Day 8: Winton

Winton, Thursday.

What a cracker of a day. Not a cloud in the sky, low 20s, a cool breeze blowing. Shorts and T-shirt weather.

It’s been warm going to bed at night, but we generally pull up the blanket around 5.30am as it starts to cool off. But I’m not complaining.

Fabulous, darlings!

Yesterday afternoon we went for a bit of a drive, just to see the sights.

When I say “we went for a bit of a drive”, we didn’t go far, because there are not many places to see without going a long way. But it was a spectacularly beautiful afternoon. Although the water stinks out here, the air is clean and fresh.

Look at that sky!

We are staying at the Winton Wanderers Caravan Park, out on the western (left) side of the image above. Where the blue dot is.

And when I say “to see the sights”, I use that term loosely.

We found the road to Hughenden (north), and the road to Jundah (south), and the road to Longreach (east), and the road to Cloncurry (west – that is tomorrow’s road out of town, into the unknown).

That’s it, just 4 roads out of town. Plus Arno’s wall, a coffee shop, and a musical fence.

And 3 (maybe 4) pubs.

We also found the Winton railway station, except that it didn’t display any Queensland Rail signage … so maybe the QR Travel services stop at Longreach. You’d think that I’d know stuff like that, having worked at QR 🙁

Last night was Opera Queensland’s “Do we need another hero” production. This was a free event that was held at the Crackup Sister’s Dust Arena. It is a local attraction where small comedy shows are put on, and the reason it is called the Dust Arena will become obvious soon.

The production was very well done (as usual), and was a musical examination of all of the heros that we have in our lives, including Superman, Hercules, etc, along with everyday heros including Mum and Dad. They even worked a local hero into the story – a lady who has spent 22 years in Winton helping underprivileged people here in the outback.

This was obviously a pretty big deal last night, because the Board of Directors of OQ, and also the Minister for lots of things including Arts all appeared to be present. They were all pretty obviously arty-farty types, sitting in the front two rows with their fancy clothes, weird glasses, bottles of wine, and hyphenated surnames.

I don’t know where they are all staying out here. I can’t imagine them bringing a caravan, and there are certainly no 5-star hotels out this way. In fact, I can’t imagine that there is much accommodation out here at all; certainly not enough for all of the performers, plus the OQ Board, plus the Minister and her entourage.

I hope that they are not staying at the North Gregory Hotel, because by my reckoning it must be due to burn down again any time soon.

Anyhow, they all laughed hysterically at things that I (clearly) didn’t understand, like when Jason Barry-Smith (another hyphenated surname from the night before) started singing some aria in Italian.

As I said, it was all a bit lost on me.

But it was a great show. They told the story of heros, and sang lots of stuff that related to heros such as “We don’t need another hero”, “Billy, don’t be a hero”, “Man in the mirror”, and stuff in Italian that was obviously real opera about heros.

Anyhow, it was a great night. And they had lamingtons for sale at intermission! When was the last time you got lamingtons served at intermission?

You can see the OQ Instagram page for last night’s event here. Make sure you turn the sound on.

We slept well last night. Well, I slept well and MBW says that she did too. I must have slept well because at some unearthly hour, MBW elbows me in the side and announced that it was 7.45am. Time to get up.

The usual ablutions and breakfast, gave Percy a quick tidy, and invested $4.00 in a washing machine to do the weekly washing of the big stuff – sheets, towels, jeans, etc.

We do have a washing machine in Percy, but it is only good for smalls. Half a dozen pairs of undies and it is about at capacity.

Washing hung out, and we were back off to the Dust Arena for the Crackup Sisters show this morning. It was a fun morning of typical Aussie slapstick humour and whip cracking on an outdoor stage. And audience participation, whether you wanted to participate or not.

I’m not sure that Michael from Wynnum (a couple of pictures below, in a dress), was particularly enthusiastic about being part of the show – particularly when he’d paid $20 to see it, but he got in on the fun and we all had a good laugh at him.

The Minister for lots of things including the Arts was there again, so Parliament mustn’t be sitting at the moment, or she must be hiding from her boss.

