Tuesday, 23 June Day 4

I was awake early again but a bit better sleep.
I had a bigger breakfast today to get me through the morning because there are no more biscuits left. I had taken a packet of Anzac biscuits that Peter had given me a few weeks ago.
I want to walk through the reclaimed area of the creek. Yesterday I asked at the tourist information office and found it is a fair way to where to start the walk. So this morning I walked there after breakfast to the entrance and timed it, it is half an hour. Then at least an hour on the shortest walk and a half-hour back to the motel so I need a minimum of two hours.

Back then through the main street to the motel where I had a rest and read some more. I’m enjoying the book “Blood of the Isles” about DNA in the UK.
When the cleaning lady came around I commented about how nice the macadamia shortbread biscuits were so she gave me some extras. I’m hoarding these for the trip home.

Today’s tour left at 10 o’clock for the Longreach School of the air. Very interesting morning. We had to finish quickly because we are due at the Wellshot Hotel in Ilfracombe at 12 midday for lunch. We got there a little bit early so we drove past the Langenbaker house. This house is now a museum although you can’t go into it for safety reasons now. It has been preserved to give an example of how people lived very early in our history. The two parents and 11 children lived in this very small home.

The Wellshot Hotel-what a find! A really old pub with some different traditions. There are dozens of Akubras on the roof each with the owner’s name-a tradition going back for years. The amazing thing is that it is usually very difficult to get a country person to give up their hat!
And $5 $10 $20 and $50 notes stuck to the wooden roof! How?

After wandering through the pub for 10 to 15 minutes we were treated to a very good buffet lunch-all cold but plenty of it. Jo-the publican-is very young but very pleasant. I spoke to her about the hats and her explanation was that because it is such a long tradition many people are proud to put their hats up on the ceiling.

After lunch we were driven approximately a mile from the Wellshot hotel so that we could walk back through the machinery Park. There is a wonderful collection of old farming machines here and I enjoyed the walk.

We all assembled at the hotel again and Terry took up a collection for the RFDS. It ended up being approximately $55 and then we found out how the money gets up onto the ceiling. BUT I’m not telling! Go there and find out-it is really fascinating and you never know-you may put one up there.

So then we were back to the motel for another afternoon nap and/or read.

Later I walked over to the IGA supermarket to check on possible things for meals on the train-I will be able to sort something. Back at the motel I had a beer and some almonds. It is now 5:45 and I’m sitting in the motel room writing this in just my shorts-that’s all! It is so hot!
I then went to dinner at the motel restaurant. We sat at long tables of 10-hot meals served by the staff. We had to line up and get a little bit from each Bain Marie put on our plates. After that we had fruit salad and ice cream. Very poor meal really for a supposed upmarket restaurant.

We had finished dinner by 7 PM and I couldn’t be bothered trying to find something to watch on the TV so I took a walk down to the Longreach club again. It is only 7:30 PM now while I’m writing this.
Nothing happening here so back to Motel and early to bed.

Monday the 22nd Day 3

I had the usual broken sleep but so much more comfortable than the train had been. I had a shave and was at the restaurants for the buffet breakfast at 6:35 AM. It is only a continental breakfast but plenty of it. After breakfast I had a wander around the town again. As it was so early there were very few people about.

The bus picked us up at 8:45 AM and we did a tour of the town -which took about 15 minutes. The population is 3000 but it has numerous facilities for kids and adults. There is a very big retirement/nursing home complex and a very big hospital that has been fully modernised.

Then the short journey to the Qantas founders Museum.

Our first look around was of the Boeing 747. Our guide Donna-very good guide -knew the plane inside out. We looked in the cargo holds, cockpit, toilets, air-conditioning, business class, first class and upstairs etc. A lot of panels have been removed to show the plane’s workings. This part of the tour took over an hour but it certainly wasn’t boring.

