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On Tuesday we packed up the van what had been our life for two months, we were so excited to be getting back on the road again. However, it was a sad day before saying good-bye to Amanda, Mark, Charlotte and Jake who were heading off home to Tassie to fix their cruiser. But we will hopefully be catching up with them in the near future, they were an awesome family to hang out with for the lady few months. Was so funny how we were all so similar, Amanda and l and then Marty and Mark, uncanny really...
So after Marty and sweated his way thru packing up with his usual uniform of no t-shirt, we said a quick goodbye to the Hanbrooks and also Lesley (a wonderful lady who took Boo and Meg on a few adventures which they loved) and we were on our way. We waved goodbye to Townsville around 9:30am, all buzzing wondering what our next adventures would be.
We arrived at Charters Towers around 11am and had a look around the Stock Exchange Arcade and info place and learnt about the big gold mining explosion that took place there in the 1900's. I took a few pics of the glorious old buildings around town, the post office and world theatre. The architecture is unbelievable and they have definitely maintained them magnificently. We had a quick lunch in the park and let the girls have a play in the playground whilst these loud apostle birds ruined the quietness, Marty called them Belinda birds!!! Lol...
Next stop was Hughendon which was another 4.5hrs away. The girls were great on there first big trip in a while. The landscape was monotonous, boring green and dry scrub and a continuous straight road. We got to Hughendon around 3:30pm and went to the local showgrounds and set up camp. It was hot, but not humid thank god and so quiet. All we could here was the occassional car, birds and the nearby horses. It was very peaceful. We took a quick look around the town, not much to see except for "Hughie" a huge dinosaur statue in the middle of town to reflect on the dinosaur history around the area and also the three pubs. Made some mango relish which made me miss Angie and Rod, tasted awesome too. We had an early night, everyone was b*****ed. No mozzies which was fantastic. They had been real bad in Townsville and everyone had bite marks for the last month especially.
We woke early on Wednesday and packed up and on the road by 8am. First stop was Winton, which we arrived at 11am. We first called into the Waltzing Matilda Museum and looked around learning about Banjo Patterson and Winton history. Winton is famous for its opal mining history and findings of dinosaur bones, and of course, for the famous Aussie song. Marty and l thought it was good value for money but couldn't concentrate as well as liked due to Meg being a bit painful and annoying. We still looked around the museum for 1.5hrs, trying to get our $50 entry fee worth. We had peanut bitter sanga's in the park then checked out 'Arno's Wall'. This is a wall built by a bloke who had hoarded all this junk along some time and then decided to build a wall with it. It is 2m tall and 70m long built with rocks from his opal mine which was brought in from Opalton and his junk. Junk such as sewing machines, kitchen sinks, motorbikes, lawn mowers, car hub caps, tv's, microwaves, generators, army helmets, etc. It did look pretty cool. We then visited the 'Winton musical fence' which the girls loved, especially Boo. Its this place where instruments have been made out of junk, such as a drum set, etc. Then there was a fence tuned to make different note sounds. Very awesome..... We then made our way up to 'the jump on' just out of town where the 'Age of Australian Dinosaur Museum' was located. Was a tin shed and they had shelves of bones on them, they were asking $50 for a tour an hour away, it was hot and it didn't look that interesting so we pushed off.
We continued our way along another straight bloody road, heading towards Longreach, our next stop to set camp up for the next few nights. It was another two hour boring drive that had to be done. We arrived at our camp spot, the Longreach Waterhole which is another free camp spot, on the Thomson River. When driving into Longreach we were heading into a storm and at the campsite we sat huddled in the patrol for half hour or do whilst strong winds and rain pelted down. We then set up the van and had dinner and settled for the night early as we were all a bit beat......
Bell Xx
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