Farewell Lara. We’ll be back because we love it so much! We left Lara at 9.30am and it took about 30 minutes to drive out to meet the main road. It was a gorgeous sunny day.

Due to our batteries being low because they didn’t charge the day before because it was so overcast, we both had showers over at the amenities block. The donkey engine had been fired up early and the water was piping hot in the showers. The donkey keeps the water hot for about 4 hours and then donkey is relit again about 3pm in the afternoon.

The road out of Lara had dried up considerably in the two days we’d been there. There was only a couple of spots where water and mud was right across the road.

Back on the Matilda Highway we headed southwards towards Tambo.

We had a stop in Blackall to check out the monument for Jackie Howe the gun shearer who shore 321 sheep in 7 hours 40 minutes in 1892. And he did that feat using blade shears. Amazing!

We had to walk past a bakery and who can resist. I couldn’t, so we bought a couple of pies for morning tea and they were delicious.

I checked out the lovely Memorial Park across the road from where we were parked and found a couple of fabulous statues.

One is of Major Edgar Thomas Towner, one of Australia’s Victoria Cross recipients. He was born at Glencoe Station near Blackall in 1890. He enlisted in 1915 and by March 1916 was on the battlefields of Belgium and France. In 1918 he was awarded the Military Cross and in September he distinguished himself and was awarded the Victoria Cross. He left the army in 1919 and returned to the land. He reenlisted at the outbreak of war again in 1939 and was given the rank of Major. He retired from the military in 1942.

He went on to become an expert in the Lake Eyre Basin and the exploits of explorer Major Sir Thomas Mitchell. In 1955 his efforts were recognised by the James Park Thomson gold medal and a fellowship from the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. He died at Longreach aged 82 and was buried with Anglican rites and full military honours.

The other is of a nurse from WWI.

Of course we had to stop just out of town for a photo of the iconic Blackall sign.

Out of Blackall we crossed a grid in the Dingo Fence. We last saw the Dingo Fence at Coober Pedy in South Australia. The fence is 5,614 km long and was designed to keep dingos north of the fence and out of sheep country to the south.

The countryside all around was vast black soil plains with hardly any trees because of the black soil. Trees only survive along creek or channel beds where their roots can get a hold in the soil. The mown grass on either side of the road still showed a tinge of green. It was amazing to see so much grass

We pulled up in Tambo so I could check out Tambo Teddies, the famous shop. Tambo is also famous for Ben’s Chicken Races held each night at the pub.

After a brief chat we decided to continue on to Augathella. Augathella is a tiny town of some 330 people. It is situated in grazing country. What a neat and tidy little town it is too.

We found a good spot at the donation camp beside the Warrego River. We love that these little towns encourage campers to stay by providing these great camp spots. We were more than happy to put our $10 in the donation box. Well done Augathella!

While Pa stayed at camp the rest of us went for a walk along the paved levee bank. Ben and Maddie rode their scooters and we left them having fun at the skate park.

We walked to the end of the camping area and at the end nearest the pub is an amenities block and the campers were packed in there. We prefererred the quieter part of the camping area. We checked out the pub and sat outside in the sun to enjoy a couple of beers while Riley sipped on a Solo!

Across the road from the pub was a butcher. I checked it out and bought some steak and sausages. Further long the Main Street we stopped at the little supermarket and picked up a couple of things.

I do like to support these little towns that make campers feel so welcome.

In the park where the skate park is there is another big thing, The Big Meat Ant. I hope I never get to meet an ant of that size! The kids had fun at the skate park.

Further along the street is the painted water tower

Back at camp we enjoyed dinner of lasagne, salad made by Maddie and slightly burnt garlic bread! Thanks Katie!

Everyone retired early as it became very cold and the little fire pit wasn’t keeping us warm. We really needed a big fire like we usually have at Mikala, our mountain place.

We decided to stay an extra day as I was able to change our Bilby Experience Tour in Charleville from Friday to Saturday. This meant we could stay for another night at Lara. It really is one of our favourite camp spots. I think I might have said that before!

