Day 1
A pretty boring day – we finally got on the road at about 11am and drove through to Narrabri.
Day 2
Off to an early start and kept heading north on the straight flat roads littered with heaps of road kill and in one place actually a ‘heap’ of road kill piled up. The game with the kids is ‘identify what animal that used to be’ and we have seen everything from wild pigs to emus!
We got into Mitchell – staying at the Major Mitchell caravan park where the staff were incredibly friendly and even help you park your trailer, at about 3.30pm and had just enough time to set up and head over to the artesian spa. Talk about heaven after a long day of sitting in the car! Mitchell didn’t have a lot to offer but is well worth a stop to go to the spa. The kids all seemed to enjoy the cold water, Paul and I stuck to the much more acceptable 38 degree spa.
Day 3
Another very early start as we were hoping to get to Winton approx 800km away. After stopping for a late lunch in Barcaldine we decided to stop the night in Longreach – so glad we did. The kids had a quick swim in the pool while everyone else in the park looked at them as if they were insane (including their parents). We decided to head over to the ‘Woolshed’ in the park where we had a lovely meal and got to listen to a local country duo who were great.
Day 4
During the night however, the heavens opened and everything got soaked! Nothing like packing up in the rain only to hear just as we finished that the road to Winton was closed! All the grey nomads who surrounded up sensibly decided to stay another night in Longreach. The Garment’s however, decided to spend the morning at the QANTAS Founders Museum and take our chances with the road being opened in the afternoon. It was about this time Paul broke the camper trailer! He managed to shear off the jockey wheel bolt again! After an hour at a local repair place (not to mention an exorbitant amount of money) we were off down the road to the Museum.
If you are ever in Longreach you should stop in and have a look. Dedicated very much to the people who started the airline and it’s involvement with the flying doctors. We also went on a tour of a 747 and a 707 that had been fitted out as a flying home away from home – Claire has decided that is the only way to fly and plans to buy one when she is rich and famous!
As we left the museum we heard that the road to Winton was finally open! After a quick detour into town to pick up a Telstra mobile phone (Vodafone are completely useless out here) we headed off to Winton. What an experience – we could see the cars coming the other way and how dirty they all were and were a bit concerned about what we had gotten ourselves into (I’ll remind you here this road is the Matilda Highway). Roadwork has meant that half the road is dirt and of course after the previous nights downpour it was now just a big muddy bog! The roadtrains managed to make a nice mess of it and traffic could only flow one way in places – at one stage we were in a queue waiting to move as far as the eye could see and considering how incredibly flat it is out here the eye could see a long way.
After a much longer trip than expected and three huge chips in the windscreen we finally rolled into Winton only to discover there was no room at the inn – or any of the camp areas in town. I think the lady took pity on me when she found out I had four kids in the car because we ended up setting up for the night behind their carport.
Having a great time though and the kids have been fantastic sitting in the car.
Photos will follow as soon as I upload them.
