We are away again

Yes.  You heard me correctly.  We are in Biloela to help Judith and Grant with the running of their motel as they are full to capacity and have lots of breakfasts, lunches and dinners to provide.  As I said a few days ago, their manager has been taken very ill and after several days getting the run around from the Queensland Health Service, Lee is now home and we wish you a speedy recovery.  Our thoughts are with you and Margaret.

Biloela is 500km north west of the Sunshine Coast so were on the road for about 6 hours.  We arrived just after 5.00 pm in the evening and only one kangaroo crossed the road in front of us, but we had plenty of time to brake.  I also slowed down and travelled well below the speed limit, although lots of people passed me, but I would rather be safe and sure.  Don't mess with kangaroos.

When I last posted we were staying in Winton, so I shall pick up our travels from there as I have so many stories still to share.


At Winton we stayed in a cabin, which was a surprise to us, as it was very small and also very hot.  We coped alright with the bunk beds, but the bathroom was tiny.  Think of your average small toilet and throw in a shower at one end and one of those tiny skinny wall handbasins, but don't put a mirror on the wall.  We all became acrobats for a night trying to get changed in such a small space.  Judith did not get a good sleep and awoke with a very bad headache, but we fixed her up with toast and a cup of tea and she soon came right.

Winton has many local attractions. We found it a delightful and quirky town to visit.  We drove over to have a look at the Musical Fence.  Of course the children among us loved hitting the instruments with the pieces of pipe and hose provided.  Here is R about to play some hubcaps.

Grant had a wonderful time playing the fence strings like a guitar.

R was swinging this gas cylinder thing into a couple of rubbish bins.  The noise was deafening.

Then Judith got carried away with a set of drums.

It was all getting a bit loud for me, so I read up about the original Qantas Landing Ground.

We then drove round to have a look at Arno's Wall.  It has all sorts of stuff built into it.  Quite a novel idea and certainly a lifes work.

So that is what happened to my old sewing machine!

I think I will leave our story there for today and hope I get the chance between making sandwiches and meals to finish some more later.

Thank you for following my blog.  I would love to get some comments about what you would like to see more of, if you have the time.

Bye for now.

Winton - Camels

Continuing on from our side trip to the Age of Dinosaurs, we drove into Winton.  This is a lovely town.  Home of Waltzing Matilda, it has carvings in the main street about the song, so that visitors, who do not already know the song will remember it in future.  We drove around the town for a bit of a look before checking into our cabin.  More about that later.

We saw this wonderful new road train as we were driving round.  It seems the length of road trains has just been increased and they can have 4 trailers.  It is a very large truck indeed.

Here is another view.  He was just starting to pull away.

We went to check in to our cabin. Judith went to the office, while the three of us sat in the car waiting, and waiting.  Suddenly, she appeared at the door.  Come here quick. Bring your camera.  The office lady, plus helpers, was trying to entice two young camels into a horse trailer - without much success.  They got a rope and put it behind them, and the little dog was trying to help too, but the camels were trying to kick him.

Then the smart camels figured out that they could put their heads under the rope and slide underneath it.  So they did and galloped down to say hello to us!

Then the ladies managed to get halters on them and began the slow drag into the horse trailer.  They finally achieved it, but the camels were bawling and kicking all the way.  Such a noise!  But we eventually got checked in, although the poor lady was very hot and bothered.

We thought we would go out for a meal in a hotel.  These small country towns have wonderful old hotels and really good food.  Rump steak seems to feature in a lot of menus, but excellent steak.  Huge meals too.  I feel like an elephant.

Winton is not a very big town, but has two pubs (hotels). As well as a sprinkling of shops and local businesses. 

We decided on this one for our meal as it was a warm night and the tables on the footpath looked inviting.

There was hardly any traffic, not many people and it was that time of night when the sun gets that special glow.  The food was really good and we had a most enjoyable night.

The place filled up as it got darker, but by then we had finished our meal and were ready to brave our cabin!

I will tell you about that next time.  Quite a mission.

Enjoy your day, hug your children and kiss your husband or partner.

