126 Kms Winton to Opalton then Lark Quarry

Day 16


Today we went for a long drive out into Opalton were we found Opals,but they were tiny.


Then we drove further to Lark Quarry were there are dinosaur foot print fossils, but we missed the final tour so we didn't get to see it, but walked around the conservation park which was interesting.

179 Kms Longreach to Winton

Day 15

Today we went back to the Stockmans Hall of fame and had a look at the rest of the exhibits. There was a lovely memorial garden at the front of the grounds with lots of brass statues.

Then drove to Winton ,were we stayed behind the North Gregory Hotel, which is were the song Waltzing Matilda was first sung.

The Hotel was right next to Arno's wall, which is a wall that has things cemented into it , making it more a work of art.

Longreach - Saxophone Lesson by the banks of the Thompson River

My first Saxophone Lesson

Mum set up a picnic by the Thompson River we had a bite to eat and, went fishing the Dad gave me my first lesson.





We looked a music first the practised some notes, before playing a tune.

Longreach - School of the Air

Day 14
Today we went to The School of The Air and had a look around it was pretty cool and now that I've said this I want to clear something I'm not doing school of the air I'm doing home school, OK.

They enrol prep to year 12 and they often have get-togethers. Before we left mum bought me a shirt as a souvenir.

27 kms to Longreach

After arriving in Longreach and settling in at the Caravan Park we planned the next day to start looking around. But before that we collected our first shipment of mail from the local post office.




Day 13
Today we went to the QANTAS Founders Museum which is the first head quarters of Qantas, but its no longer active and we went for a tour of the 747 Jumbo Jet and our tour guide let us do some things that we didn't pay for (I got to go under the floor) and I sat in the pilot's seat and then she let us go in the other plane.


They've got the Boeing 707 which was a privet jet for a Saudi Prince Bandar for free, if we had paid for that part of the tour, it would of cost another $100 so it was great a bonus.

The plane was really luxurious with lots of timber panels and the bathrooms had solid gold fittings.






We went to the Stockmans Hall of fame it is pretty cool but we didn't see all of the museum, which was OK because we went back later.

80 Kms Barcaldine to Ilfracombe

We drove to Longreach and on the way we stopped at Ilfracombe.




Ilfracombe is a tiny town with only 190 living in town.






Along the northern side of the main road, there is what they call the Machinery Mile.

It has a display of steam engines, tractors, pumps, graders, trucks, drays, and buggies.






We took pictures of so old machinery then went into the pub (Wellshot Hotel).
and there were these hat and money all over the roof and we got so awesome pictures.

84 Kms Jerico to Barcaldine

Day 12

We planned to spend some time in Barcaldine but due to being off season, many things were closed.

We did visit the Tree of knowledge, here are some notes from a local web site about it ....


The tree of knowledge is a ghost gun (Eucalyptus Papuana) growing in the main street in Barcaldine. It is situated in front of the Railway station and is celebrates as being the central meeting place for the Shearers' Strike during the upheaval in 1891.

Although the shearers' strike spread far and wide, Barcaldine became the central point of the strike leaders who were sentenced with conspiracy receiving three years hard labour. Although the dispute was settled before this the 13 leaders still had to serve their three years.

This disturbance eventually led to the formation of the Australian Labour party. The Tree of Knowledge committee commemorates the 1892 struggle with a beautifully landscaped garden. The tree is said to be at least 170 years old.

The Tree of Knowledge was included in the National Heritage List on 26th January 2006. Sadly it was poisoned in 2006 and did not recover. However a memorial has been erected and was opened on 2nd May, 2009.

We also tried to visit The Australian Workers Heritage Centre, however this was one of the things that was closed. We did get some photos from outside though.

We stopped near a nice park in the middle of town near the TAFE and Mum cooked us lunch in the van, but we sat at a picnic table in the park under some trees which was nice.

There was a mural saying Barcaldine in the middle of town which was painted by Les D'Arcy.