Longreach and Winton

Monday. Today we visited the Qantas Founders Museum and toured a 747 and 707 as well as the original hangar. At Outback Pioneers we had the excitement of a stagecoach ride through a bush track which was once a Cobb & Co route.

Tuesday - today headed to Winton and visited the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Centre. What a great place. We saw the actual bones of Banjo and Matilda, viewed the Fossil Laboratory, the Collection Room and then a shuttle ride to Dinosaur Canyon. This is the first phase of a Museum of Natural History to be built as an international centre of excellence for research.
After 3 hours here we drove into Winton to see the re-built Waltzing Matilda Centre, following its destruction by fire in 2015. Finally we drove East back to Longreach.
Tomorrow is my final day and it will start with a helicopter ride over the area, a visit to the School of the Air (Distance Education) and the Stockman’s Hall of Fame.

On the Road again

We finally left Injune Friday afternoon and stopped at Mitchell overnight at the Neil Turner Weir. It was amazing to see the weir overflowing after all the rain. Saturday we travelled through Morven, Augathella, Tambo and stopped at Blackall. We spent an hour at the Aquatic Centre enjoying the warm artesian spa water. Today we are on the last leg to arrive at Barcaldine for a brief stop and then finally Longreach.

Injune in April in the wet

Anzac Day
The expected starter motor did NOT arrive on Wednesday, and again because of the public holiday we now have to wait until Friday. We have now cancelled out Winton and will be just happy to get to Longreach.
It poured rain non stop all day Wednesday and this morning had to be winched out of our boggy spot to higher ground. We were invited to attend the Anzac Day Parade in town by the caravan park hosts, followed by a bbq lunch at the Bowls Club. To show our gratitude for all that these wonderful people have done for us we pitched in to help prepare the food. At least it has stopped raining and we can only hope to get on our way tomorrow.

A surprise at Injune

Day 4 & 5.
We are still stationary at Possum Park Injune, filling in our time relaxing, reading and stitching/crocheting. Del got a call from her Son Brendan last night to say he and his family were coming down from Gladstone to visit and camp the night here with us. They had originally planned the surprise for meeting up at Carnarvon Gorge. We had a great get together and they cooked a delicious camp oven chicken dinner for us tonight. Brendan’s wife Bec got a large splinter of wood wedged under her big toenail whilst on the Lagoon Walk this afternoon and had a trip to Injune hospital to have a doctor remove the stick. So life is far from dull in Injune.

Day 6 (Easter Monday)
A walk into town this morning for a real coffee and get a few supplies at Spar Supermarket.
Not much else to report at our enforced wait. Roll on Wednesday when hopefully we will be on the road again.

Not on the Way

Day 3 - Injune to Injune
The Motorhome would not start after stopping at the dump point at Caltex garage in Injune this morning. A friendly mine worker diagnosed that something was shorting out the battery and had in fact melted the battery terminal, rendering the vehicle undriveable. A call to Roadside Assist said a tilt tray had to come from Roma (100 km away) and take it back to Roma, but as it is Good Friday they couldn’t come til Saturday. Our kind campsite park caretakers towed us back to the campsite. RACQ arrived early on Saturday and replaced the battery, but diagnosed the starter motor was the cause of the fault and needed replacing. Not possible until Tuesday, but as the part coming from Brisbane, not being repaired until Wednesday.
So - no visit to Carnarvon Gorge, but we hope to still make Winton and Longreach.
We have been so well looked after by the amazing people in Injune, so we are safe, although a little disappointed in having to change our plans.

Along the Way

Day 1 - Brisbane to Columboola. A great start until we reached the bottom of the Toowoomba Range, where we got stuck behind an extremely wide load truck transporting a section of a wind farm tower. It was a VERY slow trip up. Stopped at the Big Watermelon at Chinchilla. Columboola is about 10 km east of Miles, where we stayed on a 200 acre property in peaceful surroundings.

Day 2 - Columboola to Injune
Stopped at Dulacca for morning tea, after having to stop at the stop sign in the middle of nowhere, then on to Roma for lunch.