The next part was the Boeing 707. This plane has a very interesting history as it was the very first jet that Boeing sold outside of the United States and it was purchased by Qantas and was named the Canberra. Qantas sold it off many years ago and a few years ago one of their engineers noticed that it was for sale in England. So he made enquiries, got together some other retired engineers, got some funding and was able to go over to England, buy it and get it ready to fly back to Australia. It was flown to Australia in very short stages including New York and Los Angeles, Honolulu and Fiji and finally landed at Longreach to be a permanent part of the Qantas founders Museum. The last owner was a Saudi prince and one of the conditions of sale was that no pictures would be taken of the interior. The interior has been left exactly as it was and it certainly was luxurious. There is a full-size bedroom, big shower, huge toilets inlaid with gold etc.

Then we went back to the museum proper to see a film on Qantas history followed by lunch. We had ordered our lunch earlier and unfortunately I ordered the smallest one and I was very hungry as usual.

Then we had free time to wander wherever we wanted. Very interesting movie was playing on the finding and refurbishment of the 707 and the flight back to Australia.

The original hanger is still here as is an original DC 3. However the museum is so full of information that is very hard to absorb it all. Eventually I gave up with information overload.

Our bus was not due until 2 PM and as I felt I had seen all I could I decided about 1:15 PM to walk back to the motel. I took the walk fairly easily because of the heat. Halfway along the Cobb and Co Coach came along with some of our tour members on board and I got some photos and video of it.

It is still boiling hot which is so confusing. I think I’m the same as most of the people on the tour-we expected that it was going to be cold.

There was a pest exterminator outside my motel room when I got back. There was a small swarm of bees in a plant outside my room and he was disposing of it. No gloves or net just very slow hand movements and he cut off the branch and put it carefully into a cooler bag. No more problem.

After that “excitement” I had a rest and read some of my book till about 4 PM and then went into the main street to look at the Cobb & Co business premises. After that I had a half-hour on the Internet and answered a few e-mails. The Cobb and Co Coach came through the main street and I saw that all the people on board had earphones on and were being given a guided tour by the driver of the coach.

At 5:45 PM we assembled to walk to the RSL club for dinner but Terry -the tour leader- wasn’t there so I decided to walk by myself to the club. Found Terry there and told him that most of the others were still waiting at the motel so he took off straightaway to bring them to the club.

The club had set up a long table for us all-there are 30 of us-and when we were all seated they began an alternate drop of steak or chicken. I got the chicken-lucky-I was so hungry I even ate all the salad. After this there was another alternate drop of apple pie and cream or mud cake and cream. I got the apple pie this time. After dinner I had a few drinks. Then back to the motel and in bed about 9:45 PM

Sunday the 21st

A very broken night as usual. I turned the light on about 2:30 AM and finished my book. Then I dozed on and off until I got up at 6:30 AM. I took some photos inside the cabin and the restaurant areas. My complimentary coffee was yuk!!! I’m glad I didn’t pay for it.
7:50 AM we stopped at Alpha-not sure why? We stopped for about 20 minutes so I got off and walked a bit and took a lot of photos of the town. We went through Dingo very early in the morning.
10:25 AM Barcaldine- stopped for 30 minutes as the train seems to be ahead of schedule. This was great because I saw the Tree of Knowledge-that is the new monument. It’s very impressive and one of the few works of sculpture I have seen that impressed me. There are at least four pubs in the main street. Numerous caravans and camper vans parked on the road also and the tourist information office was very busy.
Back on board now.
The highway is just beside the train line and I just saw a road sign saying Longreach 109 km and as we still had two hours to go that would mean about 55 km an hour. We are certainly not travelling as fast as we have before.

We arrived in Longreach about 12:45 PM and collected our bags and walked across the road to the motel. It’s a very big motel and the rooms are very big also. I settled in and changed my clothes-it is boiling hot-still we are right on the Tropic of Capricorn. I’m glad I put in some shorts.
Had a walk around the town and got some beer. The town is not very big so a full lap of the main only took 20 minutes. Then back to the motel for a rest after getting six stubbies of VB. There is a laundromat in the motel.

