Victoria Trips

 

Having sat down yesterday to put a few plans on paper for our next trip, I realised I had not added our last couple of jaunts to this blog. I will try to combine them and apologise in advance if the post appears a bit jumbled.

First of the trips was our regular wander to Victoria and back to spend Christmas with Zoë, Shaun and the boys. This year they would be moving house while we we there, leaving the outer suburbs of Melbourne to live at the beach in Inverloch. 

We made our usual first stop in Gunning and woke to 37°C in the morning. This made our minds up to put in a big driving day for two reasons, a) the car was going to be the coolest place, b) we would be able to listen to the cricket on the journey. We take it in turns to drive so the 6 hours to Lake Eildon was doable and we would be able to stay there for two nights instead of rushing on.  The huge lake had always appealed to us but, for one reason or another, we had never stopped there, Little free camping areas are dotted around the lake with drop toilets every so often and we selected Newton's Campground which only had one other caravan parked there, unfortunately the owners had a generator which they ran all night..

 It was 41°C when we arrived and there were a lot of flies around. Having dragged a big, heavy bug tent around with us for the past 10 years almost never using it, we decided to leave it at home this trip - sod's law. Harvey got covered in prickles when he set off after a kangaroo, after we got them all out of his fur we went for a walk and found another entrance to a different bit of Newton's Campground, no toilet but only a couple of minutes walk back to the one where we were camped, no prickles, far fewer flies and no generator man! We packed up quick smart and were settled in our new spot within the half hour. 

The house move went smoothly and Christmas was fun. It was still very hot and dry and a few fires were burning out of control in Victoria as we began our slow journey home. Wandering from one spot to another does not suit everyone for a holiday, we love it and try to find different places to stop every time but we did fancy returning to our spot at Newton's Campground for a couple more days. The lady in the visitor centre in Mansfield advised us it was now packed and suggested a spot on the Goulburn River between Jamieson and Kevington, which turned out to also be packed. We found another place further along the river called Doctor's Creek which was still pretty crowded but we needed to stop somewhere so set up for the night.

 There were still fires raging around and it was perfect fire weather, 40°C and windy so we stayed hooked up in case we needed to make a quick getaway. The police drove through every so often to make sure everyone was ok, apparently some groups had been lighting camp fires, idiots. The campsite is in the shadow of Mount Terrible and surrounded by trees, it would be great outside of the holiday season. 

It was surprisingly quiet over night but more bush fires were popping up all around so we decided to get out of there. The total fire ban had been lifted overnight and we were appalled to see several campers assuming that meant it was now ok to light camp fires, unbelievable.

Stopped for a quick coffee and a cheese scone in Jamieson. What a gorgeous town, all the old buildings have been preserved and none knocked down to build ugly new ones. Pretty gardens, loads of trees, nice gift shops and cafes.

 We pressed on to Culcairn, where we have stayed before at the excellent council caravan park on the banks of the river $22 unpowered, spotless amenities and a short walk into town. The man next to us seemed to be preparing for guests, he had a huge set up with tent, caravan, gazebo, hammock. He spent ours tinkering and setting up fairy lights then lit a huge fire, just for him it transpired. 

The caravan park filled up in the afternoon but, as usual, everyone had left (except fairy lights guy) by the time we got up in the morning. We were thinking of heading to Oura Beach but decided it might be too busy so went to Ariah Park instead. We should have checked Rabbitts on the Road because we had forgotten we didn't like it much. The historic little town is really just a tourist attraction with nothing open and the rave reviews we had read for the Ariah Park Camping Ground were over egging the pudding rather as it was very ordinary. $8 unpowered and the key to the showers had to be collected from the hardware store or the hotel, neither of which were open. The caretaker turned up late in the afternoon and gave us a key, they were jolly nice hot showers.

 After coffee in Temora we pressed on to Koorawatha where we spent New Years Eve just like last year. Showground was good again and the same group of detectorists from our previous stay were there again. Good food and entertainment at the pub again and another trip to Koorawatha Falls made for a pleasant visit. 