Back soon.  Bye

Plans blown apart

I am so sorry, that I haven't blogged for a few days. I was doing so well and then we got to Winton and lost all internet connection for a couple of days.  Well actually we were staying on a cattle station and had no phone contact either.  We had a wonderful time there, then moved on to Isisford where we stayed at Clancy's Hotel. The hotel was built in the late 1800's and had the sagging feeling you get in really old buildings. I had to walk uphill to my room! But no room to even put the laptop on my knee, so couldn't blog there either.
We moved on to Augathella and it was the All Blacks final match for the World cup, so once again no blog.  We travelled to Roma and it was there that everything fell apart.  Grant's brother, who is managing the motel for them while they are away fell ill and Judith and Grant had to drive home the very next day.
Which left us wondering how to get home and flying was the only reasonable option.  Well, most of you know how I feel about flying!  Anyway, that is just what we did. Hopped on a tiddly plane out of Roma and flew to Brisbane, then caught a Sunair bus up to the Sunshine Coast.
So we were home again.  However, I will still put up some of the photos from our trip as it was just so fantastic. 
Below is part of a blog I had already started about our expedition to dinosaur country.

Thursday 20 October
We were up early this morning as we wanted to walk down the road to watch the Spirit of the Outback go past. This is a train which comes twice a week through Longreach.

Returning to the camp we found some Brolga, which are large storks. We were able to get quite close as they seemed to be quite comfortable having people around.

We headed out of Longreach. More flat roads and not many trees. We stopped at a rest area for a cuppa, but it was quite windy so we didn't stay long.

And found the sign pointing to the Age of Dinosaurs.  Do we have to go up that hill?
Yes we do.

They had a place at the bottom of the hill to park campers and trailers as the road was too steep for them.  But the view from the top was magnificent.  You are looking at what was the dinosaurs garden over a million years ago. 

Of course it was hot.  We had our lunch while we waited for the next tour to start and a cute little bird paid us a visit with his wife to collect tiny insects off the car. This is a red-capped robin, the smallest and most brightly coloured of the red robins.

He was so smart and his little wife was quite plain compared with him.

We took a walk along a track to a lookout point and a goanna crossed our path.  He was not in the least concerned about us and walked just a couple of metres in front of us.  Such beautiful colouring.  His tongue was flicking in and out as he walked, looking for food.

We began our tour around the Age of Dinosaurs. It was a really interesting place to visit as almost every bone they had on display had a corresponding bone from a present day cow or similar so we could compare the sizes. Dinosaurs were massive!!  At the entrance the display showed a leg bone which had been painstakingly pieced together like a 3D bone jigsaw.  The little white bone in front is from a cow.

They told us all about how the bones are getting pushed up through the black soil of the plains, how they found them, how they go about digging them out and then how they encase them in the foil and plaster jackets to protect them from the corrosive effects of moisture and air.

They currently have enough bones in storage to keep them busy for another 26 years!  They are building another facility which will give them better working conditions and enable them to have more workers, but most of the work is voluntary and uses volunteers. Anyone from the age of 12 years and over can volunteer to go on a dig and perhaps find a new dinosaur. 
We walked through the area where they work on the bones. They use very fine equipment, a bit like dentists drills to get the earth and rock off the bones so they can study them in detail.  One of the bones they showed us has been 9 years work!  Can you imagine that?  This is the area of the big tin shed where they do this work. 

We saw the bones of Banjo and Matilda.  Banjo was an Australovenator wintonensis, which is a swift predator with 30 cm claws and flesh slicing teeth, and Matilda which was a Diamantinasaurus matildae which was a herbivorous giant of a sauropod 16 metres long. W O W! (I love the way those names sound, don't you? They just sort of roll off your tongue.)

Here is Banjo.

And here are some of the hind leg and hip bones of Matilda.  If the guide reached his arm above his head, he could scratch her stomach!  She was HUGE.

We treated ourselves to an icecream after the tour as it was so very hot and then made our way back down the hill to Winton.

I had better end this post here.  It has taken me about 4 days to get this one up because the photos wouldn't load properly. I need to find a better way to do this!

Thank you for reading and I will be back soon.

Stay safe. I love you.

Qantas Founders Museum in Longreach.

Hello again.  We are seeing so much good stuff that it is really hard to find the time to get it all onto my blog because it takes over an hour for each one.  Generally it is loading the pictures that takes the time, but they are so worth the effort, don't you think?

On Wednesday morning we started out by heading straight down to the LSODE or Longreach School of Distance Education.  This is where the education is sent out to all the children on remote stations in this part of Queensland. We watched a teacher taking a preschool class over the radio and took a tour through the building.  They have 7 studios, but they need eight. One for each grade.  They also have students come to stay for up to a week at a time to meet others in their grade and it also gives the mothers time to socialise with mothers of other children.  The parents, usually the mothers have to supervise the children at their lessons.  Each family has a computer and a radio, and the work is sent out each fortnight by mail.

