Around Oz the First Time - Chapter 8 - Barcaldine to Winton

Yesterday’s issues with the rock n roll of the van and the subsequent inability for the electrics to right themselves plus Forbsy having issues with his fridge and the batteries  have us wandering the streets early in search of the auto electrician Forbsy spoke to last night and hopefully we don’t get the kid who didn’t know if their business was actually that.

Being led astray by Forbsy does not augur well for the day. Up one street and down another before deciding on the second choice. The evening previous we were told (by the child who did not know if they were auto electricians or not) that the business opened at 7.30am ergo we were up and searching Barcaldine for the business premise but to no avail. Well done Forbsy!

The second choice was no better outcome as it didn’t open until 8.00am. Forbsy rings the original business again and low and behold we had been given a bum steer and the address given was actually home not the business. But wait it gets better.

We rock up and enquire of a youngish gentleman as to the boss and he informs us he is it. OK what about the auto electrician? To this the young gentleman disappears to the office without a word. We expect he is getting the auto electrician only to, after waiting a few minutes he returns with a voltmeter. So open-mindedly Forbsy describes his issue with the batteries. The electrician immediately goes to work, ascertains the problem and offers a solution – new batteries and dismantles one and takes it away, returning with the bad news, they don’t have the right ones, reassembles the batteries in place and on enquiry about costs says to Forbsy $20 will do it. Done!

Now to my issue with the sway control – no, beyond his knowledge. Perhaps there is a caravan place in Winton he suggests. I think we are happy with the results all round.

We separate looking for a morning repast while Forbsy goes in search of batteries.

In the main street we parked in front of the Artesian pub at which we had quenched Forbsy’s need for beer at a drinking establishment. Robyn suggests you can get “it” there. Me, only seeing what looks like a coffee house, thinks she means breakfast when in fact she sees a hardware store. A chance to buy that hose we need for the barbeque with the bayonet fitting and some screws and Lock Tight to secure the mudflaps which came adrift yesterday.

In my non-tradie way, I ask the girl at reception for what I want. She translates and suggests I need to go through the front part of the shop to another counter at the rear and they will be able to assist me. From this time on I am not only in the cusp of country service, but I am also about to get significant amounts of exercise. I will elaborate.

There are 2 men at the counter – one younger and one older. I describe my issue and the older one walks to a shelf and procures what I ask for. So how do I fix this one, does it simply attach to what I have? How about you go and get the hose for me he says. Trip 1 back to the van, extract the hose which won’t work because it has a screw fitting and I need a bayonet one. No mean feat either or so it seems as I attack it with a shifter and remove it and walk back to the store in haste.

Oh, I see what you mean, no you will need a complete replacement hose. Wait there while I make you one up. I remember I need to sort out screws for the mudflaps. Trip 2 to the van and extract one of the screws, again with said shifting spanner. On my return the new hose is complete, and I ask for screws similar or slightly larger in diameter to replace the ones I have. This occurs with hot chocolate in hand now as Robyn has found breakfast. He looks at the offending screw and suggests the ones he has a slightly shorter – will that be a problem – I don’t think so. I settle up with them – $36 and head back to the van, Trip 3. Evidently the length is an issue as the one he has given me will not catch, so back to the shop where we have a laugh about my inabilities when it comes to all things tradie and he simply replaces the short ones with longer ones – Trip 5 complete.

I affix the said screws with a drop of Lock Tight on each just as Silver Leader (who got to sleep in) and Forbsy come into view. I eat my pie, slightly cold now but still scrumptious, wearing most of the pastry on my jumper. Given the amount of exercise walking between the van and the shop I feel I have earned the pie even though it is probably not the best start to the day.

A few years back we had done the Nullarbor Golf Course through southern South Australia and Western Australia. It seemed that everywhere you looked there was the ubiquitous roadkill, smothered in crows. During the day they were the only thing in the sky. Here in Central Western Queensland there are no crows, only hawks. Not Sparrow Hawks, larger ones. To guess one might suggest they are 50% larger than a crow and they are in the same proportion as the Nullarbor crows.

The roadkill today is much less, perhaps because the landscape is very barren, not as drought stricken as to say there is no vegetation but flat, treeless and white with sparse rye grass looking vegetation. None of the creeks we cross this mooring have water in them. The rivers certainly do and the water is the colour of the green/grey clay the rain somewhere has traversed. The hawks have the roadkill at their mercy but not always feasting there but endlessly circling on the wind and from time to time gorging themselves on carrion far enough away from the road to feed in safety. Sometimes not safe enough, but that’s the trade-off for having so much available so easily procured.

