Beyond the Black Stump

Whew. We finally got away, one hour late, but away nevertheless. It's going to be tricky to blog from many of the places where we are going (beyond the bytes), so we will have to do data dumps when we are in range.. The blog is also a diary for us, so hopefully won't be too tedious. 

We are running north to get to the hard places to get to from Queensland, but it has been difficult not to stop in the history-rich towns of outback Queensland on the way.

We have already blown fuses, and spent 2 hours fixing a bent pole in the camper trailer with a good bloke called Gary Brown on the edge of Longreach (about one block from the centre of Longreach). Gary didn't even want money for getting back on the road. Of course we insisted!

We are now in Mt Isa, 2000km into our journey, about to head out to the bush "Lawn Hall Gorge" for kayaking and walking so will be offline for about five days.

Map of the places we have visited.

We will attempt to update this map when we hit wi fi spots! If you zoom in you will see tracks of our route made using "My Tracks" for Android, Not very exciting yet, but hope to improve this.

Day 1: Drove to Blackall. Left Brisbane at 7am and arrived at 8pm, after dinner at the Tambo Pub. About 1000km.

Day 2: Drove to Longreach, Qantas Musuem, Paddle in the Thompson River.

Day 3: Longreach (and repairs) to Winton via the Age of Dinosaurs Museum.

Day 4: Drove to Mt Isa through some spectacular landscape.

Hot creek at Blackall, the water here must touch hot rocks in the earth's crust.

It is very nippy in the mornings here. Max in his dawn regalia at Blackall.

Apparently the idiom on the sign post is actually not! It was a literal expression for a surveyors mark in Blackall. We had to explain to the kids it was before satellites and google earth, and was very important.

Barcaldine: The tree of knowledge, site of a meeting for a shearers strike, and where the Australian Labor party was founded in the 1890's. It was poisoned by vandals a few years back, and it is pleasing that such an elegant monument now stands over it.

An emu strolls around Barcaldine (eating fallen Burdekin plums which seemed fair enough to us!)

At the QANTAS museum in Longreach, where the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service was founded.

Laura and Tony had their first kayak on the Thompson River at Longreach.

Marshmallows at the free camp north of Longreach.

"Banjo", the meat eating dinosaur discovered near Winton. The Age of Dinosaurs museum was great (better value than the QANTAS museum for the record!)

The rig with a bit of dust. More to come!

Some un-edited pieces of the the large (25m) Sauropod from 95 million years ago discovered near Winton.

Matilda's thigh bone next to a bull's thigh bone.

Awesome road train in Winton.

A mini jump-up north of Winton

Into the red country - en route to Mt Isa.