11th September – Friday
Beautiful day again, about 28 degrees, and the sky is so blue!
Left Barcaldine for Blackall, intending to stay the night there. However, we arrived before 10.00 am, so decided to look at the sights and then continue to Tambo.
Blackall is the home of the Big Sheep (another to add to our collection of “Bigs”), is the town where Jackie Howe set the shearing record and is also the site of The Black Stump. The Black Stump really exists, or did, until it burnt down and was replaced by a petrified tree stump. There is a piece of petrified tree in the middle of the main street, but the actual site of the official stump is in a side street.
(Another person has just asked, “Did you come across on the ferry? How much does it cost?” Honestly, how else could we get here???)
Tambo is a small town of about 300 people and here we discovered a gem of a caravan park attached to the motel. It is amazing how good these little parks are. It didn’t really take long to “do” Tambo – really just walk down one side of the street and back up the other. However, the old telegraph station was rather interesting, a nice lake at the end of the street (lots of bird life) and a lovely teddy bear shop. All the sheep skin teddies are hand made in the shop and Goliath was sitting outside inviting tourists to enter. A street sign even warned, “Teddies Crossing!”
The road from Longreach to Tambo has been pretty good with just a few bumpy places in flood prone areas. However, it does seem to be suicide alley for kangaroos and wild pigs. We have never seen so much roadkill! The 300 kms has been a real slalom event, weaving around in an effort to avoid the mess. One doesn’t really want to run over a dead animal – bones through tyres aren’t desirable – but Les did manage to add to the kangaroo remains already under the caravan! We saw at least eight dead wild pigs today – at least this would make the farmers happy, if not the truck or car drivers!
We saw the most beautiful sight this morning – an emu with five small chicks walking along the side of the road. We managed to pull off (fortunately no traffic) and watched until they disappeared into the long grass.
Beautiful day again, about 28 degrees, and the sky is so blue!
Left Barcaldine for Blackall, intending to stay the night there. However, we arrived before 10.00 am, so decided to look at the sights and then continue to Tambo.
Blackall is the home of the Big Sheep (another to add to our collection of “Bigs”), is the town where Jackie Howe set the shearing record and is also the site of The Black Stump. The Black Stump really exists, or did, until it burnt down and was replaced by a petrified tree stump. There is a piece of petrified tree in the middle of the main street, but the actual site of the official stump is in a side street.
(Another person has just asked, “Did you come across on the ferry? How much does it cost?” Honestly, how else could we get here???)
Tambo is a small town of about 300 people and here we discovered a gem of a caravan park attached to the motel. It is amazing how good these little parks are. It didn’t really take long to “do” Tambo – really just walk down one side of the street and back up the other. However, the old telegraph station was rather interesting, a nice lake at the end of the street (lots of bird life) and a lovely teddy bear shop. All the sheep skin teddies are hand made in the shop and Goliath was sitting outside inviting tourists to enter. A street sign even warned, “Teddies Crossing!”
The road from Longreach to Tambo has been pretty good with just a few bumpy places in flood prone areas. However, it does seem to be suicide alley for kangaroos and wild pigs. We have never seen so much roadkill! The 300 kms has been a real slalom event, weaving around in an effort to avoid the mess. One doesn’t really want to run over a dead animal – bones through tyres aren’t desirable – but Les did manage to add to the kangaroo remains already under the caravan! We saw at least eight dead wild pigs today – at least this would make the farmers happy, if not the truck or car drivers!
We saw the most beautiful sight this morning – an emu with five small chicks walking along the side of the road. We managed to pull off (fortunately no traffic) and watched until they disappeared into the long grass.
1 comment:
Finally enjoying the heat as well - 89 degrees here today at Disneyland - not sure what it was but it was HOT. My feet have doubled in size! Off to San Fran tomorrow.
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