Brian & Helen and Carol & David left in the morning to head off on further travels. The rest of us walked down to reception to pay for another day. It seems to happen each time we’ve been to Lara. We always extend our stay!

Robert then moved his van into the gap left by the departed vans and it was closer to Katie’s van. He then set up his fire pit in the middle.

Pa had a soak at the thermal pool with Ben in the morning. Maddie went kayaking with Aunty Catie again, Riley and Ben went off to the thermal pool. Ben is happy to go to the thermal pool with anyone.

In the late morning I made a batch of scones in our oven. I forgot to put the chopped dates in the mix so I had to add them on top. They still tasted OK.

It became quite cold and Robert got the little fire pit going. As we sat around the fire everyone moved closer and closer until we were almost on top of it. It had become bitterly cold.

Riley, Ben & Maddie went off to play mini golf and then later Ben and Maddie rode by on bikes. They were having fun.

It was my turn to cook and I prepared a pork rolled roast and veggies to cook in my little oven. Yum.

What a cold and overcast day it had been. We all sat around Robert’s little fire pit rugged up in our jackets and beanies to keep warm.

Our batteries were struggling as they hadn’t had a good chance to top up due to the cloud cover all day. No diesel heater for us! Not enough power to run it. We seriously need to look at upgrading our solar panels to ones with more watts!

After three nights at Longreach it was time to move on. We packed up after filling our water tanks and using the dump point on the way out. As we drove into Ilfracombe we saw the Machinery Mile. This is a collection of machinery along the side of the road and I’m sure my dad would have wanted to stop and check out each one. We just drove by.

On arrival in Barcaldine we parked up so we could visit the Tree of Knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge is a Ghost Gum that grew outside the Railway Station in Barcaldine. The tree has played an important role in the community over time as a meeting and gathering place. In the early years the tree was known as ‘The Hallelujah Tree’ because the Salvation Army held their services and band recitals under it. It kept this name into the 1940’s.

1891 was a tumultuous time in in Australia’s history as the Shearer’s Strike began. Shearers at the time had to sign a contract to be employed by the pastoralists and as there was an over supply of workers some managers and pastoralists took advantage of that and decided to reduce the price of shearing a sheep.

Shearer’s began to go on strike and soon that escalated across the region. Strike camps began to form across the west. The tree became a meeting place for the disgruntled shearers.

In 1892 various unions met under the tree and endorsed TJ Ryan as the first Labor candidate for the Queensland parliament. The Labor Party was born.

The strike became violent at times and some shearing sheds were burnt to the ground. The Militia was brought in to quell the unrest. The 13 leaders of the strike were arrested and sentenced to 3 years hard labor at St Helena Prison Island. The strike was slowly abandoned.

The Tree had become a symbol of the struggle, striving for a ‘fair go’ and the right for a fair days pay for a fair days work.

The tree survived many threats over the years including termites, fungal disease and even bee hives. Tree Surgeons tried multiple times to save the tree and fortunately a small number of trees were grafted from the original, one of which was planted at the Australian Workers Heritage Centre in Barcaldine and is called ‘The Young Un’.

The tree finally died in 2006 and has been preserved and placed back in its original spot. The memorial that surrounds it now was designed as a place of reflection and a memorial to those who fought for better working conditions.

The memorial contains 3449 hanging timbers that give the illusion of a tree canopy and they were made from recycled telephone poles. You can still see the root ball of the original tree through the glass panels on the floor. It is lit up at night. I like the way the hanging timbers clink together when the wind blows through. It’s sort of like rustling leaves.

After filling up with fuel in Barcaldine we headed southwards for 28km. We arrived at the turnoff to Lara Wetlands and just as we started down the red dirt road we came across a tractor pulling huge tyres behind. This is how Lara grade their road. We checked with the driver what the road condition was like and he said we’d have no problem getting through. There were quite a few spots where water was still across the road but we just went slowly through. The road underneath was firm. At times the road was quite corrugated but we just had to slow down.

