Up early for a pit stop, figured I may as well shower
(5.10am) only 3 showers in this park and quite a lot of people, so was worried
there might be no showers available at 7.00. Then back to bed till 7.00.
A busy day planned today. After bacon and eggs, we hotfooted
for the visitor centre, and ended up at Outback Tours Centre at Railway
station, here we purchased a Silver ticket – which gained entry to Stockman's
Hall of Fame, Qantas Founders Museum and an Afternoon River Cruise with dinner
and show.
We managed to get around Stockman's Hall of Fame before
eating a quick lunch there – it was all very good, including the Outback Show –
which was a stockman/entertainer and his animals – a bit of a potted history of
working horses, sheep and dogs, all outside under a huge windmill. A great
entertainer, Lachie Cossor from Yackandandah, and amazing animals - a stockhorse, pack horse and another one, a
pack mule, goat, geese, sheep, dogs and a bull. All very entertaining.
I found the actual Hall of Fame a bit overwhelming, just too
much information to take in and probably did none of it justice, you would need
days. Enjoyable never the less.
After lunch we had just under 2 hours for the Qantas
Founders Museum. This was much easier to take in as the displays told the story
of the founders of Queensland And Northern Territory Airline Service – Sir
Hudson Fysh, Paul Mc Ginness, Fergus Mc Master and Arthur Baird.
It was amazing to hear how the use of aircraft opened up the
outback in a way that other forms of transport couldn’t.
Some of the aircraft and memorabilia on display were really
interesting too. It sure was pretty rudimentary back in the day.
Didn’t do the jet tour/wing walk, will leave that for
another visit.
We needed to be back at the Caravan Park between 2.30 and
3.00 in readiness for our Afternoon Cruise with Smithy’s Outback Tours. Picked
up at the gate a bit after 3.00 and out over the Thompson River floodplains,
across the town common, to the boat that awaited. It was a beautiful warm
afternoon atop the roof of the boat, shorts and t-shirt material. We saw quite
a bit of wildlife and learnt a lot about the waterhole of the Thompson that we
were sailing on. The waterhole is 11kms wide, up to 7 metres deep and ranges
between 30 and 90 metres wide. It is maintained by weirs at either end and
relies on rainfall out in the channel country to fill. It is the water supply
for Longreach.
Some of the wildlife we saw included kites,
pelicans, black ducks, kangaroos, other birds. It was a lovely cruise, the
weather perfect and the crew very knowledgeable and helpful. We sailed up river
for a couple of hours, then disembarked to join our bus again with Alan ‘Smithy’
Smith at the helm (the owner of the company). Another group boarded our boat to
motor back to base on the Sunset Cruise.
Our bus took us on a tour of the floodplains, pointing out
trees, wildlife etc and telling us a lot more about the area. Back to base,
where we were able to view the sunset over the Thompson River, with drinks and
snacks, before the other group returned and the evening’s entertainment began.
John Hawkes was the performer, he was really good, very unassuming and down to
earth (as he tells it, he hasn’t been doing this long, but not sure if that was
just a ‘yarn’) he is a stockman/drover/pilot and general outback stockman, who
taught himself guitar and writes songs. He told great stories of life around
Yaraka and the QLD outback and had some great songs (actually would have bought
the CD - if he had one.
)
Meal was all cooked on the coals in camp ovens, they fed 83
people tonight. I had the beef stew and smashed apple, Dad had barramundi and
berry cheesecake. This was all topped off with tea/coffee and damper.
Back to camp on the bus again, almost hit a roo, right in
town, crossing the road at pedestrian crossing. Now just doing the washing/drying.
We have worked out a bit of a plan for heading south from here. Will head to
Eulo in the next couple of days then review our plans, when we are closer to
Bourke. At least we know it’s doable and the weather hasn’t been as wet out
this way.
Couple of nice sunset pics in there Nic! What do you mean you nearly hit a kangaroo? It was using the crossing after all!
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