Or she needs another portfolio to keep herself and her entourage busy.

As well as the show, our entry fee included a tour of the museum … which, according to my untrained eye just seemed like a whole bunch of junk that should have been taken to the tip years ago. Kinda like Arno’s wall … cement your junk into a concrete wall and suddenly becomes a tourist attraction.

Huh?

Hmmm … maybe I could turn my office at home into a tourist attraction, because it has a whole bunch of junk lying around that should have been taken to the tip years ago …

It’s hard to appreciate just how isolated you are out here. On most of the roads leading out of Winton there is a sign that warns you how far you have to go to find your next fuel stop in that direction. Having a tiger in your tank is really all that matters.

You also have to watch out for the road trains. The picture above shows one taking up most of the road to Jundah, with 4 trailers. I assume that makes it a B-Quadruple?

And there was 2 of them, one after the other. And the road to Jundah is hardly a 4 lane highway.

We stopped off at the local grocery shop to get some essentials. Last time we were out here at Winton, I recall that there was only one shop, but now there are two shops. I also recall that the prices were extortionate … but with 2 local shops there seems to be more competition and prices are more reasonable.

In fact, I don’t know that we paid a great deal more out here than we do at home for stuff like milk, Jatz, and bottled water.

The water out here – direct from the Artesian basin – is pretty stinky, with a strong sulphur smell. You get out of the shower smelling worse than when you got in!

But the lady at the shop tells us that if you get a bottle of the water and put it in the fridge, it is the nicest water that you will ever taste.

I’m not sure whether that is a joke that the locals play on the tourists, or a fact, but we will give it a try and report back tomorrow.

The lady at the shop – also from Brisbane apparently, although she says she was born out here, lived in Brisbane, and has returned – went to some pains to tell us how safe it is out here. We noticed yesterday that the local coffee shop (the “Lost Poet” from yesterday, remember?) leaves all of their tables and chairs outside when they close up for the day.

She told us that the only “trouble” she can recall is when a car caught fire, and how everyone comes together to assist when someone has a problem.

Which reminds me of a line from OQ’s hero presentation last night: “Pickles are great, until you are in one”.

Nice to know that if we find ourselves in a pickle, one of the 1600 people who live here will help out.

On the subject of safety though, I do need to note that there is a big sign inside the toilet doors saying “WARNING: BEWARE OF SNAKES!”, that then go on to tell you not to get to close to a snake if you see one.

Why they need to give you this warning when you are in the loo I have no idea, but it certainly incentivises you to hurry up and not hang around for too long.

One of the things that we were happy to do on this trip was not be in a hurry. That means that there will be times when we just have a bit of a rest day.

Today was one of those days. As I’ve said previously, we have been to Winton previously and there are not a huge number of touristy things to do here … and we have already been for a drive around town a couple of times, so we just had a quiet afternoon.

MBW made toasties for lunch, and then we just poked around for a while.

I tried to think of some clever and witty things to say in the blog, and MBW went inside to read her book. I finished the Tattooist of Auschwitz today, and then I was ready for a nap.

But it suddenly got really hot and stuffy in the van – 30+ degrees outside in the shade, so we closed all of Percy’s windows and cranked up the air-conditioning for a few hours.

And I had a nap.

That’s about all of the excitement for today. Tonight we are off to see the final opera show called Dark Sky Serenade. It is being held at the Age of Dinosaurs site, about 30km outside of Winton on the road back to Longreach.

It should be a great night. I assume that everyone who’s anyone will be there again tonight with their soft cheeses, and bottles of white. And their reserved front-row seats.

But you’ll hear all about that tomorrow.

Tonight is our last night in Winton, and tomorrow we (literally) head off into the unknown. Well, unknown for us. From tomorrow morning we will be travelling roads that we have never travelled before.

Winton to Kynuna, then Kynuna to Julia Creek – home for tomorrow night. North and West to discover new places. It is under 300km and less than 3 hours, so it should be a relaxed day.

Ciao

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