Holidays – week 2 2021
Words to come. Photos each day
Week 2 (7 May 2021) and haven’t we covered some ground – Charleville to Lara Wetlands, through Longreach to Winton where one of my ancestors on my mother’s side was involved in the shearer’s strikes of 1890’s. My great-grandfather lived at Winton. It’s been an interesting week with some truly amazing parts of the country.
Day 8 of this escapade saw us travelling to Charleville. We had a morning chorus of birds and the accompanying dulcet tones of heavy haulage moving through Mitchell through the night. “Without trucks, Australian stops” is really brought home when you are travelling these areas. Signs say to watch for the road trains with 3/4 trailers measuring up to 53m long. Think about that for a moment – the ability needed to drive the truck, negotiate the streets/areas they go through and the manoeuvring required for such a rig. It is also brought home when you go to a bakery and ask for a lactose free coffee – I know, precious – but they are out of stock waiting on the delivery run.
Heading out of Charleville we fuelled up – $133.9/litre for 91 ULP. When we left Brisbane over a week ago it was nearly $1.70 per litre (we heard it was about $1.80 in some places). How is it with transport costs….let’s not debate this here. You really start to appreciate the work that was required to explore and survey this country, to set up the infrastructure we take for granted and establish the towns, which are dying.
At Charleville, spend some time at the Cosmos Centre and experience the ability to look at the sun then go back for the nighttime show. Well worth the visit. We travelled an easy 200km or so for this day.
Leaving Charleville on day 9, we stopped for fuel and saw a group of Asian persons with 4WD motor vehicles, all the gear and no idea. It really seemed unwise to simply be letting out air from the tyres, without a gauge, however, sometimes lessons have to be learnt the hard way. This time, fuel was $1.59 for 98. We travel to Augathella, Tambo, Blackall and on to Lara Station Wetlands. A quiet 414km. It is a Saturday and they have a camp dinner – $25 for 3 courses, simple flavoursome food and entertainment. We partake of pea and ham soup, veges potato meatball sausage and gravy, and damper with jam and cream. Good feed. Now, as for the night-time star show on an amazing bed of velvet night sky with lots of twinkly diamonds – that is something to behold. At least 2 nights needs to be spent to truly appreciate the beauty of this place.
There are lots of tiny birds darting about, various coloured bigger birdies, gaggles of kookaburras laughing, a kite circling around its domain and making its presence known. You can spend hours sitting watching the sunrise, the sunset and the bird show. This was when we got tired – a lot of doing nothing and taking in serenity.
The morning of day 11 sees us on the road at 8.20 after a gorgeous sunrise at 6.45. The morning warms quickly after a cool night. The car is now a lovely shade of dust but it will become one of “outback sunset” later this week. We head on to Barcaldine and see lots of kites circling above us. We mosey through Ilfracombe and stop at the fantastic Welshot Hotel – you simply must stop in and say hi and have a beverage. Visit the loos for the fun toilet seat emulating the redback on the toilet seat.
This is hard country – the words of Dorothea McKellar ring in our ears as we navigate through this region in our comfy, air conditioned, imported motoring device, so different from what my distant family members would have endured coming out to these regions and living here. We call through Longreach – visit the Station Store simply for the olde worlde aspect of the shop as well as the range of bits and pieces. It is a hot 30 degrees with no breeze as we stop in town. We now experience heat haze – another aspect that would have been traumatic for those who came out to these areas way back in the beginning. There are long straight roads, for miles and miles as far as the eye can see – you almost get to the point of celebrating a bend, not a sharp one, but a small change from the straight you have been driving for half an hour – although this is not the only long straight road we experience. Tonight we stop at Winton where, for a Monday night it seems very busy at the Tattersalls Hotel and pretty busy at the North Gregory where we partook of a pretty good feed and a cleansing ale and ginger beer. We camp at a caravan park – $30 per night for powered site, access to washing machines (no charge) and toilets/showers. Pretty good value and we meet some great people, swapping stories.
