The Fossilised West

Finally, some internet! We have only had it sparingly since leaving Emerald, tracking west. We made it to Barcaldine, checked out the tree of Knowledge, that is not so wise anymore since being poisened four years ago. Still, it was the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party (well one of them, seems to me that wherever there was a shearers strike was the birthplace of the ALP). We kept tracking west until we hit Longreach where we snagged a free campsite by the Thompson River.

At Longreach, we visited the Stockman's Hall of Fame, which was really interesting but my goodness was it a lot of reading! We then travelled out to Starlight's Lookout. Now, before I describe this venture, let me discribe the landscape of Longreach...it's flat. That's pretty much it. Beautiful in its own way, but as flat as the ocean (well, even flatter, given the lack of waves and surge). Trees and scrub dotted around, but its all dry creek beds and long dry grasses, gravel rocks and short shrubs. Starlight's Lookout is a small mound I guess of rock, in the middle of nowhere, and it is rumoured to be the lookout of Mr Redford, a cattle duffer who stole 1000 head of cattle and drove them to South Australia where he sold them. He was later caught, tried and found not guilty. So much for justice. It is rumoured the he, or one of his men climbed this mound and kept lookout. Because seriously, due to the flatness, you can see a great long way from the top.

Unfortunately, it was here we lost a bolt on the shock absorber, and had to drive very carefully back to Longreach. We still had some decent views though. That night we went to the best of the St Kilda Film Festival, which is currently touring Australia. It was brilliant. Only a small community event, but we met some terrifically nice people and really enjoyed the 15 or so small films, all Australian, most of which were very witty and good. It was tops.

The next day we went through the QANTAS museum. The birth of this international airline is really terrific - Two WW1 pilots started it as a taxi and mail service to people of western Queensland as the roads were often impassable. Who would have thought? It also contributed to the begining of the Royal Flyning Doctors Service, as John Flynn, the founder of that particular service was good mates with old mate who started QANTAS. We then took off on the road again, braved the kangaroos who could potentially be our death by stupidly bounding in front of the car in the dwindling twilight and headed for Winton.

We covered the dinosaur trail, saw ancient dino footprints at Winton, sea creature bones at Richmond and more bones and fossils again in Hughenden. By now we were totally museumed out.

We made our way to Townsville, finally, stopping briefly in Charters Towers, a terrific town I would not mind living in. We drove into town around 6:30 last night, had dinner with Jacinta at the Baptist Church where she lives and trecked up Castle Mountain in the middle of Townsville to see a 360 degree view of the lights. That was great. This morning we are making preparations to head over to Magnetic Island, or 'maggie' as we should call it apparently (Magpie Island, according to Caleb). Keep watch for these adventures in the next few days!