SATURDAY 14th JULY

Happy Birthday Kim!!
Nice relaxed morning eggs and bacon andcoffee in the camp kitchen at Ups N Downs Farm!!
In to roma to do a bit of shopping and final look around. The Farm we are on is a working sheep station and has a lot of old stuff around the place. One interesting "grave" where the last person who stole the toilet paper rests for example amd some lovely old cars.

It is a shame to see it rust away

Not sure who stole the toilet paper???

We walked down the Avenue of Bottle Trees in memory of the soldiers from the war there was a plaque at each tree for each soldier.

Rememberance Street

Tonight the camp hosts are cooking Dampers for everyone. Each night there is a campfire which is great as it is very cold at night here.

A visitor to our camp site!!

Great campfire on a cold night cooking three dampers!

A truck made out of scrap metal to keep us warm in the camp kitchen

FRIDAY 13th JULY

Heard about a farm stay near Roma so rang and booked in for two nights. A very short run today the countryside is pretty boring here just flat grassy plains about 100kms so arrived early to "Ups N Downs" Farm Stay. Unhooked the van and headed off to see what we could find in Roma. Quite a big town mainly for cattle they have the biggest cattle yards and sale yards in Australia. Unfortunately the sales are only on Tuesday and Thursday as it would have been very interesting. We visited the Big Rig to hear about Roma's history and booked in for the night show.

The Big Rig is about the search for water for Roma in 1900's and they found natural gas and oil instead!!!

Roma also has a lot of Bottle Trees growing and The Big Tree isover 9metres around and over 100years old.

Made me feel small!!

Freezing cold tonight forecast is for 3degrees in the morning!!!!!!

THURSDAY 12th JULY

We had a nicedinner with Angie, Pat and the girlas and a nice motel room for the night(a bit of a change). Before we left Charleville we had a walk around town, there is a lovely old pub in the main street.

Heritage Pub in Charleville

Headed off for a short trip today to Mitchell. On the way we stopped at the tiny town of Morven, it had some interesting things in the little main street.

An interesting border collie sculpture

An old tin hut made from flattened kerosene tins

We felt very small getting fuel at Morven with the road trains 

We booked into a van park which was right in town and just across the river from the Artesian Spa. After a walk through town only took 10minutes we went for a spa. A nice 34 degrees and very relaxing.

Very relaxing in the 34 degrees water

Mitchell also had a Musical Maze Cattle Yard and Nev played the xylophone!!!!!

Nev showing off his musical talents

WEDNESDAY 11th JULY

From Tambo we headed toward Charleville to catch up with Angie and Pat. We drove through Augathella where we had morning tea. A very very very small quiet town.

Interesting murals on their buildings

Augathella is the home of The Mighty Meat Ants footy team

Beautiful gums along the levy bank around the town

 We arrived in Charleville just after lunch and called into Angie's motel. Pat was sleeping after a night Roo shooting and the girls were palying. We hadn't met Mila before, she took a while to warm to us but is very cute and Paisley has really grown up since we saw her last.

Mila and Paisley

TUESDAY 10th JULY

Drove around town to look at a few things before heading off.

Some interesting sculptures around town made from recycled material

The site of a stump used forsurveying towns in QLD in 1888 called "The Black Stump"

One side of this is considered Beyond the Black Stump which is where the saying came from.
We drove onto Tambo for the night. We had heard a bit about this little town and it's interesting Pub!!

This is the Info centre

There were some lovely old buildings here and some interesting old people who had sometales to tell. There was a magnificent quilt in the info centre made about the history of Tambo. We visited all the old buildings (it is not a very big town) and for filling out a survey we got a present. See below!!!

A roll of toilet paper!!!!!

Tambo isalsofamour for "Tambo Teddies" whichare handsewn from all Australian wool. One was given to Prince George from QLD. They are lovely but expensive.

Also in an old building

But the highlight of Tambo was at 5pm when Ben from the "Royal Carrangarra Hotel" runs his chicken races. He has dyed his chickens with food colouring and they race behing a remote control car to raise money for RFDS.

It was a lot of fun. He is a real character.

At the back of the pub track is set up ready to race!!!!!

MONDAY 9th JULY

We stayed in a free camp on the outskirts of town so we could spend the morning in Barcaldine before heading off.
In the main street there is"The Tree of Knowledge" which was a huge ghost gum and payed a big part in the formation of the Labour Party in the shearers stroke of 1891. It was poisoned in 2006 and a memorial wasbuilt to it. It contains 3449 hanging timbers to look like the canopy of the old tree and is lit up at night.

