Macs with Packs: Dinosaurs, dongas and the f**ckin' long-term guy.

Hello again! A heads up that this is a long post!

Picking up where I left off last time, the small town of Thargomindah was interesting. We met 'Surly Shirley' who ran one of the pubs and she wasn't as surly as her reputation indicated. She was happy enough to chat for a bit but we could still see where the nickname came from. It's fun meeting characters like this.

There was a 5km walking track around the town that had various points of historical interest on it. We walked it and were absolutely amazed at the money that had gone into it. Every historical building was either completely renovated or re-built by hand. In some of the buildings were holograms, movies, information sheets or models. You swiped your card and blinds automatically lowered and movies started playing. We were surrounded by modern technology even though we were in very remote country! It was so weird. A footpath ran the entire way and was lit along its entirety by solar lights! We did part of the walk in the dark and it was fun. We still can't get over the government money that has gone into such a tiny town.

This area is Channel Country, arid, scrubby land that has thousands of creeks and rivers running through it in wet times. I had imagined these rivers to create oasis-like environments, but they just create temporary water supplies. These creeks and rivers flood a lot from time to time though so some of these towns had old 'flood trucks' - trucks that were converted to be able to cross flooded areas.

We did another walk that was supposed to be around a lake but was actually just through the desert and somewhere vaguely near a lake. It was very bleak but interesting. It's sooo flat!

Heading west out of town, we drove through some spectacular red soil country;

Many times we would be driving along then suddenly a weird smell would infiltrate the car. We later learned that this is from the gidgee tree. It releases this smell whenever it's humid or raining. It was certainly raining and the regular floodways that crossed the roads soon gathered water which made for fun driving!

We turned north-west to Eromanga, home of the dinosaurs. The huge dinosaur bones were incredible. I had no idea that Australia had so many dinosaur fossils. That's just the leg of a dinosaur that I'm standing beside.

Next stop was Quilpie. Quilpie was really interesting, and not always in a good way, although our opinion could be clouded by the fact that the town was chock-a-block full of tourists. The only room we could get was what we thought was a motel room but was actually a 'donga' behind the pub. (A donga is a portable room, often used as a site office at quarries, mines etc).

It was actually better inside than it looked on the outside - at least it had plenty of bench space which is something places usually lack. However it had other drawbacks.

One of these drawbacks was "the long-term guy" in the donga next to us. (He was staying there for a while for work so the person who checked us in called him the long-term guy). When we came back from our simple pub meal, he was sitting on the chairs between his donga and ours, sharing his advice with whoever would listen. We suspect he might have been fairly well lubricated. All we could hear from our room was a non-stop tirade of expletives, even though he wasn't angry. He helpfully advised a tourist on the f**ckin' roads, the f**ckin' best way to drive to places and to watch out for the f**ckin' roos. When the tourist finally escaped, he was replaced by an apprentice who must have worked at the same place as the long-term guy. We heard all about his opinion on the f**ckin' job and the f**ckin' apprentice's job so far ("You're not too f**ckin' bad, just work f**ckin' hard and you'll f**ckin' be ok"). The tirade went on for hours with the apprentice only getting the occasional word in. John put earplugs in so he could sleep but I found that the conversation was so f**ckin' monotonous that I fell asleep to it anyway.

The other issue was the water. When we were in Cunnamulla we learnt that artesian bore water can smell but it was manageable there. The water in Quilpie stunk. The sulphurous stench rose up from the taps and the toilet but when we had a shower the steam seemed to make it worse and it almost made me gag. Needless to say that after the first shower, I survived with splashes under the armpits. I wasn't getting back into that shower again.

Quilpie was swarming with caravans. There was the usual staff shortage here that we saw everywhere so far in our travels.

We did a walk along a nearby river and found that the whole track had turned to mud. We slipped and slid in the tacky muck.

You would think the rivers around here would be beautiful but they're all so muddy. We didn't see a clear river in all of channel country. I assumed it was because they had just had rain but apparently the rivers are usually like this.

We drove out to Baldy Top and Table Top, two flat-topped mesas. It was fun clambering around the rocks and checking out the stunning views.

Dead trees seemed to be becoming petrified in front of our eyes.

This was peak visitor time as there were a series of music concerts across the region leading up to "the bash" and we had targeted Quilpie as we could get tickets to one of the shows. The concert was held at the base of Baldy Top at sunset and the location was spectacular.

The show had music and dance and was a bit weird. They covered the history of the area and even had diprotodons (these ancient creatures have been found in the area) which were well done. It was an interesting night out.

