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We travelled through parts of outback NT a little while ago but Mataranka , which is in the IMovie, was a fun place. Hot thermal springs by day, and by night the home town of the Guinness World Record holder of number of whip cracks per minute, both one and two handed. It was a truly amazing show to watch; Jonathon put his hand up to help out with one of the whip cracker’s tricks- his ‘steam train’ impersonation. Jonathon provided the ‘toot toot’ while the whips cracked to the rhythm of a steam train. Pretty cool!
But then we crossed the border into QLD, slowed our pace from 130 km/hr to 110 km/hr (the van has towed very well!) and headed towards Lawn Hill National Park. It was a beautiful oasis and the roads in (and out) were better than we had been led to believe so we were happy all round. Kayaking up the gorges by day and identifying stellar constellations by night pretty much sums up our 2 days and 3 nights there. It was beautifully quiet, but gets very busy later in the tourist season.
In fact we have come across so much more traffic now it’s June. Everywhere we go, caravan parks are looking pretty full, we haven’t been knocked back yet but we have started to book places at least 8 hours in advance! No more just rocking up hopeful.
A day trip to the Undara Lava Tubes was really cool, we learnt that the resultant volcanic earth is super fertile… if you add water. Around the lava tubes there isn’t enough rain for the soil to be fertile and very productive, however the altitude of the nearby Atherton tablelands does generate A LOT of rain and this is why they can pretty much grow anything up there. The difference an hour and some altitude can make in the vegetation was absolutely mind blowing; fairly barren bush countryside, to rain forest.
After a brief foray to the coast and the Great Barrier Reef, we headed back inland towards the Dinosaur Trail around the towns of Hughenden and Winton. The dinosaur exhibits, museum and ‘park’ were fascinating, but it was sad to see the towns whose shop fronts were mostly vacant, historic pubs boarded up, and streets empty. The effects of the long draught were obvious in the bleached grass and paddocks, and the little livestock we saw.
The QANTAS museum at Longreach was pretty amazing. Who knew the anatomy of a 747 could be so interesting?! The 1.5 hour tour included heaps of technical specs (the tyre pressure is something like 200psi (our car is 40 psi), a plane can have 19,000 landings before retiring, the cart that deals with effluent is called the ‘honey cart’ and the plane’s fuselage expands by about 4 cm every time it takes off), as well as a look through a previously ridiculous opulent plane which was a favourite of Michal Jackson and some sheiks.
And then it was onto the gemfields of central Queensland, where we fossicked for sapphires. It was so addictive. We were going to stay for an hour or two and ended up staying most of the day. Although it did get to a point where we were getting eyestrain trying to distinguish a black rock from a 100 carat sapphire! We found many little pieces of colourful stones and although they aren’t worth anything, we had lots of fun finding them.
The next highlight of our time in the outback was a stay at the Myella cattle farm. It was so much fun. Hot breakfast on long rosewood trestle tables in a shed with the owners of the farm (lovely people), rounding up and feeding calves, nursing baby kangaroo joeys, collecting eggs, rounding up horses by quad bike, a horse riding lesson and then horse riding through the scrub, playing table tennis, juicing oranges to drink with lunch, learning how to crack a whip, a ‘back of the ute’ ride through the property in the late afternoon with the cattle dog jumping off and on the tray, milking the cows and feeding the calves again… We were left buzzing and exhausted and loving the bush and outdoor life even more.
We made our way back to the coast at Bundaberg and have started our journey down the east coast towards Sydney. There is so much traffic and we have seen so much dangerous driving, today even going past a caravan lying on its roof, still attached to the car (seemed like everyone was ok thankfully) by the side of the road. Queenslanders in general are by far the craziest drivers we have come across so far, even in quiet country towns it seemed indicators and mirror usage was optional. Ah well. Onto the craziness and bright lights of Surfers Paradise in the coming days!