We had to laugh at Katie getting red dirt up the sides of the van and car. Her car is usually spotless!

We checked in at reception, paid our $35 camping fee and drove around the wetlands until we found our friends, Catie & Robert, Andy & Jenny, Brian & Helen and Carol & David (who we’d called in to see in Dalby way back at the beginning of our trip)

We had a great position on the waters edge not far from the thermal pool and near an amenities building. It has toilets and showers with water heated by a donkey.

Soaking in the thermal pool was a must do for the day and we all enjoyed a therapeutic soak in the hot artesian water. The water comes up out of the ground at the Homestead at 68°, is fed into a huge dam with a heat exchanger in the bottom and then fed into a bore drain to the thermal pool. By the time it comes out at the pool it is 41°. The further you move away from the water entry the cooler the pool. It really is relaxing.

Lara also has kayaks and push bikes available and Ben and Maddie went for a kayak around the wetlands with Aunty Catie. There’s lots of bird life in the wetlands.

It was Katie’s turn to cook and she did potato in foil in the fire pit and cooked meatballs and sausages in Robert’s little cooker and served it with coleslaw. We sat around the fire and ate on our laps.

It was nice to be back at Lara Wetlands.

Lara Wetlands is one of our favourite campsites and I was glad to hear that Katie and the kids loved it too.

It was an easy day in Longreach. Rich and I just pottered about around camp. We filled our water tanks, did some washing, read books, talked to our families, wrote some blog posts, and generally had a relaxing morning.

Katie and the kids set off to do the second part of their tour at the Qantas Founders Musuem by visiting the museum and then doing a tour of the Airpark. The Airpark has actual Qantas planes from throughout the years and the tour talks about each one and the significant place it holds in Qantas history. You even get to go inside some of the planes.

Late in the afternoon Rich and I got dressed up and walked down to reception to wait for a bus to collect us for our Outback Experience.

There were 12 or so people already waiting when we arrived at reception and we quickly discovered they were all going on the same tour. The bus duly arrived and we were driven out to the river after picking up more people along the way.

The first part of the tour was a cruise on the Thomson River. We boarded the Thomson Belle, a diesel driven paddle boat and cruised up river. As we cruised the captain pointed out places of interest along the banks such as the Longreach Watersports Club. The club is home to rowing and water ski sports and has a lovely area along the bank with shade shelters, BBQ’s and lovely green lawns.

We learnt that the river we were cruising on is kept at a reasonably full level due to the weir upstream. As we cruised back the sun was setting and it made for a gorgeous trip back to the wharf.

Once back at camp we were directed to a large outdoor area circled by metal chairs. We were each given a cushion to sit on and after finding a spot to sit a lady came out to address the crowd. She was a bush poet and recited a few old favourites as well as some of her own works.

This was followed by a camp oven beef stew with mash and a piece of bread and dessert of a slice of apple pie and cream. The stew was delicious.

After dinner we were asked to move on down to the riverbank, taking our cushions with us to watch a movie presentation. The story was of Captain Starlight, an infamous local cattle duffer who stole over 1,000 head of cattle and drove them to Adelaide to sell. He was eventually arrested and tried however the sympathetic jury found him not guilty much to the judges disgust. Local people were in awe of the feat of driving the cattle all that way and their sympathies were with the outlaw.

After the movie finished we were directed back to the main area for a supper of camp oven damper smothered in golden syrup and a tin cup of billy tea. The damper was very good and the billy tea excellent.

Then it was time to get back on the bus and be delivered back to our van park. What a lovely night it was.

If I had any complaints about the evening it would be that they tried too hard to be Aussies (probably to impress overseas visitors) and it came across as a little bogan. I don’t know many people who speak that way nowadays and think they could tone it down a little. That ocker way of talking is not common any more.

It was a car full of excited tourists that set off from the caravan park at 9.15am for our 9.30 tour at The Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame. We were all looking forward to that one!

