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Published: April 26th 2011
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Sapphire
Interesting shed wall On Monday the 18th, we packed up and left Emerald. It was raining. The golf course was flooded. Really tough seeing as it had only opened its full 18 holes on the Saturday. Our next stop was Sapphire, where you guessed it, they still mine sapphires. However its now focuses on tourists and hobbyists and there is little serious mining being done. To make sapphires you need aluminium oxide and volcanoes. They come in several colours due to mineral impurities and the red ones are called rubies. The volcanoes have eroded away and all sapphires are found in ancient riverbeds as alluvial stones. Some are still found on the surface but most are mined at depths of 15 to 30 meters underground.
We have camped at the Sapphire Camping Ground which, unusually, is on the top of a hill and most of the sites are in individual little groves with lots of trees. Really nice. Went on a tour down a mine and later looked for gems, but got about $5 worth at a cost of $10.
Two days later, back to the main road and west again. 278km today, our longest haul to date. Finally crossed the Great Dividing Range
Sapphire Camping
Beautiful sites and campground 5 star!! at 444m above sea level and about 400km from the coast. Arrived at Barcaldine (pronounced B’coldine) for one night. The town is famous for a sheep shearers strike in the 1890’s which eventually resulted in the formation of the Australian Labor Party. (The shearers lost and 13 of them went to jail.) Barcaldine has a population of about 1,100 people and has 6 pubs still operating all on the main street “spread” over only 2 blocks. Globe, Commercial, Artesian, Railway Shakespeare and the Union! We had a beer in one and dinner in another one. Met more emigrant NZers – they are everywhere. Lots from Palmerston North! They have the Australian Workers Heritage Centre to celebrate the achievements of the workers and the politicians. Frankly its just as one would expect from the workers without leaders. Lots of info but not well laid out.
On Easter Thursday, short hop of 100km to Longreach where we are staying for a week at the Discovery camping ground. It has recently been expanded and is quite good, but the ground is a mass of prickles and/or dust, not easy.
None of the land we have seen on our trip so far has approached
Barcaldine
Train line East the quality and productiveness of NZ – even Northland. We are now in what they call “Channel Country” short bursts of very heavy rain over summer and dry winters. Interestingly, all the land from here to Alice Springs, north to Mt Isa and south to the NSW border drains into Lake Eyre, which of course has no outlet. And then all of inland NSW and most of inland Victoria run into the Murray which exits just south of Adelaide. Amazing. Near the town is the Thomson River which currently has lots of water in it, enough for them to run the Australian Barefoot Waterskiing Championships here. The river has just stopped running and is a billabong until about November when it starts raining again.
Longreach has 4,000 people and is home to the Qantas Museum and the Stockman Hall of Fame. Both really good. When Qantas retired a Boeing 747 200 series, they gave it to the museum. The job was to fly it in to a very short strip. The airfield is about 8,000 feet long and the plane needs 10,000 feet to land safely. Anyway they got it in, but cannot get it out as the runway is
Barcaldine
Train line west too short. Looks narrow too. Qantas started by flying mail etc. in 1020 in old WW1 aircraft. First flights from Winton to Longreach a distance of 180km, took 3 ½ days by Cobb & Co coach, a week if you walked. Qantas was 2 hours. All the rich flew! And it grew from there. Rainman (Dustin Hoffman) created the story that Qantas had never crashed, but they did in 1927 and killed one of the directors another passenger and the pilot.
At one stage Qantas did night flights, but as there were no navigation aids, they erected high towers about every 60 miles apart which were illuminated (electric light powered by Lister engines) on scheduled nights.. Luckily there are NO hills between Longreach, Mt Isa and the Northern Territory!
On Easter Saturday, we had the Easter Grand Parade Lots of fun. Just a pity the big tourist operators didn’t appear to contribute much. The weather is great. Gets up to the low 30’s each day and drops to 16 or 17 at night. Need a blanket.
The town shuts for Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Monday and Anzac Day has been Tuesday-ised, so town is very very quiet. On Saturday,
Pubs
6 in a row! most shops only open for the morning.
The major tourist operator is Kinnon & Co who seem to run most things apart from the Qantas and Stockman’s attractions. They do a very good excursion on an old Cobb & Co stagecoach and a great paddle wheel sunset trip on the Thomson River.
On Monday we went to a show, pantomime really about a famous cattle rustler called Captain Starlight. He stole a herd of cattle and drove them to /south Australia, but on the way he sold a white bull. Eventually has was caught due to this distinctive bull and brought to trial. The jury verdict was “Not guilty – but he has to give the cattle back”. The judge objected and sent the jury back. They came back with a new verdict “Not guilty and he can keep the cattle”!!
Anyway, after the show we returned to the campground just after a willy-willy had been through. In our words a mini-tornado. It flattened one tent, completely destroyed one camper trailer and damaged another, and ripped an awning off one caravan. Others, just meters away escaped unscathed. Unfortunately, it got hold of our awning and has wrenched one bracket off
Outsde Longreach
First camel + windmill for effect the caravan side. Luckily the awning itself seems OK, but we can’t get any repairs here. Probably nothing can be done until Mt Isa, which is about a week away. One of the neighbours was amazed our table was OK as he reckoned it had been tossed 10 feet into the air. Could have been worse.
We’ll be here for another couple of days, then on to Winton – home of
Waltzing Matilda.
PnD
26 April 2011
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Gavin Morpeth
non-member comment
Good travelogue
Hi Don and Pattie, I am enjoying travelling with you vicariously. Keep up the good work; I apreciate you efforts in writing the blog. Cheers, Gavin.