Day 7: Winton

I feel like I need to explain something that I said in yesterday’s blog, specifically about the “deafening silence” at Dunblane. It’s actually quite strange, because normally we have a “noise floor” (to use amateur radio terminology) where there is a constant level of background noise.

Even now – sitting in the van at Winton – I can hear cars and trucks going along the highway, providing some constant white noise. Plus there are trees blowing in the wind, and people talking nearby.

Noise.

But when we were at Dunblane, there were virtually no trees on the property, so no wind noise, and the road to Winton was so far away (maybe a kilometre away) so no noise there either.

So in the absence of any background noise, you just have this aching silence.

And in the silence, any occasional noise that you do hear – like the bed squeak when you roll over, or crickets chirping – just seems so much louder and intrusive. Not necessarily in a bad way, though. Just different.

Maybe the sound of that alleged beeping in the middle of the night too?

When we rolled into Winton (population 1600) yesterday afternoon, it was about 30 degrees. I couldn’t get out of those jeans and into shorts fast enough! By the time we rolled out of the caravan park into the Winton town centre around 4.45pm for the night’s fun, Elsie’s thermometer was reporting it was 38 degrees outside.

So off we went to the Opera in the Outback’s first event (that we planned to attend) called “Sing, sing, sing”. It was intended to be a mix of operatic performances by Opera Queensland (OQ) professionals, with the opportunity for us non-professionals to join in.

And hopefully we will not spoil it 🙁

Most of the pieces that they encouraged us to sing along to were pieces that you would likely know, such as Habanera or Figaro, mashed up with Australian classics, like “Click go the Shears”.

It was all very interactive, and a lot of fun.

The event was held at the Royal Open Air Picture Theatre in the centre of Winton.

The host for the night – a guy named Jason Barry-Smith – was very flamboyant, and seemed to me to be something of a mix between Mr Humphries (from “Are you being served”), and Zsa Zsa Gabor, with his constant encouragement that our singing was “Fabulous, darlings”.

The event started at 6.30pm or so, and finished up just before 8.00pm. We sat in old-fashioned canvas seats, and the BBQ they put on was sausages and onions on bread at $3.00 each.

All in all a fun night.

I think I have said already that we are staying at the Winton Wanderers Caravan Park, just outside of Winton. A new, and very pretty little park with flat, level, drive-through sites and excellent facilities.

We woke this morning to a beautiful sunny day.

After breakfast we did a run into town and a look around and to walk the main street. Also to figure out where tonight’s opera is on, and to see if we could spot any of the pop-ups that OQ are putting on around town during the day.

We were told of a new coffee shop in town called “The Lost Poet” and decided to support local enterprise. Nothing is more than a 5 minute walk in Winton, so we left Elsie where she was parked in the main street, and went for a walk.

Within 5 minutes of sitting down in the Lost Poet, OQ started up a quick performance.

After coffee, we kept walking around town.

There is quite a bit of history in Winton, including Arno’s Garden and Arno’s Wall.

Nope, I don’t really get it either. Arno was either a genius who was way ahead of his time, or a lunatic.

I can only suggest that Mrs Arno must have been a very patient woman, because if I did that at home, I’d be very divorced.

In terms of other history in Winton, Banjo Patterson was probably the headline act, although there were several other things of note that happened here.

There are several pubs in town (I’m thinking 3), and The Gregory Hotel seems to have a bit of a chequered history, with it being knocked down or burnt down several times.

Seems to me that if you book a room at the Gregory, you’d better have your life insurance paid up to date, and your affairs in order.

Or even if you just go there for dinner.

So we had a wander around the township. Such a pretty little town.

It’s hot out here at Winton. 31 degrees.

Back to the van for a rest and some lunch. We decided to have dinner for lunch, and then take some snacky stuff for dinner tonight as it is a BYO food event.

Tonight we are off to see “Do we need another hero?”, which is tonight’s show by OQ. This one is a freebie but tomorrow night is “Dark Sky Sernade” and we paid about $120 each for those tickets. It is out at the Age of Dinosaurs, about 25km out of Winton. That one should be a great show.

MBW is catching up on MasterChef, and I’m looking at emails. All boring stuff, really. Sorry.

That’s about it for today. I hope you are enjoying tagging along.

Ciao

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