Upon arrival we checked in and were told our program for the morning. First up we would visit the Cinema to watch a 20 minute movie on the history and life of stockmen in Australia. As we walked into the cinema we were handed a cattle ear tag for later use. We all enjoyed the movie very much. The movie is shown on a very large arc screen and is very well produced.

As we left the cinema we were handed our audio guides for our visit into the museum. As you enter the museum a staff member activates your audio guides and then you are free to wander the museum and listen to whichever story takes your interest. There are so many fascinating stories from stockmen, Royal Flying Doctor pilots, famous Aboriginal women stockmen, property owners such as Bessie Durack whose property now lies under Lake Argyle and many more. It was interesting to learn about the life of the drovers, the tinkers and the Afghan cameleers.

I’m in awe of pioneer women and how they managed to create homes in such unforgiving circumstances. They raised and educated their children and often helped the men with the stock work. They were gutsy women. Sometimes the isolation must have been awful.

We learnt about the visiting boxing tents, graduation balls, rodeos and how important the local races were in the social calendars.

We heard stories, songs and poems from some of Australia’s best bush poets and songwriters.

We had 1 1/2 hours to explore the museum. Ben and Maddie did the Scavenger hunt for kids and they thoroughly enjoyed searching the museum for the items by following the clues. Once you find the object you had to hold your audio guide above it and it would register that you had found the object. Once all objects had been found you could take your guide back and they were issued with a card saying they’d completed the quest. What fun!

The next part of our tour at The Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame was the Live Stockman’s Show. We had to meet outdoors near a billabong armed with ear tags that we’d been given at the start. Once everyone was gathered we were directed into a large outdoor covered arena with tiered seating on one side, handing in the ear tags as our entry ticket.

The show demonstrated the skills of stockmen and women including horse skills, amazing whip cracking, working dogs and sheep and there was even a part dedicated to the Australian Light Horsemen and their horses that fought in WWI. It was so sad that we sent 136,000 horses to the war and only 1 was returned.

The hour long show was a mix of stockman’s skills, poetry, songs with some dad jokes thrown in. We all enjoyed it very much.

We went back to camp where Katie had to hook up her van so she could take it to the auto-electrician to see if he could find out why the electric brakes were not working. The boys stayed at camp while Rich and I were dropped off in the Main Street so we could have a bit of a wander.

About an hour later Katie called to say it was all fixed. Yay! So we waited for her to come and collect us.

Katie and the kids set off for the Sound and Light Show at the Qantas Founders Museum and Rich and I walked to The Woolshed, a restaurant within the Longreach Tourist Park. We enjoyed steak and pork ribs sitting out on the verandah. It was a very pleasant dinner.

We set off from Winton Wanderers Caravan Park around 9.15am. It was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky although it was chillier than we’d got used to.

Check out Tommy the Orb Weaver spider that was weaving its web in the gardens between our RV’s. Ben named it Tommy. What an amazing creature.

Our first stop in Winton was at the dump point to do the job of dumping our cassettes and then to the servo for fuel for the motorhome. We then had a stop at the Winton sign on the outskirts of town.

It was a very uneventful 180km across flat grassy plains to Longreach. We passed hundreds of RV’s of all types along the way and a few 3 trailer road trains and one very wide load with a huge tractor on board. Rich and I commented that we felt like we’d seen more motorhomes on this trip than on previous ones. Of course we saw lots of caravans and we are amazed at how many different brands there are. But we just felt that we were seeing more motorhomes than we’ve noticed on previous travels.

As we approached Longreach and crossed the wide brown Thomson River we pulled off to the left to visit the Apex Park. This is a donation camp situated right on the banks of the river. It is a very popular spot and even though it was only lunch time it was pretty full already. Across the road is the overflow section and there were quite a few already camped there too. We’ve camped there before in the overflow however I definitely wouldn’t recommend it if there has been any rain as it is black soil that sticks like glue and it is very easy to be very bogged.

After checking out the river we set off again into town and to the Longreach Tourist Park where we were booked in for 3 nights.

