Matilda Country, Crikey!! Dead animals everywhere!!!

G'day Mates!


Our next stop is Longreach which is famous for "the Hall of Fame", I would have liked going there again but it's too expensive for us and we have been there already but if you ever go to Longreach you should go as its more than a museum and worth visiting!

Also here we had memories and we went to the same caravan park as, I think it was about 16 or 17 years ago. I described the entrance of the caravan park to Fred before we came there and it was still the same!

We had a lovely spot with shadow which was good because its still hot!

Qantas!

The local saying about QANTAS is that it was conceived in Cloncurry, born in Winton and grew up in Longreach, so Longreach was the last one and thus had the Qantas Founders Museum;

Also very interesting is the School of Distance. This distance education has one of the most diverse "classrooms" in the world with more than 160 students spread over western Queensland. Some of them live hundreds of kilometres from school.

You can do a guided tour which is really very nice. You can see how children and their teachers manage education via phone, post and the internet!

A little impression of Longreach itself;

and there are a lot of Roos......

and on who is Fred spying??

of course, Roos again.....

Next we drove towards Barcaldine and that was just terrible; every 2 or 3 meter there were dead animals; from just a heap of bones to a newly dead one and everything in between! And then the smell, jeez.... ..its good you can't smell it but we did and I can tell you, its awful. The amazing thing was that after Barcaldine it was the opposite, just and see for yourself;

Movie time;

Barcaldine itself is a very nice little town with a few lovely things to see;

a few nice buildings...

and there is the Tree of Knowledge;

The original tree has seen many changes and undergone many itself. In 2006 the tree was fatally poisoned and after its death the remains were taken to Brisbane where it underwent a preservation process.

It was then being returned to Barcaldine and placed under a timber structure consisting of 4913 individual timbers of which 3449 hang to give the illusion of a canopy.... 

Look and listen to the canopy, I myself didn't feel very comfortable under there, but there was another surprise which I wanted to show you;

 Movie time;  

Barcaldine's nice little station;

But, as nice as Barcaldine is, we decided to go to Jericho as there is a free camp and it seems that the temperature is dropping, it now only is approx. 34 degr. and that's bearable. Jericho is also cute;

Jericho was once home to a thriving Ostrich farm.

The Jericho Drive-In is the smallest operating (once a month with the latest released films) theatre in the Southern hemisphere.

After Jericho we stopped for 5 days in Emerald, also a nice town, a bit bigger so there are super markets again. Here we just enjoyed walking to town, because of the temperature you can do things again in stead of hanging in a chair waiting for the coolness of the night.

Except for the shopping centre we also saw this giant painting of one of our National Famous Painters; Vincent van Gogh

and the Railway Station was a nice building to;

From Emerald we drove to Duaringa which was actually a very very small town, only a post office at which you could also buy some groceries but the main thing was the Mackenzie Park where you could camp for free, they just ask for a donation which you can pay at the little visitor centre in the park.

The temperature was great so we stayed for two days and I even did a bit of prospecting in the park. Only found rubbish of course but also a 5 and 20 cents coin. There were even showers and toilets. The nights are nice and cool again, approx. 22 degr.

Our last destiny before our house sitting is Mount Morgan. On its way to there its starting to be nice green.

Coming to Mount Morgan we had a great caravan park with an amazing view;

Here we stayed 3 nights and the little town was a bit shabby, it used to be rich because of its gold (Gold???) , yes, there is still a mine but its closed, they say there is still enough there so they might open it again...

Anyhow, this mine produced 225 tonnes of gold, 50 tonnes of silver and 360.000 tonnes of copper over the last 100 years....

Its a typical town with typical buildings and houses;

I'm not finished yet;

Houses built high in the air.... 

You must be asking yourself why we are unpacking the car, well its not that we want to clean it, its because, when I opened the back door, I saw something running away into the back of the car.....

it was HIM; Creepers!!!! Believe me, he is 3 times bigger when he's alive.

Sorry we killed him, but I hope you understand I'm not going into that car when he lives there!!

Aaaahhh..... bearable weather at last!

See you soon!

Cheers!