Blogs from Boulia, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Birdsville is most famous for its once a year Birdsville Races held on the first weekend of September. The normally small town of 120 swells to 5000, as people fly, bus, drive and ride in for two days of races. The airfield opposite the pub fills with up to 200 planes and people camp out under the wings, and all descend on the pub for food and drink. The pub was first built in 1884, and despite fires and floods its original walls still remain. The first hotel, The Royal, is also still standing albeit a shell of its former past Another attraction is Birdsville's proximity to The Simpson Desert and Big Red, which is a huge sandhill attracting four wheel drive maniacs keen to try out their skills. It is the first and highest ... read more

After a 5am start, we travelled into real outback today - miles and miles of flat, red country that was surprisingly green after recent rainfalls. We spotted a BLACK HEADED PYTHON by the side of the road and stopped in Winton (famous for being both the birthplace of QUANTAS and the venue for the first performance of the unofficial Aussie anthem "Waltzing Matilda"). For a BBQ lunch we visited the awe-inspiring Carrisbrook Cattle Station which is set upon a vast tableland and were taken to see some aboriginal rock art by a waterhole on the property. Later in the afternoon we stopped at the Middleton Pub - we're talking real middle-of-nowhere stuff with racing camels in the backyard and some top crazy outback characters including a cowboy-hatted bar tender who chased the girls in the group ... read more

June 23, Tuesday. Had a look around Cloncurry and a museum that had a few Burke & Will exhibits, which included Burkes water bottle and part of the tree, marked with roman numerals 121, indicating that Burkes expedition had passed this way. Had an interesting talk with the curator. It started to rain on my way out of town and decided not to take a dirt track into Mt Isa but followed the sealed road instead. I soon arrived at the intersection and turned toward the south. Overhead the clouds didn’t look good and I had been told further south they have had a lot of rain. The weather was cooler so jeans and a jacket were now being worn. After a 445-kilometre drive I arrived at Boulia and booked into the town’s caravan park. Bought ... read more