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Longreach is famous for The Stockman's Hall of Fame, Qantas Founders Museum, and more. But they don't serve ice cream! .. and we have visited them before, more than once.
On this visit to Longreach we decided to go for another cruise along the Longreach Waterhole. The cruise included munchies but Connie & I didn't leave much for anybody else.
The purpose of the cruise was to watch the sunset - so Connie & I ate all the munchies while everybody else was taking sunset photos.
The only competition I had with the munchies was the little guy sitting behind me, and Connie!
After the cruise we were entertained by a "One Rooster Powered" chariot that raced around the camp fire kicking up clouds of dust. In true Australian fashion we beheaded him and put him on the fire to roast.
The chef .. .. .. who doubled as the horse vet, made a huge pot of stew on that old stove - in that old black pot - and we ate it!
It tasted great when we were eating it - but hell, we drank some water during the night.
It wasn't until he came around with desert served in the best silverware, that we noticed his feet were BARE!
We were close to freezing but he didn't seem to notice it - he didn't notice how cold his feet were either!
Regardless of his cooking, his poetry was BRILLIANT. I wished I could remember some of it.
As we passed through Barcaldine we noticed this ABSOLUTELY HUGE .... ? er..something? We saw it on our last trip through here and imagined they would have found a way to get rid of it - but apparently it took a great deal of work and money to build it. When I looked underneath it I remembered a story about the "tree of knowledge". The inside is shaped like a tree (using hundreds of logs of wood cut from hundreds of trees). Sorry Barcaldine, I hate to be critical but to me it is .. um .. er .. a conservationists nightmare.
Unless somebody is having a joke with me, this is the lengendary "Black Stump" (nothing to do with restaurants). It has been used by surveyers from as far away as Brisbane and Boulia to fit their maps together. It marks the original Astro Station which was established in 1887. Surveyers placed their transit on the stump for latitude and longitude observations.
and there it is ... in the middle, below the mural.
.. the legendary "Black Stump"
Blackall still has a huge sheep shearing shed adjoining the woolscour sheds. The total number of sheep shorn here in these sheds today is 23 each year! Yes twenty three.
The biggest washing machine I have ever seen.
The "Blackall Woolscour" is Australia's last remaining steam driven wool washing plant. By washing the oil and lanoline out of the wool much larger amounts of wool could be exported for much better prices.
If I was a sheep, and somebody came towards me with a set of these dangerous looking clippers, I'd PANIC!!!
Connie says she likes the country towns like Blackall ... but apparently she likes the country TOWNSFOLK as well!
This fella didn't move for days after Connie smiled at him.
ONCE UPON A TIME .. this was how the wool had to be shipped about the country. I think we counted thirty horses in this mural.
< Another year >
< Index page (& map) >
< Part 1 >
< 2 > < 3 >
< 4 > < 5 >
< 6
> < 7 > < 8 >
< 9 > < 10 >
< 11 > < 12 >
< 13 > < 14 >
< 15 >