Still outback Qld

Thursday 24/09/09

Well we packed up this morning & left Longreach & travelled 27km to Ilfracombe (population 300). Not a lot to see here, although they do have what they call “The Machinery Mile – this lines one side of the main street & displays all sorts of machinery from standing engines to earthmoving machinery, vehicles & equipment. The Wellshot Hotel is another character hotel (as most of these places seem to have). This one has a bar made from the wool press & had shearing heads on the walls in the dining room.

From here we continued another 100km to Isisford (130 population). Have a look at the photo of the sign as you drive into Isisford - one mighty uphappy Shire wouldn't you say!! We decided to camp here for the night down at the Barcoo River camp area – cost was $2!! We also met up with Colin & Bev (met them at Longreach) at this camping spot. The thing of interest here, for us, was the visit to Isis Downs Shearing Shed. You have to see this to believe it. It is the largest in Australia. The original shearing shed burnt down in 1912 & this huge semi-circular construction was fabricated in England, shipped to Australia and built in 1913 by the same company that built the Sydney Harbour Bridge. (There are only 2 in the world the other one being in Argentina). The most sheep shorn in any one year was 230,000- 150,000 shorn in 1970 @ 5,000/day! Shearing ceased here in 2004. Isis Downs was once owned by Kerry Packer.

Friday 25/9/09

Now on to Blackall. I think we must be doing a bit of a sheep tour in these places. Blackall has a Woolscour plant that operated from 1908 – 1978. This historic wool washing plant operated on steam and is the only complete operation of its kind left in Australia, with the original steam machinery still in place. During May to August they have the steam engine going every day for the tours but after that the demonstration is with electricity. Definitely worth a visit if your into the sheep industry. Also out at the Woolscour plant was an artesian bore – this bore went down 2500 ft!! The water gushing out from the pipe was a very hot 58 degrees..

Another visit was to the “Black Stump”. Yep we found it. Not really much to look at. Also took in the statue of “Jack Howe – Legendary Shearer” – in 1892 he shore a record of 321 sheep in 7 hours 40 minutes!!!

Most of these towns have been built on the sheep industry & a lot have now gone over to cattle breeding. (Certainly most of the people living in these towns fit the description of cowboys – there cowboy hats always on their heads!!)

After having a wander around the town we continued our travels onto Tambo. A bigger town – population 640. We are camped at a free camp spot on the Barcoo River about 2kms out of town. Tambo had its first (& I think only) QANTAS plane crash here with a DH9C-G-AUED plane which crashed on 24 March 1927 killing all on board. It was interesting to see in one of the hotels in town a picture of the horse “Northerly” – good to see WA cracks a mention sometimes over east.

Saturday 26/9/09

We have decided to camp here another day – we are already set up with the television, etc so think we may as well watch the AFL here. We have been out and driven around Tambo & seen the “points of interest” that most of these towns put in brochures for the tourists to check out.

All these towns have been immaculate in presentation, cleanliness & friendliness. We do wonder how they survive with such small populations as most of them having at least 2 hotels & sometimes a club, as well as some even have 2 supermarkets. Most of these towns also have terrific sporting facilities including golf clubs, bowls clubs, tennis courts. I guess it just shows that if the community gets behind the towns they can survive. Tourism is slowing down for a lot of these places now – main tourism is during May – August.

Tomorrow we will make our way towards Charleville.

Oh well must go get the cheese/biscuits & a drink ready so we can watch the footy. I don’t actually care who wins as long as it is a good game – Pat is going for the “Cats”.

Sunday 27/8/09

Well the football was a great match to watch wasn’t it!! Feel very sorry for the Saints having lead at each quarter and then to lose in the last quarter – but as we know that’s football.

After a fairly cold night (for what we have become use to – 8 degrees) we packed up this morning and are off to the next place.

The wind is pretty strong & very dusty. Augathella was another small town & being a Sunday nothing was happening. The only thing of interest was the mural of “Smiley” – anyone remember the Smiley movies???

So after Pat got himself an icecream & we had both wandered up & down the main street (5 minutes) we continued on to Charleville.

Charleville has a population of 3,500. We have booked into the caravan park & got our 10% Top Tourist Discount. (If you intend to travel it is quite a good idea to make use of some of these caravan park discounts.) We will probably spend 2 nights here. This afternoon there was entertainment put on by a bloke by the name of Ernie Adams. He showed us aboriginal paintings, aboriginal artefacts & then showed us (& played) several different types of didgeridoos. (He even explained the meaning behind some of those "dot" paintings - they make a bit more sense to us now - not enough to buy one mind.) After that we went off to the RSL Club for dinner & a bit of a gamble on the pokies.

Tomorrow Pat wants to visit the Bureau of Meteorology & watch the Weather Balloon Release.

That’s it for now – will update again soon.

Bye for now

Sep 27, 2009

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