About 4 PM I went to the Longreach club after packing my bag for tonight’s tour. It’s a very modern club-not like the normal special country clubs-I had one beer as I was the only one there. The coach was due to go out at 5 pm so I left the club at 4:30 PM only to find that they were looking to me as the time had been changed. Lucky I had packed before going to the club. Bus picked up some others and then a short trip to the river. We got on board and went up to the top deck and the cruise started immediately.

It is called a sunset cruise-to view the sunset over the Thomson River but there are so many trees along the riverbank you don’t see the actual sunset. As soon as we got on board two young girls brought around some nibbles-cheese etc which I enjoyed with my beers. The cruise lasted approximately 2 hours. One of the most exciting parts of the cruise was the reflections of the sky in the river. We also saw a lot of turtles and some birds. This is also a big fishing area and a lot of people were fishing from the banks. There are three main fish that are caught here and also red and blue crayfish-the blue ones are the native ones.

Then we all had to go downstairs and squeeze into a very cramped dining area which was the first chance to meet some of the people on our tour. The meal was very good. The main course was roast beef-which I normally avoid because it is usually so dry-but this one was good as it was very moist and it had plenty of veggies. Then there was a desert also.

While upstairs I spoke to a German family who were here for three weeks driving a hire car from Brisbane to Harvey Bay, Longreach, Airley Beach and Cairns.

It was only 7:30 PM when we got back to the motel so I went to the RSL for a beer. The club was fairly quiet but a schooner was only $3.50 which was really good. Then back home and had a shower and into bed.

Saturday 20th of June 2009

I was up very early-I went to the hotel last night and it rained a lot. I slept badly. Defrosted the fridge finished off packing in stages.
I drove to Ronina station about 6am to be sure there were no track works and to take an overdue library book back. No track works I’m safe to catch the train.

Back home I sent some e-mails then
shaved, chopped up the boiled eggs and mashed them with chilli sauce ready for sandwiches. At this stage it was still raining. My fresh bread arrived at 8:30 so I made my eight fresh sandwiches, 4 with egg and four plain-and I also have two tins of sardines for them.

I had all my cameras in my separate camera bag but decided to put everything into the backpack for ease of carrying.
The weather seemed to be clearing so I took the opportunity to walk up to the bus stop even though I’d have a long wait. The train was waiting at the station when I arrived and I had a good trip to Brisbane and then over to the long-distance platform at Roma St. I had my two egg sandwiches and then checked the bag and boarded the train around 12:45.

The room is the same setup as on the Indian Pacific except there was no table. A big plus was that the cabin can be locked so I don’t have to cart all my cameras and money everywhere I go.

We left a few minutes late and I’m sitting at my window enjoying the view.
1:30 PM tickets have just been checked
2:45 PM I asked about going to another cabin as my one is very hot and fumes come in. I was advised that the engineer would have a look at the air conditioning and there’s nothing they can do about the fumes.
3:15 PM Nambour
3:30 PM countryside is very green and plenty of trees. Vastly different from the Eyre highway.
3:40 PM Cooroy.
5:15 PM I went to the lounge and had 2 beers and spoke to some people-a few are on the same trip. I joined in some conversations but as I have my own dinner I went back to my cabin about 6:15 PM.

The bed was made up soon after so I just read and dozed off a few times.
We arrived at Rockhampton on time at 23:00 so I walked for 10 minutes on the platform. When we departed Rockhampton the train went in reverse for about 15 minutes and then forward again.

The route the train follows to Longreach is Brisbane to Rockhampton and then west to Longreach.

I recently took a trip to Longreach, which is on the Tropic of Capricorn in western Queensland.

I’ve now remembered that I haven’t posted my diary into this blog so will do that over the next few days.