This is a picture of part of the administration area, showing some of the children's assignment work which has been sent in for marking.

After we left the school, we headed into town for a coffee at Kinnon and Co, where they have lots of old time memorabilia.  This stagecoach was in one corner of the yard.  Looked very uncomfortable inside.

Then in another area was this display. I giggled when I saw the empty beer bottles in the crate as I haven't seen that sight for a long time.

We had our coffee and some scones and jam. R had some delicious looking gluten free loaf.

Then off to the Qantas museum.  It is easy to find. Just look for the 747 parked beside the main road into Longreach.

Inside the museum there is so much to see. Lots of displays about the founders of Qantas. A couple of motor vehicles, such as this Model T.

And this bus. The seats looked a bit hard on this bus too.  Old timers must have been pretty tough and hardy.

I liked this display! Took the words right out of my mouth.

They had lots of models of the first planes circling on a track above our heads. Here are two of my favourites.

This was an impressive plane, but still not one I would have had the confidence to fly in.

J, G & R took a tour of the Boeing 707 and had a look in the door of the 747, then we went out to the engineering workshop where they used to make the first planes.  It was warm enough when we were there, but it would have been most uncomfortably hot for the first mechanics. We took a look in this plane. It seated 7 people, but the pilot sat alone in a seat up behind them.

That was enough sightseeing for that day. We were worn out.  This place is definitely worth a look if you ever get to Longreach.

Tomorrow we leave this town and head over to Winton.  See you there.

Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame

Wow.  What a magnificent place.
This is a museum with 5 themed galleries displaying some of Australia's greatest explorers, Aborigines, stock workers and pastoralists.
We strolled through the displays, but as the lady said at the counter on the way in, "You might need more than one day to see it all." Our old eyes found it hard to read some of the information as the lighting was a bit dim in places.  I will just show you some of the highlights.
It is a huge place.

Inside the displays included a traders wagon,

A huge bullock cart,

A wool press,

and a Furphy.

It also had lots of information boards and this one tells us the story of how a rumour came to be named a furphy.

Interactive displays told us about all manner of things.  This one was about pests and plagues with movies of mouse and locust plagues.

A pioneer kitchen. It is scary how much of this stuff is familiar to us.

A display of post office and telephone equipment.

After a cup of coffee, we all went outside to watch the outback show.  This man had some very funny jokes, and his horse was very well trained. Here he is lining the horse up to pick his hat up for him.

He rode around telling us stories and jokes.

Then he had some long involved story about jumping naked over the chairs. Something like bareback, no saddle, no bridle etc.

No saddle, no bridle, no horse...

No saddle, no bridle and no rider.

Then he brought his other horse over with some long story about how to ride a wild horse. He put a blanket on the horses back and the horse pulle it off. Then he put a saddle on it's back and the horse lay down because it did not want to be ridden.

After that story he brought out the camel.

And told another funny story about what the camel said.  Memory is a bit bad about this joke, but the camel told it very well. Here he is telling us the story.

Then he asked his dog to go and get some cattle.  He counted out on his fingers how many he wanted.

And here they come. They are very big and have horns.

They all lined up and he hitched them into a team, just like they used to do in pioneer days.

They walked out of the yard and he hitched them to a log, which they dragged back into the show ring. He showed us how easy it was to get the log onto the wagon.  Very interesting.

After the show we walked over and had a beefburger at the Cattlemans Bar and Grill.  We went back inside the Hall to finish looking at the exhibits. It was quite late when we left there and it does take a long time to get around and see it all.

Later that day after a rest at our unit, we went down to the Iningai Park Nature Reserve to hopefully spot some birds or wildlife. We did see some kangaroos, but they were a long ways off.  We chatted to an old man who had planted some red gums about 7 or 8 years ago.  He had a long term view of things as he said, "they will look really good in another 30 or 40 years time!"  There is no way he will last long enough to see that.  He told us he had seen emus with chicks at that spot yesterday, but of course there was no sign of them while we were there.  The men rested under a coolibah tree, while Judith and I did some exploring.

That was about it for that long day.  We are all sleeping well, but wake very early.

I hope you are enjoying my tales.  Tomorrow, I will show you some pictures of our trip to the Qantas Air Museum.

Bye for now and have a good day.