When we woke up on day 21 (now April 8th for those that are after dates!), the flood waters had still not receeded and roads were still cut off. We made the decision to check out some of the stuff in Winton and then head to Longreach that day. Maybe...but not likely....we might backtrack if the roads open in time again. So we went to a static display in town that depicts the Lark Quarry stampede. For those that are not wise to the whole story, basically, this farmer had just been mustering stock when he happened upon some strange footprints. He called someone in the know and they came to have a squizz. Turns out, the footprints were fossilised dino tracks. At the time, there weren't that many, but teams of palaeontologists and the like descended on the site like a Glendambo fly on a tourist (see previous post to get that reference) and eventually hundreds of tracks were unearthered. Turns out that the tracks were made by about 500 small plant eating dinos running for their lives from a huge meat eating dino (3 meters in fact).
Tom in front of display
This is what is now known as the Lark Quarry (the place they are located) stampede or "trackways", and amazingly, was the inspiration of the stampede scene in Jurassic Park! There were also other bone replica fragments on display...quite interesting, but with no actual dinosaurs, it wore thin quite quickly for Biddy in particular. We then went to the Waltzing Matilda Centre which is pretty much dedicated to Banjo Patterson and the song/poem "Waltzing Matilda". As expected, lots of pioneer and early Australiana stuff to see.
Biddy playing "Waltzing Matilda"!!!!
Onto Longreach in the afternoon and as we pulled in quite late in the afternoon, all that was on the cards was a swim and dinner. But what we weren't prepared for was a locust plague!! They are everywhere and have stripped all the trees around the van park and town. In the daylight hours, they tend to just flit about and accidently bump into you (actually, they land on you with an almighty thud), but at night, they swarm around you if you are anywhere near a light. And this was just too much for dear little Biddy, who couldn't even make it through her dinner for fear of them. Distance travelled: 180kms
Just a VERY small sample of the buggers....these literally landed on our van the minute we pulled up.
Doesn't matter that you are on hols...the cooking still needs to be done!
Day 22 and we visited the Stockman's Hall of Fame. I thoroughly enjoyed looking through here and I think Mark did too, but we kept Biddy in the pram for this visit and many of the displays were above her head height, so she was bored and was constantly asking to "get out???". Tom, on the other hand, was belting around the place like a mad kid and I was trying to ignore the fact that he belonged to us, but it was difficult when he'd run up and call me "mummy". Sigh.
Stockmans Hall of Fame (Mark and the kids are in the front centre)
After lunch we went to the Qantas Founders Museum which held Tom's attention for a lot longer. Must be a male thing, looking at engines, planes and machinery. I, on the other hand, thought it was interesting, but it wasn't the highlight of my visit.
However, for both kids, it was quite exciting to see a big 747 up close (one was on display).
The locusts are starting to thin out, and we found out later that they are definately moving on but have also been sprayed for.
Day 23 and after pouring over the mapbook last night trying to decide what route we will now take, we have decided to ditch our first thought of travelling to the coast in favour of sticking inland. We will leave the coast for another visit. So we are headed to Charleville today with the intention of heading eventually to Mildura for a number of nights. The actual route may depend a little bit on road conditions and closures due to rain in the SW of Qld. So today, was pretty much spent packing up and driving to Charleville. We went through Tambo with the intention of buying Biddy a Tambo teddy, but we missed shop opening hours by 20 minutes!!! Arghhh...sometimes, the luck is just not with you! Travelling on a Saturday does have its disadvantages. I will ring them when we get home and see if I can arrange something via mail. I have a Tambo teddy from my last pass through this town (his name is "Sonic"...all teddys are named after a local property). Distance travelled: 511kms.
check out Biddy's hair from the humidity...curls galore!!
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