The windmill and Tree of Knowledge in main street

 We then spent the morning in the Australian Workers Heritage Centre whichwasvery interesting and was housed in different relocated buildings. It looked at all types of workers up until thepresent day.
There wasa medical section which had a segment on Nev's knee doctor.

Nev was lucky to get the leading doctor in the world for his operation

Some of the exhibits were in the bicentenary tent that travelled the country and is now permanently at Barcaldine.

Unusual museum building

We left Barcaldine at lunchtieandtravelled to Blackall and camped in the town near the river (which was dry). We drove to the Woolscour for a tour . It is Australia's last remaining steam driven wool washing plant and operates on steam power.It uses artesian water straight from thebore and it isvery hot.

Hot water gushes from the bore

The tour was very interesting and the old guy had actually worked there from the age of 13 running for the shearers!! We were met at thedoor by a friendly goat!!

Still all working from steam engine 

My attempt at shearing!!!!!

We then had a walk through Ram Park which is the museum for this Blackall. Every town has a museum!!!

Ram Park no more sheep in the area now.

SUNDAY 8th JULY

Longer drive today as we are heading south west. Roads still straight and lots of road kill every few metres. Stupid kangaroos!!!
The weather iscoldand freezing wind. Stopped at Longreach (have been before and done all the touristy things here) sojuststopped for lunch. Nothing except the Bakery was open on Sunday. Some lovely old buildings in town.

The main street of Longreach.

No one around so Nev is having a chat to an old plaster bull!

Drove on to Barcaldine for the night.

SATURDAY 7th JULY

Today is "Dinasour" day for us. Winton is known for its dinasour discoveries so we headed a few kms out of town to the "Australian Age Of Dinasour Museum". Well whatasurprise it was great. It is in three parts and takes three hous to complete. So after morning teaanda fabulous viewfrom the Jump Up that it is located on we headed to the Fossil Laboratory for a tour.the surroundings are beautiful rugged cliffs and very natural, really well done.

The buildings really blend in with landscape

Inside painstakingly removing the soil from fossils

Then we went to the Collection Room for some interesting videos and hear the history of the Grazier that found the bones accidently and started the whole thing to keep it in Winton.

An actual dinasour leg bone fossil

Nev is only as tall as the ankle bone!!!

The last part was a little cart ride across to another areaof life size outside displays. Where they have tried recreate the environments that might have been around in the dinasour times.

Walkways to each section

Pretty scary!!!

Back in Winton we visited Arno's Wall a fence about 2 metres high made from anything he could find at the tip. A bit different??????

Arno's Fence

Lastly today we went to the Open Air Picture Theatre but no movies tonight unforunately.

Open Air Theatre only 2 left in Australia operating

FRIDAY 6th JULY

We left early and don't have a long drive today to Winton. We haven't been here before so keen to check it out. Lucky to get a spot as there isa film festival on at the moment. The Information Centre here burnt down in 2015 and the newone opened in April this year. WOW!! WOW!! It is amazing, it is called Qantilda Museum and is dedicated to Waltzing Matilda and BanjoPatterson. The displays and information are really well done and we spent quite a few hours there looking at everything.

Me next to Banjo Patterson

Displays and information were excellent

We then had lunch and it was delicious just how a Devonshire Tea should be!!!!!!

Didn't need any more lunch Yummy!!

We walked around Winton Town. It isa funny place with the butcher in one  street and the fruit shop a few blocks away and the grocery shop in the other direction none of them in the main street. There are some very old buildings in the main street and of course a few pubs.

One of the original 1878 buildings

We walked down to the Musical Fence which was interesting all junk hung up to make  musical notes.It is a hands on attraction so we both made plenty of noise(not music!!)

Nev on the drums

Me playing percussion!!

THURSDAY 5th JULY

Drove to Cloncurry andfound a lovely bakery for morning tea. Visited the Info centre which has some buildings relocated from Mary Kathleen mining town. and a lot of info about Burke and Wills Expedition.

The drive is hilly when we first left Mt Isa but has flattened out and still into the wind, pretty boring not much colour except for about 2 metres on each edge of the road which is green.

Very flat straight roads.

We stopped at a free camp off the road a bit amongst some unusual hills and coloured soil. Nev went exploring and came back with some wood after he scared all the kangaroos away!!

We had a lovely sunset from our campsite

Nev loves his campfire!!!!