We spent our last night in Rylstone at the council caravan park. The reviews were great but we thought it was disappointing, $33 unpowered and tiny pitches. It is unmanned and had to book online then receive an email with a code for the amenities block. The town is very pleasant with nice shops and cafes and it was a convenient stop for us as it is right on our route and easy striking distance to home. 

 

After a couple of months at home it was time to set off again, this time to look after the boys while Zoë and Shaun went away for a couple of days. It was the middle of March and we left at 11am. After the usual return for something we had forgotten (tool kit this time) we made good time to Gunning. The showground now has new toilets and showers and has become pretty popular. We had dinner at the pub where the bistro has become more of a burger bar instead of selling traditional pub food, not quite as nice but ok for a quick feed. Had our usual coffee in the Merino Cafe before heading off.

 Now that Zoë and Shaun had moved to the coast we were trying a new route. We had arranged to meet our dear friends Tim and Virginia at Buckenderra in the Snowy Mountains for a couple of days. We stopped at a wonderful little town called Gunderoo by Lake George for a break. It was delightful and had won a Tiny Tourist Town Award, really lovely old buildings and an easy commute into Canberra.

Got to Buckenderra in good time and took the advice of a fellow camper who was keen for us to camp on the spot she recommended (I think she just didn't want us near her). It was a good site but really awkward to get onto, nestled among huge rocks looking down over Lake Eucumbene. The Lake is part of the Snowy Hydro scheme and great for trout fishing so a really popular spot for fishing folk. Buckenderra is a huge property, now a G'Day Park, $30 unpowered with old but clean amenities. Tim and Virginia had a cabin just behind us. 

Virginia knew the area quite well as she once lived in Nimmitabel so she was able to show us around. We went into Adaminaby and saw the Big Trout then went to old Adaminaby which was the original site of the town. It was moved to its new location and the old town flooded to make another lake for Snowy Hydro. There is a fascinating museum about creating the original Snowy Hydro in Adaminaby, then another in Cooma dedicated to the new Snowy Hydro 2.0. We tried to visit the Cooma Museum but ironically it was closed because of a power cut! 

After a great couple of days with our friends we went our separate ways and drove through misty conditions to Nimmatabel. The enormous Nimmity Bell struck while we were looking at it and frightened the life out of us then we set of to drive down through Bombala and on to Orbost. The road got very winding with really tight bends and the fog descended until there was almost nil visibility. I was very glad to be driving behind a car which was driving very sensibly and able to lead the rest of the traffic along. Somehow between us and Google we managed to miss a turning in the fog and we ended up taking a very circuitous route which added about two hours to our journey.

We finally screeched into Orbost Caravan Park 15 minutes before it was due to close $30 a night unpowered, spotless amenities, right in town. However, the unpowered sites were right by the road and we were also by a culvert, because Orbost is in a flood plain, so it was very buggy. It was Ian's birthday the next day so we had breakfast in town then checked out the art gallery. The featured exhibition was "Reigning Goats", the artist was incredibly prolific, there were hundreds of paintings of goats up to various antics, hilarious I'm sure if you like that sort of thing. Later we had dinner at the Bottom Pub as recommended by the caravan park and it was very good, half portions, live music and decent wine.

 Next stop was Inverloch with the family then on the road a week later to try and get a few stops in before the Victoria school holidays began. As we left Inverloch we popped into Venus Bay nearby to have a look. It was very much our kind of town, quieter than Inverloch with nice cafes and a community feel. There was a fantastic little travelling art exhibition in place called Art Cubes. A group of small shipping containers are moved around and become exhibition spaces for local artists in small towns for a few weeks, what a great initiative! There were heaps of birds as Venus Bay is part of the sanctuary that leads into Wilson's Promontory, unfotunately there were also signs saying 1080 bait was used in the area.