Rich and I were pleasantly surprised by the park and we felt that it had been upgraded since we were last here. All new cement slabs on most sites, new bollards with power, water and sullage points for each site and a lot of red gravel has been added everywhere. Between the rows is a garden bed that the new bollards are placed in. I even noticed some tomato plants in the garden beds with lots of green fruit.

The pool was sparkling blue and the amenities, whilst old, were very clean.

We had two sites next to each other and as the motorhome is our only vehicle we had plenty of room. Most sites allow for a car then the slab then the caravan. Our site only has our motorhome then the slab with our awning over it then a large space between us and Katie where a car would usually go.

The kids are old hands at setting up camp by now and it didn’t take long before we were all set up. After everyone had lunch we set off in the car to explore Longreach. Riley stayed at camp for a bit of ‘me time’ and we dropped Ben and Maddie at the skate park to burn off some of that endless energy.

Katie was surprised how small Longreach was as she expected it to be much bigger. The whole town is only 5 blocks by 8 blocks on the south side of the railway line and only a few more blocks on the north side. It has a population of approximately 3,100 people.

Did you know that all the streets in Longreach are named after birds? The streets running east-west are all named after water birds. The streets running north-south are named after land birds which can sometimes lead to laughs when actual emus walk down Emu Street!

The Tropic of Capricorn runs through the centre of town so it can get pretty hot in Longreach during summer. Like many towns in the outback ‘the season’ runs from April to October. The summer months from November to March are just too hot for tourists and many tourist venues close for the summer.

Agriculture, particularly livestock, is the main industry around Longreach and then comes tourism. These two drive the other industries such as retail and construction, even health and education are reliant on the first two.

Longreach is home to two pretty well known museums, The Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and the Qantas Founders Museum. Both see thousands of visitors each year and are a huge draw card for visitors to the area.

Longreach is also a home base for the School of the Air and you can tour the facilities and even watch a class in action. We’d done this with the kids at Broken Hill and it certainly was interesting to see and we recommend a visit if you’ve never been before.

Longreach used to be on the Cobb & Co route and that tradition is being kept alive by Outback Pioneers. You can book a stagecoach ride with them and experience it for yourselves.

Ben and Maddie had a great time at the skate park and declared it a good one. Ben rates it a 7 out of 10.

Back at camp we booked some tours and enjoyed our dinner sitting under our awning. It was my turn to cook and we had crumbed steak, potato bake, veggies and gravy. It was yummy and enjoyed by all. There was none left after some had seconds. Always an indicator of a good meal when there is none left over!

It became very chilly and everyone retired as we had to be organised for our tour at the Stockmans Hall of Fame the next morning.

Rich decided to give our tour to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History a miss as he didn’t think getting in and out of the bus or the bus ride would be helpful. He is improving slowly and can move about more freely but he stayed home while the rest of us walked down to Reception to wait for our Red Dirt Tours bus to come and pick us up. We had to be at the meeting point at 8.10am.

Our bus duly arrived and we met Kate our guide for the day. There was just us 5 and one other couple from the caravan park on the tour. As we drove out of town to where the museum is located Kate gave a running commentary on the history of the museum and the Winton area in general. It was very informative.

The museum was started in 2002 on the sheep station owned by David and Judy Elliot. Much of the dinosaur bone preparation was done on their dining room table! In 2006 and fellow grazing family, the Brittons donated land on the top of the ‘jump-up’, a rugged mesa wilderness area, and the museum moved there in 2009. Today the museum houses the world’s largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils.

The museum has been built in stages and there are more exciting plans for future development.

The best part about doing the tour with Red Dirt Tours is that once you arrive at the museum you skip all the queues and go directly in to the tours. Red Dirt Tours have it all organised so you go from one tour to the next on the bus without having to line up.

Our first tour was at the Fossil Preparation Laboratory. This is where the bones that are collected in the field are brought to be prepared and eventually put on display. It is painstaking work and much of it is done by volunteers. Some of the volunteers come back year after year to work on the fossils. We were told it is a little addictive!

