6 March 2013 - Longreach Caravan Park, Longreach, Queensland

This morning dawned while we watched through the open blinds. The kookaburras had woken us in time to do so; our day started earlier than we have been accustomed to. Preparing breakfast, I found the milk had curdled; this comes of travelling long distances with the fridge turned off. I shall have to start making smaller quantities up; just enough for Chris’s daily cornflakes.

Breakfast over, we set off along the river, or rather the chain of ponds, on the Coolabah Walk, back toward  Tambo and to the site of the Quantas de Havilland DC9 plane crash back on 24 March 1827. There were three lives lost, the captain just twenty seven years old. The spot is marked with a plaque attached to a chunk of petrified wood, fenced off from the grazing cattle in the paddock. Those cattle were a little feisty and protective of their calves as we wandered up what might still be a simple airstrip, so we were a little cautious.

Our camp beside the Barcoo

The bird life back along the river was just wonderful. I have never heard so many kookaburras in one place and at one time. They were in fine company too, a great flock of sulphur crested cockatoos and several colourful mulga parrots. Most of the birds we have encountered on our travels over the last few days have been those along the road; crows, falcons and other birds of prey, all taking care of the road kill and generally tidying up the scene.

Returning to our camp, it was still too early for the local gallery and so we drove slowly through Tambo, noting the old buildings but otherwise focused on the road ahead. The land had opened right up with little scrub and so very green, with the odd prickly pear bush and bottle tree to draw one’s eye.

We stopped for a comfort stop north of Tambo and I just had to call Chris into the ladies loo to share my discovery. When I flushed, as you do when there is a flush loo, a long slimy leg protruded from the lip of the pan, then another, a scrambling of lower body, a leg again and then out of sight. Fortunately this was not a first for me; I had encountered this is in a toilet  north of Atherton but not been able to share this startling experience with my husband. Today there was no one else about and so it was not unseemly at all to invite my husband to join me in the ladies loo. I flushed again and this time Chris was able to see the desperate clambering of the loo-living frog.

Road trains have joined us on the Landsborough Highway and never fail to amaze me. They pass us while towing two or three trailers frequently disregarding no passing double lines. Perhaps they can see over rises and around corners from the height of their cabs, unlike us who trundle along at ten kilometres below the speed limit.

We pulled into Blackall in the sunshine and found a flat spot a couple of blocks back from the main street. Blackall with just 1,160 people manages to cope with a discreet superette, a newsagency, a chemist, the post office, a bank, a lawyer and two accountants. The town was very quiet although the couple of folk we encountered were very friendly. We did think it might be interesting to do a tour of the Woolscour workings, but then found that this particular tourist attraction was four kilometres out . We wandered down to the Barcoo River, more than one hundred kilometres downstream from our over night camp. Quite incorrectly, we assumed the river would have found some life, some volume and flow, but it was no more than the series of puddles we had seen earlier in the day.

One of the many sculptures in Blackall

We did find however find the few modern sculptures about the town  thought prevoking and rather at odds with the down to earth happenings of these rural areas. Some artists do waffle on, quite off putting to the average Joe (or Bronwyn).

One of the more relevant sculptures in the town is very significant celebrating Jack Howe who on 10 October 1892 achieved the incredible feat of shearing 321 sheep in seven hours and forty minutes with blade shears. This record still stand today although shearers using electric machinery have moved on to greater records. I was quite impressed with that record because I remember that my father, who did work as a professional shearer for several years, was shearing that sort of tally with mechanised shearing equipment and he was considered no slug.

We also checked out the Black Stump, marking the site of the Astro Station which was established n 1887 and was used by surveyors in the mapping of Queensland. This where the saying “Beyond the Black Stump” originated. We ourselves are now beyond the Black Stump.

Barcaldine lies almost directly north of Blackall, yet another one hundred kilometres or so. We pulled into a rest area about thirty kilometres south and lunched before pushing on into this junction town of 1,640 people and a wealth of history.

Here under a great spreading tree by the town’s railway station  in 1891, the five years of disagreement between pastoralists and shearers over the decision to lower the price  of payment for shearing sheep, came to an end. Here the Queensland Shearer’s Union was formed, leading  the way for the birth of other unions and the nemesis of the Australian Labor Party.

Wooden wind chimes about the Tree of Knowledge

Over the years the tree has become a symbol of struggle and become known as the Tree of Knowledge. Sadly the tree has struggled with old age, weather events and finally poisoning from an unknown source and only a rather dead looking scrap of it exists today. However the thought of loosing this great shrine was too much for the powers that be and so an amazing memorial has been built over these remnants, at the jaw dropping cost of $8 million! Standing under this memorial, it is as if one is beneath a tree of wooden wind chimes. The work is quite incredible but also quite absurd. I detected the same sentiment from the few locals we spoke to as well, one of whom suggested the money could have been better used for extensions to the hospital.

I was interested in the Australian Workers Heritage Centre, which apparently celebrates the achievements of the working men and women of Australia in keeping with unions and the union funded political party. While neither of us have leanings to these philosophies, I thought it would do us no harm to learn some history. On learning the entry fee we decided to give it a miss and press on along our way.

Barcaldine is an attractive town, much more so than those to the south we had come through, and in some ways it was a disappointment that we did not take more time to check it out further.

The last hundred kilometres on to Longreach, passes through more open lush country along roads undergoing major reconstruction. The sign at the edge of Barcaldine advised the roads beyond Longreach to Cloncurry and Mt Isa were open, however that from Barcaldine to Longreach required one to “Proceed with Caution”. It was evident from several temporary signs along the way that stretches of the road had been under water in the past twelve hours, even six hours, however it had all receded now. But alas much of the road was as bad as that we had driven across in the morning and worse when we passed over the roadworks. We were not happy when a stone shot off an oncoming truck and chipped the windscreen. This will need attention sooner rather than later.

We came straight to this camp and did wonder whether we had chosen well. The hours in between have improved matters and I am happy to have endless power and be able to past a week’s blog and catch up with computer matters all round.