We carried on along the coast road through Yarram to Reeves Beach free camping area. It was nice, a few pit toilets and a couple of camps that looked rather permanent. Everyone was very pleasant but sadly did not keep their dogs on the lead which meant they were yelling at them all day to come back, a problem which could have been resolved by employing a lead I suspect. There was a path through the sand dunes straight onto the expansive beach where Harvey was in his element. If I stayed there again I would camp further from the permanent people partly because it felt like we were intruding a bit but mainly because the toilet near them is in constant use, there were other spots but we couldn't be bothered to move.

We were planning to drive to Mallacoota next but decided nearly 5 hours was beyond what we wanted to do so stopped at Lakes Entrance Rec Reserve $25 unpowered, great showers. The price goes up to $80 in the season and I imagine Lakes Entrance can be a bit unbearable when full, all crazy golf and arcades, but it was nice for one night out of season. The Bowling Club was right beside the rec ground so we had a really good dinner there, half portions available again. Good coffee on the waterfront then a wander around the little artesian collective  before we set off for Mallacoota.

For some reason I have always wanted to visit Mallacoota and it did not disappoint. The road in was long and winding and it was easy to see how the residents and holidaymakers got trapped by the fires in 2019/20, 130 homes were lost but no lives. Mallacoota Foreshore Caravan Park, $30 unpowered, old but clean amenities, sprawled along the water front with no real entrance, I'm not sure how great that would be for residents over the school holidays. The staff told us where a koala had been sighted and we actually found 5 near our caravan, just like it used to be at home when we first lived in Australia. It was a gorgeous spot, one side of the point had raging surf while the other was protected by a series of islands and a bit of a bay, so beautifully calm.

The town was fabulous too, great coffee and toasties at the cafe and decent dinner in the pub garden. There are all kinds of activities advertised on the town noticeboards and it would be a great place to live if you wanted to really immerse yourself in a community.

Set off again and had a quick look at Pambula Beach (fabulous) and Cobargo which was badly damaged in the fires and famous as being the town where a firefighter refused to shake the Prime Minister's hand after he had flown to Hawaii for a holiday while the fires were raging. Cobargo was a delightful place and we were interested to see the display of fireproof materials being used in the rebuilding. I don't know how the little wooden post office survived when all around it burned to the ground but I am very glad it did.

Mystery Bay looked interesting in the atlas so we kept going until we reached it. How incredible! $20 for pensioners, very quiet and peaceful with the cleanest drop toilets I have ever seen. We camped among the trees with the sensational beach just behind us, it was very special. Dogs were allowed off lead on the beach before 9am and after 5pm so Harvey had a whale of a time. 

It was now the day before the school holidays and we phoned several caravan parks for our last stop but they were all full so we decided to keep going up to the Hume Highway and maybe stop as usual in Gunning. A couple of towns along but still on the Hume we discovered Marulan. Well look out Gunning, I think we may have found your replacement! Free flat area behind the pub in return for buying a drink or a meal, we bought both. No all night toilets but great food and really friendly staff.

Yowah, Bollon and Texas

 It was spitting with rain when we woke so we packed up quick smart to get off the muddy riverbank before it became impossible to leave. We had enjoyed Quilpie but really wanted to get off the route being taken by the thousands of caravans and campers travelling from the Birdsville Bash. After consulting the atlas, we were confidant our selection of Yowah as our next destination would be ideal as it was in the middle of nowhere and definitely not on a route the hoards would be taking. 

We drove for two hours along single strip tarmac and, apart from Toompine which consisted of a pub and a toilet, we did not see any buildings or signs of life at all until we rolled into the tiny opal fossicking town of Yowah. We discovered a caravan park and donation camping area which both looked pretty much the same so we went for the cheaper donation camp. The amenities were new with excellent hot showers and actually looked better than those in the caravan park, both areas were on red dirt. There was no phone signal or wifi on our regular phones so we were glad we had invested in the Boost mobile sim to manage in the remote towns.

 Yowah sits on the artesian basin and there were hot springs all over including a warm stream which ran from our camp to the centre of town (a small grocery store at the entrance to the caravan park). The whole area was home to some beautiful birds and they were especially prolific along the walk by the stream. There were lots of signs boasting that Blue Bonnets lived there, they were obviously hiding from us but we did see a Mallee Ringneck, which is a gorgeous bird. 

