Week 2 - Purposeful Meandering Around Oz

Charleville – Longreach – Winton – Cloncurry

Kilometres          1715 - 3119 km

Our 2^nd week started with a 6am start from Charleville, we had over 500km to cover on our 1^st day plus a heap of sightseeing before we’d reach Longreach and a 3 night stay. Our early start meant that we saw a lot more wildlife. There were Kangaroos, sheep, wild pigs, donkeys, hares, echidnas, emus and heaps of wazza-roos littering the highway. Pushing north we were amazed by the transformation of the ever changing scenery. One minute we’d have limited views due to the heavily wooded eucalyptus forests, next it would be the barren harsh outback with nothing but flat paddocks. It was through these areas that we saw our first Boab tree, the kids reminded us that these are the upside down trees, apparently referencing a book they read at school. We stopped at Blackall where we visited a fully restored Wool Scouring facility with it’s own artesian bore…. We all thoroughly enjoyed this place.

Wool Scouring

We stopped at the “tree of knowledge” in Barcaldine (which had no effort on me) before arriving in Longreach late in the afternoon. The first thing you notice arriving in Longreach is the huge QANTAS 747 plane that sits beside the highway. Wow! We booked into a van park for 3 nights and quickly settled back into the “slow n steady” pace of nomadic travellers and “happy hour”.

Not what you expect to see in the outback

Our first full day in Longreach started slowly, we got a handle on the tourist attractions and planned our days accordingly. Heading into town for some essential items a funny story unfolded. We were shopping at one supermarket thinking that things were pretty dear, so we opted to try another supermarket, only to realise later there wasn’t any other choice. So we ate humble pie and paid the elevated prices which the locals pay daily. We completed our day by spending a few hours at the QANTAS Founders Museum where we learnt about the early beginnings of Australian aviation.

Stockman's Hall of Fame

This guy put on an amazing show

On our 2^nd day in Longreach and we visited the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame where we walked through the displays before taking in the Outback Stockman’s Show. We were all in awe of the way the horse handler controlled the various animals beyond belief. It was here that we bumped into a work friend of Dave’s and after some small chat we organised to meet up for drinks later that afternoon. We met Murray and Leanne at our van park where we shared many a story of both our trips so far. It felt uncanny seeing friends from home over 2000km away.

Drinks with Murray and Leanne

 Our time in Longreach was soon over and we headed to Winton, along the way we stopped at the Australian Age of Dinosaur exhibit where we saw various dinosaur bones reportedly to be over 90 million years old. Once in Winton we saw Arno’s junk wall and the very popular musical fence which had all of us belting out a tune on the junk instruments. The home of Waltzing Matilda is supposed to originate from these parts and we took in some of its history. We spent a lovely night free camping down by a water lagoon. It was here that woke to see our coat-of-arms eating and drinking only metres from our van.

Part of Arno's Wall

Sam belting out a tune at the Music Fence

The dusty environment and rocky roads have impacted on everything we own, our clothes, our 4WD, the trailer connections and even Leonie’s pushbike has given us grief, but its all part of being on the road.

Capturing this harsh land

Our 1st wild Camel

 On Friday we stopped for a pub counter lunch at McKinlay. This one-horse town has no ordinary pub, it’s the “Walkabout Creek Pub” that was used in the Crocodile Dundee movie. Plenty of memorabilia adorns the walls but sadly Hogs was nowhere to be seen. By mid-afternoon we’d arrived in Cloncurry which is an outback mining town, we seen some of the biggest road-trains here, with most of them being 4 trailers long. That night we headed out of town to a place Murray and Leanne had recommended, Clem Walton Park which is on the banks of the Corrella Dam. We spent 2 relaxing nights here where the kids got to catch up on some school work and by night we were mesmerized by the campfire.  

Now thats a road train

On Sunday we packed up for the drive to Mount Isa only to see our day buckle before us. The drum brake and bearing on the van collapsed. The shock of the situation soon gave way to the realisation that we had to fix it as we were in the middle of nowhere, but breaking down in the bush on a Sunday isn’t a good thing as nothing opens in the country on a Sunday. So we unpacked the van again and got stuck into the repairs and spent another night camped in the bush.

Bush camping near Cloncurry

Week 2 didn’t finish the way we expected but the week was full of excitement and lots new adventure. Once again we been been blessed with fantastic weather for this time of year. The nights have still been cool but the days have been averaging 25-deg.