We had a half hour break for some morning tea and then headed into our next tour of the Collection Room which houses the very special and rare bones that have been discovered near Winton that indicate a new species of dinosaur. Some of the bones are only a small percentage of the actual dinosaur but are enough for the experts to recognise when they are looking at a new species. The bones can indicate the size of the dinosaur, what it ate, how it moved and, in some cases, what its skin looked like.

We got back on the bus and were driven by Kate to our next stop at the Dinosaur Canyon Outpost. From there we walked to the March of the Titanosaurs. This exhibition is an amazing creek bed full of dinosaur footprints. Out guide told the story of what we were looking at and used a laser light to highlight the footprints of the different dinosaurs as they must have walked or moved along the creek. There were huge sauropod footprints, tiny dino footprints , crocodile footprints and even a turtle. The entire trackway was painstakingly removed from the creek where it was found and moved to the museum where it could be preserved in the specially built air conditioned building for visitors like us to hear the stories.

Following that we had the chance to walk along Dinosaur Canyon. Along the canyon are sculptures of the dinosaurs we’d learnt about.

We got back on the bus and driver Kate returned us to our caravan park. We all thoroughly enjoyed our tour of Australian Age of Dinosaurs.

We got back to camp to find Rich up and about and glad to see us. I think he was getting a little bored without company. His back was still very sore and it was still hard for him to go from sitting to standing and vice versa however he was definitely improving. We had a quiet afternoon and it was Katie’s turn to cook. Spaghetti Bolognese was on the menu. Yum!

We set up our chairs in front of the motorhome so we could watch the sunset. Sunsets at Winton are usually spectacular because it is so flat.

It was a hot windy day in Winton for grandson Ben’s 12th birthday. It was 30° and sunny with a hot dry wind.

It was an exited Ben that came over to the motorhome in the morning. He’d had a lovely time with his family opening presents in their van. We gave him our presents and he was excited to get a new basketball and I had been sneaky at Kronosaurus Corner in Richmond and bought him an hourglass that he’d admired in the gift shop. When he opened it he said ‘How did you get that without me seeing Gran?’

I cooked up a huge scrambled eggs and bacon on toast for everyone. Special treat for the birthday boy!

Rich was still in a lot of pain but moving a lot better and he was able to sit up in the chair and read his book.

We spent the morning relaxing, washing and folding and reading.

The Winton Wanderers Caravan Park is quite impressive. They have 80 sites, all drive through. The park is set out in a grid with each row having 10 sites. You drive in one way and drive out the other side. Each site is bordered on each side by garden beds with trees that will eventually provide shade. I don’t remember the park being here when we were last here in 2021 so I’m guessing it’s around 4-5 years old.

The park is set on 100 acres and is only 5 minutes from town. Just near reception are 5 brand new cabins under construction. I wonder if a swimming pool is in their future plans?

There are two amenities blocks with a laundry in each. Unfortunately the laundry in the one closest to us was out of action so Katie had to drive to the other one with her mountain of washing. I love my little 3.2kg Sphere washing machine in the motorhome. Although the loads are small when we are on a powered site with water hookup I can do many loads. With the wind the wet clothes were dry in not time at all. I even changed the sheets. Don’t you love clean sheets?

Ben wanted to go to the skatepark so leaving Pa to continue resting, Katie, myself and the three kids set off to explore Winton. We had a lot of fun taking silly photos at all the signs.

We visited the Musical Fence and the kids had fun making lots of noise. Maddie has really got rhythm! Just next to the Musical Fence is the site of the very first Qantas flight and there’s a sculpture to commemorate that historic moment.

We dropped Ben and Maddie off at the skate park while we had a wander along the Main Street and checked out the shops including the North Gregory Hotel, the Royal Theatre (one of the only open air theatres left in Australia), the tourist centre and other shops. We even found a Riley St! We picked Ben and Maddie up and they’d had a great time at the skate park and no limbs were broken.

Because it was Ben’s birthday we decided to all go out for dinner and, after all showering and getting dressed up, we went out for a birthday dinner at the North Gregory Hotel. We had a scrumptious dinner and the waitress even added some birthday candles to Ben’s fig and pecan pudding so we could sing happy birthday. I think Ben had a great day.