 For such a small town there were a surprising number of eating options, the Miners Club were doing a roast dinner on Wednesday and Saturday, The Nut Cafe offered up pizzas on a Monday (must be ordered by 2pm) and a limited menu on Tuesday and Friday and there were Rubber Duck Races at the caravan park on a Thursday. What a social whirl! Things were about to get far more exciting the following week because the Yowah Opal Festival was set to take place, we saw a poster for the festival and the star attraction was a singer from our home town, how bizzarre. 

 We were starting to really enjoy Yowah and discovered a very presentable pool complex fed by the hot springs. Two pools, one hot, one very hot and changing rooms built into empty water tanks all for the princely sum of $5 for a day pass! There were also hot baths in little beach huts for public use. We got chatting to some locals in the pool and realised Yowah was not like other opal towns where residents seem to be trying to escape from something, these were people who had moved to the town for a quieter life and most had done pretty well out of the opal deposits. 

 We had not been in Yowah too long when it started to rain and pretty soon our caravan was a little island standing in a sea of very slippery mud. We were caravan bound for a couple of days and the walk to the showers was pretty perilous, we would often arrive back dirtier than we left having slipped over in the treacherous mud. After two days of endless Rummikub games we had serious cabin fever and were relieved to see the rain easing off. The ground around the van reappeared, although the mud still tried to suck our shoes off when we walked on it, so we set about enjoying the little place again. We visited the huge fossicking area and found some tiny opals, popped into the spa again and had dinner at The Nut Cafe. Even with the weather, Yowah was one of our favourite stops on the whole trip. 

 The town was already filling up for Opalfest so we reluctantly decided to move on and set off on a misty morning to head for Bollon. Eulo was our first coffee stop, a tiny place with extremely unfriendly dogs, then Cunnamulla for fuel which was just a big, functional place. We followed the long, straight, single strip road all the way to Bollon and pulled into Wallam Creek, a beautiful riverside donation camp with toilets and showers. However, it was packed. It turned out we were now on the route to the Thargominda Music Festival which had been postponed for a week due to the rain so everyone was holed up in Bollon killing time until it began. We really must check for festival dates before we plan our next trip. 

After our initial disappointment we expolred the town and found it to be very nice indeed. The pub and cafe were staffed by the same people, there was a very interesting visitor centre and museum, a decent general store, hardware store and a rather good art gallery in the old Post Office. It was nice and peaceful during the day so we decided to stay and were rewarded with a sighting of a Diamond Dove and one of the most incredible sunsets I have ever seen.

 Woke up to discover we had no power, probably as a result of so many days without solar in the rain, so this made our minds up that our next stop must have power laid on to charge our battery. We had planned to head for Texas but it was a bit far and our research told us there was power at Talwood. After a quick stop in St.George for groceries we arrived at Talwood Recreation Ground to find that the power was just a couple of sockets on the back of the toilet block that caravans couldn't get very close to. We finally found another on the back of an old railway building in the ground and plugged in there. The amenities were old and tatty but clean, although it was a bit alarming to have to get dressed in a completely open area after showering, even more so when a neighbouring couple of ladies just wandered in for a chat with me as I was trying to get my clothes back on as quickly as possible. 

The donation was paid at the shop and we had a look at the town. Talwood is a nice little place on a popular caravan route but I could not help thinking they could have made far more money from the passing trade. Far less attractive little towns, like Thallon or Nindigully, have really tapped in to the grey dollar by setting up huge camping areas and souvenir trade in the pub. However, it suited our purposes. The cafe was interesting, we had to ask in the Post Office for it to be opened then the woman locked the Post Office, made us a coffee then went back and opened the Post Office again. There were some very lovely houses in Talwood with beautiful gardens unlike the scrubby yards where they can only grow bougainvillea that we have been used to lately and the town had a pub, so all good.