The drive from Quilpie to Windorah was the last time we would be on the main road with the hoards heading to the bash, The roads have been amazingly good - they put our local roads to shame - however they are often only one lane wide and the edges of the road are horrible red, sticky mud. The mud is bad enough for us let alone the poor people trying to tow caravans on them. In some places, there's no mud because it's rocky. Of course, this creates the danger of breaking someone's windscreen with a stone. Consequently, there's an unwritten rule about passing on these roads. One person indicates that they will pull over and the other person doesn't get off the road. As we aren't towing anything, we usually get off the road and let the others pass. If we want to pass a slower vehicle ahead of us, they usually pull over and let us pass. We've only had one selfish bugger who refused to get over. At the end of these days, our vehicles are covered in mud. We had to scrape it off from around the wheel hubs and sometimes.

We arrived in Windorah. Ahhh - what a fantastic place! With a population of about 80, this little place gets swamped by tourists yet has retained its small town charm tremendously.

One of the advantages of having a car that 's not towing anything is that we tend to travel faster, so we arrived in Windorah before most people. We had booked a cabin out the back of the only hotel in this tiny outback town and it was wonderful. Lily, a local 16 year-old, served us and she was terrific value. What a character for such a young age! When we asked about fuel queues she told us to get it straight away as the queue was really short. We took her advice and we were so glad we did. Within half an hour the queue was down the street. Another half an hour later the local cop came out and set up witches hats to form lanes to the different bowsers. The fuel queues completely blocked the main street. He asked one driver with a camper trailer on the pull out into the next queue line and must have flustered him 'cos he backed straight into the car behind him, right in front of the cop. Even though the cop had his back to us we just knew he rolled his eyes at these dumb tourists! He also started breathalising people - it was the middle of the day!

There were some cool sculptures in town.

I dropped John out of town along a dirt road and he rode back in. It was another classic bike riding road with not a person in sight.

The roads through channel country are usually unfenced and we always have to watch out for stock. They keep talking in tourist brochures about the what great sheep and cattle country this is and one even stated that it's "the best cattle-fattening country in Australia". Seriously, it's all like this photo below. Who do they think they're kidding?

The edges of the roads often look like this.

I saw a solitary sand dune on the way back to town and I scrambled up it. It was awesome!

That night, we queued for dinner but it only took about 3/4 of an hour to get our meals, a pretty good effort really. Lily was still there - she had switched jobs from being the receptionist to being the bargirl. Yep, age doesn't matter in these parts when it comes to serving alcohol (she's 16)! Check out the name of the drink the Lily is pouring for me!

It actually wasn't very good port at all!

Lilly was a tad generous with her serving sizes......

They were very switched on at this pub. They had a couple from Victoria helping out and we got on really well with Barbara. We chatted over a few drinks and would have continued on much longer if the owner hadn't turned the lights off on us.

We would love to have stayed longer here but we had bookings at Longreach so we sadly left. En-route we went for a walk in Lochern National Park which was a bit uneventful. We did see lots of emu tracks though.

Arriving in Longreach was like arriving into civilisation. It was a big town! We had a slab hut cabin which was supposed to be quite fancy. It was nice but is impractical and I didn't like it at first. The simple slab walls had gaps between them that let noise and dust in and would surely let mossies and flies in if there were many around. The exposed beams were lovely but they supported a tin roof with no lining at all. There was absolutely no insulation. The room was hot when we arrived and we froze at night. Imagine the energy wasted in heating and cooling these places. The second night was so cold that even our faces were cold. However the charm of the place grew on me. Maybe it was because I listened to part of The Drover's Wife at the museum where Henry Lawson wrote about the gaps in the slab hut walls. Or maybe it was the incredibly comfy bed, It maybe it was just all that homely timber but I grew to love it.

First impressions of Longreach weren't good. After the tiny outback towns we had been in, Longreach was massive and was clearly a tourist town. Hotel after motel after caravan park lined the strip of highway heading out to the two big sights - the Stockman's Hall of Fame and the Qantas museum. Cafe's and restaurants had names like Merino Cafe, Jumbuk Motel and Stockman's Grill. It was all so tacky and tourists were everywhere.

Our visit to the Stockman's Hall of Fame was great though! I thought it would just be all about famous stockmen but I learned a lot about outback life in general. I was amazed at some of the old stock droving routes - it must have been madness to drive thousands of cattle across vast deserts. Likewise, the early settlers had such a tough life out here.

I liked this scrawled poem....

The Hall of Fame covered everything from bull-riding to whip-making to the creation of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

One night we drove out of town and just parked the car on the side of the road to look at the stars. They were spectacular! We shared our patch of road with a lone kangaroo, Gosh they're everywhere.

One animal I've been trying unsuccessfully to see for the whole trip is a brolga. I dropped John 30kms out of town for a bike ride and as I drove back into the edge of town three brolgas walked across the road! I pulled over and watched in amazement as they drunk from a puddle beside the road then wandered down a side road. There were two adults and a half-grown chick. Wonderful!

While John rode his bike I explored the town on foot, trying to get fit for a big walk we have coming up. I soon realised that although it's such a tourist town, once you get away from the main tourist accommodation strip, the town itself is very real. It was comforting to see.

The Qantas museum was pretty cool. I can't believe they flew all those early flights in open cockpits!