there came to show us the ones we’d missed and she found a handful of tiny stones in a few minutes. One of stones we found is just big enough to make into a small piece of jewelry.
We stayed overnight in the town of Emerald and headed off this morning towards Longreach. We stopped at Alpha which is known at the Town of Murals. There are 27 murals painted in buildings throughout the town. Each mural depicting a different aspect of pioneering life.
Travelling along the Capricorn Highway, an almost straight road we didn’t see too much traffic at all but we did see a lot of road kill, some of it in the middle of the road. At one point there was an animal, possibly a large wild pig or maybe even a cow right in the middle of the road, of course that happened right at the time when vehicles were coming on the other side of the road.
We saw quite a few eagles, bush turkeys, emus, an echidna and lots of small termite mounds.
The next town we stopped at was Jericho. There is a sculpture in the town “The Crystal Trumpeters” which tells the story of the Battle of Jericho.
A little further up the road we stopped at Barcaldine which is famous for the Tree of Knowledge which is now dead after being poisoned in the 1960’s. It was the central meeting place for the Shearers’ Strike during the upheaval in 1891. This all lead to the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
There are a number of heritage listed buildings to look at such as the Masonic Lodge and St Peters Church. We also visited The Australian Workers Heritage Centre which is a vast museum with many displays, artefacts and memorabilia and in the centre it has an artesian bore. It was very interesting and we spent a couple of hours there.

Today Sarah took us out to Cape Hillsborough National Park and beaches. Absolutely awesome scenery. We went for a very long walk along the almost deserted beach, absolutely beautiful. I took about 50 photos and collected some really amazing shells with starfish fossilised on them. We also saw lots of huge black cockatoos with bright red tails. They were fascinating. They were eating berries in a tree and doing an excellent job of defoliating the tree in a very short time. I took lot of photos of them too, but my camera is not quick enough to catch the quick glimpses of the flash of red on their tails unfortunately.

We are heading off tomorrow morning to Emerald so that will be the end of the beaches for a while.

We are currently in Mackay. We have been on road for just over two weeks now and so far we have travelled an amazing 3991 kilometres.

Our journey so far has taken us up along the NSW coast where we visited family and friends.

We spent a couple of days in Bundaberg where some Canberra friends are holidaying and we caught up with them. Bundaberg is much larger than we expected and has some beautiful beaches. We did tours of the Bundaberg Rum factory and the Bundaberg Ginger Beer factory, both of which we found very interesting.
We also visited the Bert Hinkler Museum. Bert Hinkler grew up in Bundaberg at Mon Repos Beach and went on to become a famous aviator, breaking many world records for solo flights. The museum houses a vast collection of memorabilia and aeroplanes, some interactive displays and in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens stands his home, Mon Repos, that he built in Southampton England. It was moved to Australia brick by brick and rebuilt in Bundaberg.

We also visited the Mystery Craters. Believed to be over 25 million years old these craters are of limestone and red ochre and have giant holes, some with water and some are dry. No one knows what they are, or how they got there. Some of craters are so deep sonar equipment has not been able to find the bottom of them. Some geologists think it may be a large meteorite.

We visited Schmeiders cooperage where the bundy kegs, the gigantic barrels that hold all the bundy rum, are made by hand. The complex has art and crafts, glass blowing and demonstrations of coopering. Unfortunately there were no demos when we were there, we were a bit too early.
We visited all of the beaches in Bundaberg, Burnett Heads, Mon Repos, Bargara, Innes Park, Coral Cove and Elliott Heads. My favourite was Burnett Heads. From about November to May there are turtles nesting at Mon Repos.
After leaving Bundaberg our next stop was Agnes Water and Seventeen Seventy. Seventeen Seventy is of course where Captain Cook landed and there is a memorial erected to commemorate the exact spot where he landed.
From there we travelled to Gladstone and spent the night there. I’d have to say that Gladstone wasn’t the most exciting place. It has a large aluminium smelter on the bay at the edge of town which looks very impressive from the lookout in town. We visited the Tondoon Botanic Gardens and drove about 20kms out of town to the beachside towns of Boyne Island and Tannum Sands which is a long stretch of gorgeous white sand with views to the nearby islands.
Our next stop was Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia and the spot where you cross the Tropic of Capricorn. We were very impressed with Rocky. The very large and impressive Fitroy River meanders through town. There is a lovely Riverside Park and boardwalk alongside of the river with these balconies overhanging the river with picnic tables and electric bbq’s where we had a picnic lunch. We also wandered along Quay Street alongside of the river which is lined with elegant historic sandstone buildings dating back to the 1800’s.
Instead of spending the night in Rocky we drove to nearby Yeppoon and explored the beaches that make up the Capricorn Coast driving along the scenic coastal loop.
We visited Emu Park, home to the famous Singing Ship Sculpture which “sings” when the wind blows around and through its pipes. Set against a spectacular coastal view the monument commemorates Captain Cook. We visited several of the idyllic seaside villages, Zilzie, Keppel Sands and the man made harbour of Rosslyn Bay, Lammermoor and Kemp beaches. Great Keppel Island and some smaller Keppel islands are visible from all these beaches.
We decided to spend the night in Yeppoon, but it was a hard choice as all of the beaches and villages are equally stunningly beautiful. Our motel in Yeppoon was right opposite the beach and at sunset we witnessed the black and little red flying foxes rise spectacularly and extremely noisily as one to head off to their feeding grounds, awesome sight.
For dinner that night we decided that as we were in the beef capital of Australia we should have beef so we had rib eye fillet steak, probably the best steak we’ve ever eaten, so Rocky certainly lived up to it’s beef reputation in our estimation.
Next morning as we headed out of Rocky we stopped to visit Cathedral Caves located about 20kms from Rocky. The caves are a dry limestone cave system. We explored a labyrinth of large caves and saw some tiny rare bats, amazing fig tree roots and the awesome Cathedral Cave which has near perfect acoustics and is home to many concerts and weddings throughout the year. In December & January you can witness the Summer Solstice light spectacle where a beam of dazzling sunlight penetrates through a 14 metre vertical shaft into the darkened cavern below.
We were also offered to opportunity to try the aptly named laundry shute, a 30metre vertical shute that a few very adventurous people attempt by using nothing but their arms and legs against the sides as they go down. Colin went in the zig zag passage and crossed the swinging bridge to end the tour. I chose to walk out along the path.
From Rockhampton we drove on to Mackay where we are currently with Sarah and Paul at their house in Blacks Beach.