 The next morning we went to get a coffee again but the Post Office was shut so we enquired at the general store and the owner picked up a key and went and opened the cafe, made us a cup and returned to his store. Dark clouds were forming again so we set off through Goondiwindi to Texas. The free camp by the river was a great place to stop and we had an expansive view over the farmland behind us. They have a novel idea here, campers write their postcode on all their receipts for food, drink and anything bought in the town and place them in a tub, these are then presented to the council to convince them that keeping the camping free is benefitting the town. 

Texas is a great, medium sized town but absolutely everything is closed on a Sunday, including the pub. We were hoping to visit the Texas Rabbit Works but it would not be open until the Tuesday and we were running out of time. It looked fascinating, in the 1930s the rabbit works employed 30 men and exported 3 tons of rabbit meat a week to England. The other museum in Texas was The Museum of Tobacco which only opened on Saturday mornings so, if you want to take in the presumably thrilling Texas attractions, you need to plan ahead.

The walk into town from our camp was very pleasant, just over 1km through farmland. As we were strolling along a cow popped out a new calf just as we were walking past her! What a treat! We stood and watched until the calf got on its feet and started feeding and walked on feeling very privileged. It was a good bird walk too with Pale Headed Rosellas, Little Friarbirds and Black Shouldered Kites among others. We left Harvey in the van and repeated the walk the next evening to have dinner in the pub. It was very good, not just by country town standards but would have held up anywhere.

 Woke to sunshine and mist. Ian went to check on our calf and found another one had been born overnight, that made 3 in the paddock altogether. The cafe selection was not brilliant for such a well presented town, the bakery cafe was truly awful. The area around Texas was known for growing Lucerne Hay but now cotton is taking over so I guess that would explain why the place appeared so prosperous.

We saw signs for Goat Rock, just outside the town, and drove up to have a look. The camping there looked amazing among huge rocks and rolling hills. Composting toilets only and bucket showers (I'm not sure I like the sound of a bucket shower but we have our own in the van) there was also a very good cafe there, one for next time. 

Texas was our last proper stop on a wonderful trip that took just over 7 weeks of our winter. It has taken me so long to write it up that we are already well into planning the next one. We just stopped the once on the way back in a place called Kootingal, just north of Tamworth. Very pleasant campsite $40 for power but the weather was becoming cold by then so well worth it to use our heater.

Jundah, Windorah and Quilpie

 Winton was the farthest north we were planning to go on our winter trip so the next stop was the first on our gradual return home. Opalton looked fascinating and was only just over an hour south so we decided to head there. 

Brolga

We had taken the dirt road out of Winton so we could detour to see the Dinosaur Stampede at Lark Quarry and planned to pick up a side road to Opalton from there instead of going all the way back to Winton to pick up the main road. We must have missed the turning however, because we ended up driving for over three hours on the dirt avoiding roos and cows. Darkness fell, which made driving with no real road quite dangerous and we eventually emerged in a small town named Jundah in the pitch dark much to our relief.

 I enquired at the pub about availability in their caravan park, $25 powered, $18 unpowered, but was told it was full. It was hard to imagine who would be staying in such a remote little spot but we parked up on a patch of scrub outside the park and figured nobody would notice until the morning. 

The next morning we woke to see what Jundah looked like in daylight and departed our cheeky overnight spot ASAP. There was a free camping area by the river, no toilets but the park had some and a shower only a two minute drive away. As we headed there to set up Ian saw a sign for the first ever Jundah Camel Races on 29th June, that was today! That explained why the caravan park was full so we hastily set up camp then drove out to the racecourse and spent a fun day at the races. 

The residents of Jundah were very pleased to become part of the camel racing circuit and they put on a great event. It was dog friendly, plenty of food and drink options, there were supposed to be sheep races but I don't know what happened to them because they didn't materialise but it didn't matter because a jolly good time was had by all. It was great to see all the jockeys were young women, the camels could be a bit aggressive on occasion but they were clearly in good hands. 

Red Winged Parrot

It was a warm, pleasant evening back at our riverside camp where we watched Red Winged Parrots and Zebra Finches and the night sky was sensational. Winton boasts about having starry skies but has more light pollution than remote little Jundah so here looked even better to us.