Another thing we noticed on the Nullarbor was what I had termed at the time the “Nullarbor Wave”. I had written an essay on it as part of a book of the experience of the trip. Here only the caravan drivers wave. The truckies don’t or not many of them. I wonder if there has become a complacency or a need to keep what are sometimes 50+ metre road trains straight or such that the caravans are the bane of the truckie, not that we have seen many heading our direction. You would think that travelling between 90 and 100kph we would be overtaken by them at will, but in the past 2 days there has only been 1.

Today will be disjointed as far as the driving goes. 100 kilometres up the road is Longreach, the home to 2 amazing museums. The Stockman’s Hall of Fame and the Qantas Museum. We plan to do both and still be in Winton in plenty of time to avoid the dusk kangaroo rush.

If I can give you a little piece of advice, don’t do what we did. Give yourself sufficient time to do these 2 museums justice. Stay in Longreach and spend at least half a day at both. The Stockman’s Hall of Fame is of course a tribute to the pioneers of the pastoral west. Memorabilia and information can entertain for hours. Video presentations, particularly the aboriginal section, discussing driving the dream time and the affinity with the land are spell binding.

Too little time there, it’s across the road to the Qantas Museum. We only have an hour Silver Leader tells us so we can’t do the guided tour which starts when we want to leave and goes for 90 minutes. This tour takes you through a 747 (including pictures of participants inside the huge Rolls Royce engines), a 707 and a Super Constellation from what we can see from the other part of the museum we can wander through.

In my opinion it would have been nice but we did not miss out on an experience by not doing it. One exhibit in particular, the Catalina VH – EAX with its 12 passenger seats – plastic chairs really, its cramped walkways (and no toilet) was of great interest to me. I wandered through the plane marvelling at the technology (or lack of it as the case may be) when all of a sudden, an audio presentation commences, motor noise and all, simulating one of the secret flights to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in World War 2. The time between course changes and landings etc are abridged of course but the audio certainly gives an even clearer picture of the time.

No Catalina’s were lost by RAAF in World War 2 the audio goes on to say yet they were travelling across enemy infested skies with no armaments. Amazing.

We treat ourselves to the extravagance of a sit-down lunch, normally we simply pull over and eat in the vans. Then it’s back on the road again heading for Winton. Creeks start to have water in them – only a little but the mud and the odd pool suggest precipitation of some kind recently. We even see some emus and at one creek with water – Brolgas again.

About two thirds of the remaining way Silver Leader calls a stop at a rest stop. Its funny we only track 284kms today, but the convoy needs a break. I swap with Robyn for the final leg, just under 70kms. By Winton we have clocked past the 2,000km mark on our trip, driving every day. Tomorrow will be a driveless day, well not really, there will be driving but not getting there diving, just wandering to see what Winton has to offer. And there is plenty, dinosaur footprints and the Matilda Centre Museum. It’s 30 degrees when we get to Winton, we get the vans parked in the caravan park and head across the street to the Tattersall’s pub to sign in and pay for our sites. Talk about walk into another world! It’s a country pub at its finest. Of the 2, bar staff we start talking to, the male is of course a Broncos supporter and gives us heaps about our respective teams and notes his team and Penrith are on the TV tonight. The woman in a yank from Seattle. I mistake her accent for Canadian such is its meekness. The banter is keen between all as the “rush hour” is yet to start. Dinner orders are taken from 6.00pm and we intend to eat here.

Outside at 5.45 to grab a table on the footpath we notice the pub is filling quickly but not with locals. During our stint at the bar, the publican turned away people looking for van sites as the park adjacent that we had booked was full. The sunset is magnificent, setting behind the trees at the end of the road. The food, pub food it was not. A good restaurant would have been proud to serve what we devoured for dinner and what’s more it was very reasonably priced. Robyn struggled to finish her seafood basket, so I assisted after devouring a mouth-watering pork rib eye which was so moist it melted in your mouth not like some pork cuts which can be very dry, the chef had been able to maintain the juicy nature of the cut.

Dinner over we waddled back across the road to crash into our beds well before 8.30pm. This travelling, it takes a lot out of you ?