Oh dear! Last night while sitting around chatting Rich went to move his camp chair, and because it was on a slight hill, he fell backwards onto his back. The pain was excruciating. We managed to get him into bed however he didn’t have a very good nights sleep and so our two nurses, Catie and Jenny, recommended we seek medical help.

Julia Creek has a very new modern hospital not far from the RV Park so I drove him around there. He stayed in bed. I went inside and asked if someone could come and look at him as he was finding it very difficult to get out of bed. Well no, you can’t do that. He has to be brought inside the hospital. The nurse suggested I call the ambulance. The ambulance station in Julia Creek is opposite the hospital.

Really! I have to call the ambulance that I am parked out the front of to come and take Richard across the road into the hospital!

So as I was calling 000 the nurse came outside with a wheelchair. Now that was helpful. She couldn’t help me but I managed to get Rich up and out of the motorhome and into the wheelchair so I could wheel him inside the hospital. Poor fellow was in agony by this time. Once inside the nurse could take over and they quickly assessed him and called the doctor.

The doctor eventually rocked up and after examining Richard said he wasn’t too concerned and he’s probably jarred his back. He recommended X-rays however the nearest hospital for that would be Longreach. He ordered a shot of morphine and an anti nausea shot and once they were administered we were sent on our way.

We were headed to Winton which has to same size hospital as Julia Creek. The nurse did say to call in there if we needed to, otherwise wait until we get to the bigger hospital at Longreach.

So after a morphine shot Rich was NOT driving. He couldn’t anyway.

So I drove from Julia Creek to Winton via Kyuna. Wow what a fantastic road. It was mostly two lanes wide and in such great condition. There were lots of floodways that I had to slow down for (it is channel country) and a few cattle grids but on the whole it was a fantastic trip and I was able to hoon along at 95km/h most of the time.

We pulled up at the intersection of the Kyuna/Julia Creek Road with the main Winton/Cloncurry road and we’d just settled in for some lunch when who should arrive but Katie and the kids. They’d gone the longer way via McKinlay so they could visit the infamous Walkabout Creek Hotel from the Crocodile Dundee movie. They enjoyed their visit there but the kids have no idea who Crocodile Dundee is as they haven’t ever seen the movie. We’re showing our age!

After a lunch break we continued on to Winton and, when we arrived in the late afternoon, checked in to the Winton Wanderers Caravan Park just on the western outskirts of town.

It was our turn to cook and we finally got out Katie’s Weber and cooked sausages and lamb koftas. I made a veggie bake to go with it. We all sat outside under our awning, enjoyed dinner and watched the amazing sunset.

Left Hugenden after using the dump point and filling up with water.

Check out the gorgeous birds in the tree above the potable water tap.

Arrived at Richmond and had a delicious lunch in the cafe at the visitors centre, chicken, leek and mushroom pie YUMMMM. The lady said they were local pies and I recommend them.

We visited Kronsaurus Centre and found the audio guides a brilliant way to move around the museum and see the exhibits. There is a theatre that shows a 15 minute movie about the Richmond area 100 million years ago when the giant aquatic reptile Kronosaurus ruled the Eromanga Sea.

We were all amazed at the almost complete fossil of an icthyosaur that was found in the Richmond area. The most complete icthyosaur fossil in the world.

We spent about 2 hours at the museum. I think Maddie listened to every recording! It is an excellent museum and well worth visiting.

As it was still early in the afternoon we decided to continue our travels and head on to Julia Creek.

Who should we meet while trying to find a good camp spot at Julia Creek RV Park – Andy & Jenny. What a surprise! They were already camped up alongside Catie & Robert so we quickly moved our camp around to where they were already set up. Catie & Robert got a big surprise when they arrived back from town and there we were!

There was an emu dad and his chicks right near the park but we were warned not to get too close as he had already attacked a camper who got too close.

It was Katies turn to cook and we enjoyed pulled pork with mash and veggies. So good!