It was a bit of a lazy Sunday in Winton today. Nothing much is open anyway, so we decided to do a self-drive trip along the Route of the River Gum, through the Bladensburg National Park.
But let me back up a little first.
We woke to a chilly morning again here in Winton. “8 degrees that feels like 4 degrees”. I’m no expert on what 4 degrees feels like, but I’d be pretty confident that it felt like 4 degrees this morning.
It was certainly a chilly and unpleasant walk from the van across to the ablutions block in my PJs and thongs.
No photos of that, fortunately!
And it only got more unpleasant after I got naked for my shower and discovered that there was virtually no water pressure and virtually no hot water.
And the pitiful dribble of water that did come out of the shower head stank of that Sulphur smell that is prevalent here in Winton.
So it wasn’t the happiest start to the day. And needless to say, ablutions were pretty quick!
But we had breakfast and coffee and the world became a happy place again. We packed up a few things to have for smoko on our trip with Neil & Desleigh into the national park.
Our first stop for the day was the musical fence.
It is basically just bits and pieces lying around that you can pluck, bang or strike to make sounds, and there is (of course) a part of the fence dedicated to Waltzing Matilda.
Next door to the musical fence is a truck museum. While we didn’t go in and look around, there were lots of old trucks in the truck graveyard out the back to look at.
We then headed back to the Waltzing Matilda Centre which is the start point for the self-drive trip.
We zeroed our trip meters and headed off south towards the Bladensburg National Park, following the instructions in a guide book.
First stop was a memorial to the Shearer’s Strike on 1891-1894.
The strike was essentially between unionised and non-unionised labour and all reports are that it was poorly timed as the union workers ran out of food and were forced to negotiate.
It was also the start of the Australian Labor Party.
Next stop was a clay pan. No vegetation grows in the clay plan except for when it rains, and water runs off the clay plan “like water off a tin roof” and fills the waterholes.
We then moved on to Little Jump Up. A jump up is an area of high ground where you can look back and see how flat the surrounding land is.
Next stop was Skull Hole, the site of an aboriginal massacre following the murder of a teamster. The state troopers tracked down the aborigines and dealt out punitive measures for the murder.
Next we stopped at a camping and swimming spot. Not much water in the waterhole, but a few people camped nearby.
It was around here that Neil radioed to say that he was having “tyre issues”; translation was that he had completely split one of his rear tyres open and it was almost off the rim.
So we all stood around and tut-tutted and made encouraging noises while Neil crawled under his car in the dirt and changed the tyre.
Let’s face it, the only thing that I know about changing a tyre is dialling 131905 (that’s RACQ roadside assistance), and to be completely honest, I don’t even know if Elsie has a spare tyre!
A few quick roadside repairs and we were off again towards Richard Cragg’s grave. He was an early pioneer in Winton in the late 1800s … although why his family chose to bury him all the way out here in the middle of nowhere is anybody’s guess.
I’m wondering if (a) his family didn’t like him much, or (b) his poisoning wasn’t completely accidental.
Now I need to explain a thing or two to you about 4WDing and creek crossings in particular.
You can never be too careful with a creek crossing; someone needs to take off their shoes and walk through the crossing first to ensure that it is safe and that the water isn’t flowing too fast or too deep.
Pretty safe with this creek crossing though – I can see that the water isn’t flowing too fast!
That took us to the end of the self-drive tour, so we took the road less travelled and headed on a further 14km through the national park to Logan’s Falls.
We had lunch, and headed back to town (Winton) in time to see the local brolgas taking their afternoon stroll down the main street.
Back to the van, caught up on some beauty sleep, and we got ready to head back out to the national park for a BBQ dinner, to watch the sunset, and look at the stars.
Sounds quite romantic really, don’t you think?
We drove back out to the national park – about 15km south of Winton towards Jundah – then turned off on the road to Opalton and travelled another couple of kilometres along a dirt road to a nice quiet spot in the middle of nowhere.
We pulled off the road and circled the (station) wagons, and set up for dinner, sunset, and star-gazing.
I spent some time getting in touch with my creative side (… a bit of right-brained activity never hurt anyone) …
Stay with me … sunset will come along eventually …
Probably not quite as spectacular as the sunset we saw in Longreach a couple of days ago, but it wasn’t as hot today and we had no clouds to bounce the sunset off.
We lit a small fire and waited for the stars to come out.
It was a drop dead gorgeous day here in Winton today. Crisp start, mid-20s … not too hot, not too cold … just a beautiful day in the outback.
Today was really just a whole bunch of driving around in circles, going to the national park and back (and back to the national park for dinner, and back again).
Tomorrow we head off early back towards Longreach to see the Qantas museum, then probably stay in Barcaldine for the night, before (I expect) heading back through Emerald towards Rockhampton and then home.
But that is still to be determined. Maybe we won’t come back at all … ? Maybe we will just keep travelling until we run out of money or we run out of clean clothes?
That’s about it for tonight peeps. Time to roll out my swag and let off some ZZZs …
I hope that you are having as much fun as we are 🙂
Ciao