After a most enjoyable few days at Lara Wetlands we packed up to head for Longreach. We drove back through Barcaldine so we could return to see the rest of The Workers Heritage Museum on our seven day ticket. Turned out a seven day ticket did not mean it was open for seven days and this was Sunday, the day it was closed. I am sure we will visit the area again in the future so will know next time. One of my reasons for writing this blog is so I can use it as a reference while travelling. We have visited so many places now it is hard to remember all of them so I just search the blog and can see if we have been before, where we stayed and whether we liked it.
Off we drove along the Matilda Highway to Longreach, this was the furthest west we planned to go on this trip and we were really getting a sense of the remoteness and isolation of the towns the deeper into the outback we ventured.
Longreach was a complete surprise to me, I'm not sure what I was expecting but we could have been in one of the smarter suburbs of Melbourne, although hotter and dustier, it had an IGA and Foodworks, several pubs and cafes and some very nice shops. Our Camps Atlas told us the Muddy Duck Caravan Park was the best place to stay, $45 a night with great reviews but, unfortunately, the huge mass of caravanners on their way to the Birdsville Bash were passing through Longreach at the same time as us. The Muddy Duck was full as were the other caravan parks in town even though they had poor reviews for packing everyone in so tightly they had to park their cars in the street! The only choice left was Apex Park, a big, flat area of dry earth with a distant toilet block at $5 a night. It was busy but OK for one night and as we set up a pair of Brolgas turned up and performed their courtship dance, I think it was courtship and not fighting, right beside us. What a treat!
We were not bothered about visiting The Stockman's Hall of Fame, which many people come to Longreach for, but were very keen to go to the Qantas Founders Museum. After coffee in the beautiful garden of The Branch Cafe we checked out the car park and saw the caravan would fit so packed up and towed it to the museum so Harvey could wait for us in comfort. It can be difficult to know what to do with him because he obviously cannot be left in the car so, if it is convenient to have the caravan with us, it is a pretty good solution.
The Qantas Founders Museum was excellent, well worth $35 each entry. The story was fascinating and accessible to young children and those who are not aircraft enthusiasts, we discovered free kennels for customer use too.
An hour and twenty minutes along a very straight road brought us to Muttaburra. The town was a bit off the beaten track, so away from the Birdsville pilgrims, and famous for two things, being the centre of Queensland and the site of the discovery in 1963 of the Muttaburrasaurus.
The council caravan park was full so we went to the overflow park which was much nicer and the same price, $20 in the donation box with a brand new shower block. There was a general store in town and a cafe which only opens in winter, they get no visitors in summer because it is too hot. The Muttaburrasaurus Interpretation Centre was just off the main street and fantastic. A wonderful stone building housed the story of the Muttaburrasaurus and its discovery on a farm in 1963.
It was thought there were no dinosaurs in Australia until fossilised remains were uncovered at Cape Patterson in Victoria in 1903. Central Queensland became an important location dinosaurwise after the Muttaburrasaurus was found and then Matilda the dinosaur was discovered near Winton in 2005. Since then there have been endless finds, partly because the soil and weather conditions in the area have proved to be highly conducive to the preservation of fossilised remains.
The other interesting spot in Muttaburra was the Centre of Queensland Monument. Again, beautifully crafted out of local stone with a fascinating yearly rainfall dateline represented by posts of varying heights, a very visual way of making visitors understand how little rain these outback towns survive on most years. In the wet season (summer, but not every year) the rainwater rushes across the plains in channels and there are dips in the roads every couple of hundred metres where the floodways are. All roads have signs saying whether they are open or closed and little towns like Muttaburra get cut off, there is either not enough rain or too much, hardly ever just the right amount, it must be a hard life.
A couple we got chatting to in the cafe persuaded us we should make the effort to strike north one last time and go to Winton. It was dirt road for one hour to Morella then bitumen from then on. The highway to Winton was packed with caravans and motorhomes in both directions which should have given us a clue about the availability of caravan parks when we arrived. Of course the were all full of Birdsville Bash travellers, goodness knows how many people must go to the festival but it did not look attractive from where we were. I enquired in the Waltzing Matilda Information Centre and was sent to the showground which had been opened for the overflow. There were hundreds of caravans there but still plenty of room at $30 powered, $20 unpowered with decent amenities but you need the car to get back into Winton.
We explored the town and found we really liked it. There were several pubs all selling food and one with a daily live kelpie show! The owner's dog rounds up a handful of sheep, luckily it is free for customers because it wasn't much of a show. The place was full of people wearing maroon jerseys because it was the second match of the State of Origin series that night. We thought it would be fun to watch in a Queensland country town so stayed around and had an excellent pizza at the Australian Hotel. However, by the time the game kicked off, all the fans had disappeared. It was probably just as well because at half time New South Wales were winning 32-0 so we would not have been popular.
The Age of Dinosaurs was just back down the road so we set off the next day and popped Harvey in their free kennels while we went in (you do need to provide your own water bowl for the dog). It was really busy at 8.30am and apparently we should have booked but they managed to squeeze us on to a tour. It cost $73 each but was worth every penny with three guided sessions -The Walkabout, The Laboratory and The Collection. It was fabulous and looking out over the plains it was easy to imagine dinosaurs roaming there. The laboratory was full of volunteers dusting and chiselling lumps of rock to expose fossils, many of these people come to do this work every year for their annual holiday.
Winton was really delivering the goods and we found we were there at the time of the Outback Film Festival so booked to see a film at the old outdoor theatre in the High Street. The film was a bit ordinary but the setting was wonderful watching a movie under a blanket of stars.
The only thing Winton did not pull out of the hat for us was a budgie, we were told they were all over the place in July but they are still giving us the slip. We took a detour on our journey out of Winton to take in Lark Quarry to see the Dinosaur Stampede which just amazing. Because of the soil conditions hundreds of dinosaur footprints of all different sizes have been preserved in the mud and were able to be lifted and positioned inside a purpose built visitor centre. Just incredible and well worth a visit.