Zebra Finch

 We had decided to stay a couple more days and woke to another beautiful, sunny day without a cloud in the sky when a police car pulled up. The officers were informing campers about forecast heavy rain overnight which meant everyone must leave the riverbank or risk being unable to if it became boggy. The mud was the really claggy variety, great for preserving dinosaur footprints, as we had discovered in Winton, but not so good if stuck all over the tyres. 

White Plumed Honeyeater

Back in town the caravan park was almost empty because the camel racegoers had left, so we moved to our third campsite in Jundah and prepared to batten down the hatches. It was a comfy park with spotless amenities and a great camp kitchen and, as the afternoon wore on and the Brolgas were circling above us, more people arrived who had been asked to leave the surrounding National Parks because of the anticipated weather. 

Spiny Cheeked Honeyeater

 I was hoping the promised rain would wash off the red dust picked up on our marathon off road trek from Winton which covered both car and caravan but  there were only a few drops overnight and the morning was misty which made the red dirt stick even more. We saw one couple washing their car and caravan in the van park, that is such an inconsiderate thing to do, these small towns have very little water, often having to buy it in during dry times, a bit of a dirty van is not going to hurt anyone. 

 It was cold again, 28°C yesterday and 17°C today but Jundah was a pleasant place with a very wide main street, Post Office, Roadhouse selling breakfast and a pretty park so we enjoyed our stay. After a good clean up of the inside of the car (with a dry cloth) we headed for Windorah. Ian was keen to go there because he got stuck in Windorah 39 years ago after crashing his car in a rally and wanted to see if it had changed. It hadn't. 

The caravan parking behind the Western Star Hotel was nice and flat with plenty of room but we decided we would prefer to free camp at Coopers Creek, which was not really a creek at all but a very wide, brown river. The camping spots were fabulous among the trees, it was quite near the road but there was so little traffic it didn't matter.

 Life must be tough in these remote places, the one shop in town had no fresh milk and a very limited selection of fresh food. The landscape was harsh, rocky red dirt and flat. The road from Winton to Jundah had very few trees although there were more in Windorah as several rivers run through the area making it a great destination for bird spotting. 

There were Brown Treecreepers and White Plumed Honeyeaters constantly around our camp and we discovered Windorah had a 12km Nature Drive and a fabulous free museum with a beautifully preserved slab cottage. It turned out the nature drive was an alternate route back to our camp and it was wonderful, well signposted with information boards by interesting trees and shrubs. We saw Zebra Finches, Mulga Parrots, Spinifex Pigeons, an Australian Kestrel and others we were not quick enough to photograph for indentification purposes. We also spotted a feral cat, apparently they have a real problem with them around Windorah and we did hear a bit of yowling in the night.

 The following morning saw us pack up and drive in a straight line for 240km south east to Quilpie. It was much warmer and we found a big free camping area 1km out of town on the Bulloo River. It was a good spot, a few dirt bikes driving around and not many other campers but quite a hotspot for 1080 bait so we had to be extra careful with Harvey. 

Australian Kestrel

Quilpie was a decent sized town with two pubs, two small supermarkets and a very nice visitor centre with a cafe and art gallery. The Brick Hotel was an elegant building and sold a very respectable glass of wine, which has been very hit and miss in some of the little outback towns. The little airport was on the site of Amy Johnson's landing spot and everything felt far less remote. There was fresh milk in the shops and plenty of fresh food, from Quilpie onwards the towns would come at regular intervals as the road headed south east.

We were feeling pretty relaxed when suddenly the town began to fill up with muddy caravans and motorhomes, it was the procession of thousands returning from the Birdsville Big Red Bash. We had forgotten about them but now they were forming huge queues at the petrol stations and stripping the supermarkets bare, We left them to it and found  delightful Bulloo River Walk where we got to see yet more birds and returned to our van to find it surrounded by Pink Cockatoos.

Longreach, Muttaburra and Winton

 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.