Charleville To Bourke

We could not believe the amount of road kill on the side of the road from Charleville to Bourke. We have seen it a lot in our travels at various points but it really stood out in this particular stretch of the journey. Having said that we also saw many animals on the roadside and surrounding paddocks including Emu, Bilby, Goats, Horses, Cattle, Sheep and Kangaroos which are nice to see in their own environment.

We arrived at Bourke mid afternoon, we set up and then popped into town to have a look around. This time around almost everything was shut because it was a Sunday. In fact all of the shops in the entire town were barraged up which wasn't giving a great first impression of the town.

On further inspection today we found that its a town full of history and not as bad as we first thought. Having said that I don't know that Id ever stay here for an extended period of time. We spent some time at the Back 'O' Bourke exhibition centre, followed by a wander through town around the river area. We then explored off road areas before heading back to have our ride on the paddle steamer.

Longreach To Charleville

Leaving the warmth behind us. Spent the day on the road today and had every intention of spending a couple of hours at Cunnamulla on our way to Charleville only to find that the town was completely shut because it was a Saturday. So we continued onto Charleville. We booked a 7.30pm session at the Cosmos Centre to learn about astrology. Much to our disappointment they cancelled the evening due to cloud cover. So that was our experience of Charleville!

Longreach - Qantas Museum

Chris and I decided that going out for breakfast would be a  nice thing to do this morning seeing as the day was once again so magnificent. So we walked into town to find that the best venue for breakfast was only open on Saturdays and Sundays. So that's now on tomorrows agenda before we head toward greener pastures. With empty tummy's on board we did a spot of shopping and walked back to the van for an early lunch before our afternoon at the Qantas Museum.

The Qantas Museum was great. We started off with a 1.5 hour jet tour followed by  a wander through the museum. We then booked a tandem flight simulator which was a fabulous experience for Chris and the kids. I enjoyed watching and taking photos because I don't even like to pretend to enjoy flying. Lastly we wandered through the original Qantas hanger before heading home to prepare dinner and do a little boomerang throwing with Lachie.

Standing Inside The Jets Engine

Mel In The Flight Simulator

747 That We Had A Tour Through. Absolutely Huge When You Stand Next To Them.

Longreach - Stockmans Hall Of Fame

Longreach is well known for the Stockman Hall Of Fame and the Qantas museum both of which we plan to visit whilst we are here. Firstly we thought we would start off with the Stockman Hall Of Fame, it is situated just down the road from the caravan park so we had a slower start to the day. It's certainly well worth a visit. So much to be learnt in the museum about life in the early years as a stockman in comparison to how they manage their stock today. Whilst we were here we booked a dinner and show package. The show was fabulous, lots of humour and the animals had obviously had a lot of time invested in them because they were very clever. I was particularly impressed with the horses. Tomorrow is our last day in Longreach so we plan to make the most of this beautiful sunshine and blue skies like we did at lunchtime today when we wandered around the Thompson River. The outback is such a beautiful place to explore.

Stockman Show

Thompson River

Mount Isa - School Of The Air and Isa Underground Mine Tour

So much to explore at Mt Isa. We particularly enjoyed the School Of Air and the Mt Isa Mine Tour.

 

The school of air currently has 160 students located throughout outback Queensland and Northern Territory. We were lucky enough to go into a studio when a teacher was taking a grade two class. We heard the interaction between teacher and student which was done via phone and the internet. The kids hook up with their teacher for 1/2 and hour a day via phone and participate in classes of no more than ten students. Our kids thought that would be fabulous!

Each family had to do a plaque that showed life on their property to be on display at the school in Mt Isa.

This boys dad is a fencing contractor and travels for his job. He does his schoolwork via satellite phone. He has to move far away from his Dad whilst doing his schoolwork as he has to have the generator going so he can communicate with the school.

This is a Year 6 teacher taking her class in her sound proof classroom.

The mine tour and museum were very informative and the gentleman that was our guide for the afternoon was a real character. He has worked in the mines for approximately 20 years and is currently on long service leave. His name was "Smithy" and he had many interesting stories to tell. The mine that we toured was about 30 metres below ground level. We learnt a lot about how they mine for copper, zinc and iron in Mt Isa and had the opportunity to try using some of the equipment. Lachie in particular really enjoyed this experience. He was up the front ready for all of the hands on participation.

Lachies 2nd Blog To 3/4 EW

Hi everyone,

We are currently in Mt Isa. Mt Isa is a town that has one of the largest mines in the world. They mine for copper, silver, lead and zinc. It's been reasonably warm compared to what we have had most of the time on the way up. We probably wont travel any further North and we will take our time coming home. Today we visited the underground hospital that was built in 1942 because when Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in the world war Mt Isa thought that they would be next on the list because Mt Isa was fairly rich from mining minerals. We also toured a museum to learn about mining. Tomorrow we are going into the mine for a tour of a replica underground mine. But today we had a treat of McDonalds for lunch and Dad and I shared a Big Mac that had 4 patties, 2 on the top and two on the bottom. And a quarter pounder that had 3 patties. Altogether there was 7 patties and we had 3 and a half each in two burgers, it was delicious!

A little while ago we went to a hot spring called Dalhousie Springs it was 38 degrees and the water is heated from underground. We also went to the edge of the Simpson Desert and climbed Big Red which is the second biggest out of all of the sandunes in the desert.

 I met this kid at Uluru called Orlando and his brother Jack. They both played soccer but couldn't because their trip interfered with it.    

We've done lots of other stuff but you can read about that in the other blogs.

From Lachie

The Hospital Beds In The Underground Hospital in 1942

 

The Hospital Beds Today

 

Me On A Piece Of Mining Equipment

Birdsville To Mt Isa QLD

The Sky Was So Pretty As We Headed Out Of Birdsville This Morning

We are over the red dirt roads, so we've headed for more of outback QLD that you can get to via bitumen. So here we are in Mt Isa Qld.