Sunday 23rd May.. tonight we sleep at Quilpie. What an easy day! It was only 108 klm from Eromangah to Quilpie. This area is known as "The Channel Country" for obvious reason - there were numerous "floodways" and road "dips" along the way. As we approached Quilpie we spotted a small hill with a signpost reading "Baldy Top Lookout" and of course we had to investigate (lower left). The welcome sign for Quilpie was nicely done (lower right).
Being Sunday, Quilpie was a little quiet. The only businesses open were the Royal hotel and one of the opal dealers. There is no need for traffic lights here, check out the main street (lower left). The highlight of Quilpie was discovering an old friend in the motorhome next to us (lower right). Richard and Bronwyn Cornford last met us "on the road" at Julia Creek three years ago.
Monday 24th May. .. tonight we sleep at Quilpie again. Rick-N-Bron are flying over Birdsville and staying there overnight. Next time we see them could be in Longreach ? We shopped at one of the three "FoodLands" grocery shops and commented on the cheap prices. However, later we examined the shopping receipt and found we had been overcharged more than 30% That's even worse than our local Woolies :-) A few drops of rain fell in Quilpie during the afternoon.
Tuesday 25th May. .. tonight we sleep at Windorah. Another easy day, with only 238 klms from Eromanga to Windorah. The road was all tar sealed but almost all of it was one lane which meant moving off the tar onto the dirt/mud/gravel to pass oncoming traffic. The big surprise was the green landscape (lower left) and numerous swarms of grasshoppers (lower right) - (maybe locusts - same thing?). The picture doesn't show them well at all - but one is clearly visible just above and right of centre.
The town of Windorah is about the smallest we have stopped at so far. It consists of a pub, police station, a service station, post office, information office, school, and half a dozen houses (lower right ... not really like this, I just thought it was cute). The population is about 100, so I wonder where they all are today. Energon Energy chose Windorah as a test site for the installation of a solar farm to supply the towns electricity. Five reflective dishes (lower left) concentrate the suns power onto high-efficiency solar panels to feed power directly into the towns grid. The diesel plant idles all night and most days but is always ready to back up the solar plant.
We are surprisingly close to Birdsville here (lower left) and so the signs tend to be a bit graphic (lower right).
Wednesday 26th May. . Tonight we sleep at Longreach. After filling up with diesel at the blind mans service station, we left Windorah and headed for Longreach - about 312 klms. The only town we noticed along the way was Jundah (lower right)- that pic is just about the entire town. I had some quiet concerns about rain in the area and I recall how FLAT the landscape is - will we have to cross flooded creeks? As it happened we had a dry, narrow, tar sealed road all the way. However, a big muddy mess was created every time we passed an oncoming traveller - one of us had to hit the boggy, muddy road shoulder. A beautiful 8ft python snake was a bit slow and somebody has run over it (lower left).
I am still struck by the landscape out here - last time I saw it, it was just a huge dust bowl. Now it switched back and forth between green grazing paddocks (lower left) and the short trees (lower right). Either way it is green, green, green.
Thursday 27th May... tonight we sleep at Longreach. The hustle and bustle of city life has returned - well almost, Longreach doesn't have traffic lights (lower left) and it still has the occasional horse and coach (lower right). I took my UHF CB to Access Electronics to see why I couldn't hear anything on it - he turned the volume up!
Friday 28th May.. tonight we sleep at Alpha. We left Longreach with Barcaldine in our sights, but it turned out to be such an easy run that we only stopped to look about the town. The HUGE wooden box in the main street had us guessing (lower left) until we walked underneath it and read the sign. It is somebody's idea of modern art and is supposed to represent "The tree of knowledge". Looking up from underneath (lower right) it is a little more interesting but appears to have required the destruction of numerous tree.
The second stop after leaving Longreach was Jericho. It was a tiny little "one street" town WITH A DRIVE IN MOVIE THEATRE (lower left) that accomodated more than 30 cars plus about 50 open air seats - it blew me away. Notice that the main, and only, street has a Cafe, Take Away Food, and a BYO Bistro (and the intriguing drive in movie).
The last stop for today (Friday) was the tiny town of Alpha. It is different to Jericho in that it sports an extra two pubs and a motel (lower left) - and a caravan park. The rest of the town is decorated with huge wall murals (lower right).
Lets start using part three!