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Published: September 28th 2011
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Monday 26th September – today is the birthday of young Charlie Brown who lives in Tewkesbury. We hope you had a great birthday, Charlie.
With this blog we have reached the milestone of 200 blogs – for those who have read every one – good on you!! Thanks very much for staying with us on our journey around Aus. We are still remarkably enthusiastic, mainly because we are always coming across more and more fantastic places to write about. Today it is the turn of Ilfracombe (again) and Barcaldine. We were in no rush today as, even with a planned stop and picnic lunch at Ilfracombe, Barcaldine is no more than 110 kilometers from Longreach so we knew we would arrive in good time. In fact, we had contemplated going on to Blackall today, another 110 kilometers, but we fancied a leisurely day and Barcaldine had been recommended.
So we packed everything away very leisurely during which process Graham managed to snap the handle of our well-used claw hammer. The pegs he had hammered in with so much gusto on Friday were steadfastly refusing to be removed! He was using the claw hammer as a lever when disaster struck
and the handle snapped in two. He was able to improvise and eventually removed the stubborn, and now a little bent, pegs. But a hammer is an essential piece of our day to day kit. So spot on 9:00am we tootled into Longreach to find the Mitre 10 hardware store hoping they’d be open on a Monday. Luckily it was open and we found exactly what we wanted and reasonably priced too. The IGA supermarket is just across the road so I took the chance to do a bit more shopping. On our way back to the caravan we called round to see some fellow travellers, Barry and June, to say farewell. We first met them at Halls Creek ages ago and then at the Bungle Bungles. We bumped into them again yesterday at the swimming pool in Ilfracombe. Actually, some time ago, we expressed concern about people we have met who have sold up in order to spend the rest of their lives “on the road”. It was Barry and June who had prompted our concern as they had done just that, but they didn’t seem at all perturbed about their situation. They had a son and a daughter
who have property and Barry had been a pilot so maybe they weren’t typical of the people we were concerned about. Still, they admitted that, eventually, they would be looking for a suitable caravan park where they could settle and perhaps add a cabin as an extension to their caravan. Barry is in his seventies so maybe that time is not too far away. They are great company and after a cuppa and a long chat we eventually made our way back to the caravan for a departure which was well after the scheduled 10:00am check-out time.
We weren’t concerned about the late start as we had it in mind to spend a couple of hours in Ilfracombe, just 27 kilometers down the road, firstly to use the free swimming pool again and then to have a picnic lunch – and that is exactly what we did. The pool was locked up when we arrived so we had to obtain a key, leaving a small deposit, from the Council Office just across the road. We had the pool and the very warm spa to ourselves for an hour. One family came in to test the water but they hadn’t
come prepared for a swim so we were able to move from the pool to the spa and back at our leisure - it was brilliant. (Where are all the local children who are on their school holidays we wondered?) We were even able to shower and change in the changing rooms afterwards before locking up and collecting our deposit when we returned the key. Well done Ilfracombe and thank you for your generosity. We enjoyed our picnic sat next to “Machinery Mile” and I was able to take a few photos as I had forgotten the camera yesterday. Eventually we set off for Barcaldine which, in Aussie terms, is also just down the road. We contemplated carrying on to Blackall but there were a couple of things in Barcaldine that we wanted to see so we checked into the delightful Barcaldine Tourist Park for a night on a “drive-through” site. This meant we didn’t have to unhitch but, as with Hughenden a few days ago, we wanted to see the town so we detached the car and drove the one kilometre into the centre. Our main interest was to be The Tree of Knowledge under which some major industrial/political
decisions had been made about one hundred years ago. The tree has become almost “sacred” since then but about eight years ago somebody decided to poison it and it is actually dead!!! At great expense, it was sent to Brisbane for some preservation treatment and although it will never bloom again it won’t get any worse either and, at even greater expense, it has been re-established in the heart of the town, roots and all, as a tourist attraction. The caravan park owner warned us that it’s not a pretty sight in daytime but it is lit up at night. He wasn’t wrong – in daylight it looks drab in a very weird sort of way but we made a point of going back after dark and it was absolutely magnificent. Well done Barcaldine. During our daylight visit we made the usual call into the Information Centre, photographed a couple of local sculptures and some old fashioned hotels, visited the lagoon which had a series of walks, but we needed to make sure we had returned to the caravan park by 4:00pm for our free Billy Tea and Damper. This is a daily tradition at this park and is a
very good way of bringing campers together. Both the Billy Tea and the Damper, made by the park owner, were excellent and much appreciated. It is small gestures like these that people recall and pass on to fellow travellers so it is a good publicity investment for the park. About 20 people were there, not a full house but enough to create a pleasant atmosphere.
Back at the caravan we popped the laptop and Skype on and almost immediately we could see that Graham’s sister Barb was ringing us. We managed to get the webcam up and running and we had a great chat with Barb and the birthday boy, Charlie. Charlie was round at his Nan and Grandad’s before going off to school and he looked very smart and grown up in his uniform. It sounded as though Charlie had spent the whole weekend celebrating!!
After dark and after our trip to see the now glowing Tree of Knowledge, we spent some time chatting to our immediate neighbours who hailed from Applethorpe near Stanthorpe, not far from Warwick. We became aware of some very noisy road-trains passing by so we just hoped that our night wouldn’t be
disturbed too much. We were able to watch the latest stage of Aussie X Factor and turned in reasonably early and had a good night without being aware of any traffic noise.
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