Day 12 dawns with a mosey around town, visit to the cemetery to try and find a grave then on to the Waltzing Matilda Centre – worth the entry. We have booked for Age of Dinosaurs so off we trot to the first part of our ticket. Whilst it is pricey for Australian attractions, it is worth it for the history that is being protected and the long term investment being made. You have to venture out to understand what is going on, the preservation works and process, the actual fossil remains that were trucked in from another location to protect and save them.
The water is artesian and has a delightful aroma and taste of sulphur. It does make ones’ hair nice and soft when bathing.
The morning of day 13 sees an early start to navigate out the 100+km to Lark Quarry. Again, whilst it is long way and the tour is about 30/40 minutes, this is a one in the world example of a dinosaur stampede and the prehistory is something else. Winton was located around where Tasmania is today – it was rain forest and inland sea. This fossil is in situ and has 1,300 prints that have been identified. Whilst not enormous, it is big enough and 95 million years old. Once exposed, it is vulnerable – you forget these things when you look at prehistoric rock… The upheaval of the earth makes you contemplate, again, the vastness of time and the changes that have occurred, not just in the short time it has taken us to travel from Brisbane and experience this wilderness.
We marvel at the gliding of the kites, soaring on and riding the thermals – gorgeous and seemingly free. Heading back from Lark Quarry, we stop in to Skull Hole. Simply, wow. I need to read more about the warring Aboriginal tribes that met here. The location is beautiful the outcome pretty vicious. As we return to town, we notice wild dog carcasses hung from trees. The reasoning for this we don’t yet know but it does seem strange to us city folk. Today has been 262km.
Our last morning in Winton dawns day 14. We are packed and ready for breakfast at the bakery at 7.50am, before embarking on our longest day to date – 575km. Over the breakfast planning meeting, we change the itinerary from Hughenden to Muttaburra to Muttaburra then to Aramac and the Lake Dunn Sculpture Trail then back to Muttaburra. Whilst there is a short amount of backtrack, our first so far, the change of plans was absolutely worth it.
We re-enter the Lake Eyre Basic – you never realised it went so far did you? The landscape is quite prehistoric and in some places barren yet in others quite green from the summer rains that actually made it through this year. We notice the decline in the towns – the reduction in size due to the reduced wool prices, the reduced number of shearing teams that each number 10, the children attending the schools and the onflow economic effect that this change of economy has.
Coming from Winton we turn off at Morella and commence 80km or so of well-maintained gravel road. We had certainly not anticipated this trip when we bought our car however, we must say that our Skoda Karoq has stood up to the challenges thrown at it over the last few days with all the dirt and road corrugations. She does look a lovely two tone shade of white and something resembling red dirt. Anyways, we travel the road to Muttaburra and find it hard to imagine the flood water levels as we mosey along. But then, I guess, if there is enough rain and it runs off to start with, it can only bank up. You can see the broken creek banks and damaged roadways. Our final part of the day is the Lake Dunn Sculpture Trail – what a fabulous way to spend several hours, driving around the country, spotting sculptures and seeing wildlife. We were blessed with an echidna, emus, kangaroos and, nor so much, a snake. We saw plenty of healthy looking beef in the making and had a thoroughly wonderful time.
It is interesting to meet travellers and hear stories. I must admit to being gobsmacked at one I heard today – a caravaner/motorhomer who boasted that they had not bought toilet paper for 20 years. You wonder why the toilet paper rolls are padlocked in place – you can thank these delightful scumbags for that effort. This trip makes you so much more aware of a few things – courtesy on the road, the preciousness of water, basic respect.
Our return to town was dinner at the Exchange Hotel – 2 good meals and 2 schooners of beer was $64. Our accommodation tonight is a lovely 3 bedroom with full kitchen house – $85. This follows an amazing sunset which ranged in colour from orange, through yellows and bronze, indigo, pink and light blues – simply amazing. What a country and we still have another couple of weeks of exploring ahead. Stay tuned.
