We weren't in a particular rush this morning...
We got up and had a leisurely breakfast together, just enjoying all that God has given us...
We are so blessed and it was nice to take some time to reflect on his wonderful goodness to us and be thankful...
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| Our van set up at Anakie |
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| Enjoying breakfast together.. |
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| Kathy and I |
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| Steve and Kathy having a chat over a cuppa |
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| One of the interesting trees in our caravan park... |
We finally got away around 9.30am. We had just over 300kms to cover today and planned to get to Barcaldine just after lunch....
The scenery was lovely today....
lots more trees and it also seemed to be a bit greener today with the Drummond Ranges as a lovely back drop.
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| Drummond Ranges in the Backgound.. |
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| This poor old house was buckling at it's knee.... |
It is a pity we were moving too fast for me to get a picture of this whole house... It literally was just caving in. I kind of felt sorry for it...
We saw a sign saying Drummond Ranges lookout so decided to detour and check out the view...
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| Time for a detour.... |
It was only a couple of hundred metres off the highway and well worth the break...
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| Panoramic view of the Drummond Ranges |
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| Drummond Ranges Lookout... |
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| Views from the Lookout.. |
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The view...
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| Time to leave |
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| Very dry here still |
From here we continued on to Alpha which was to be our first stop...
We had planned to have morning tea here.
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| Coming into Alpha |
We all needed to make a pit stop here and had a little trouble finding public toilets. We did however find the Lioness Park on the main drive through and noticed that it had picnic tables so thought this was as good a place as any to pull out our flask and morning tea...
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| Morning Tea in Alpa |
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| Steve setting up morning tea whilst we scout around for toilets |
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| Enjoying a cuppa and a mini muffin.. |
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| Steve making his cuppa |
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| The boys enjoying their morning tea |
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| Us girls enjoying ours |
We actually met another touring couple whilst having morning tea here. they also pulled in for a cuppa so we invited them to join us. They were from Adelaide and spend six months on the road every year. They leave around April and head up the centre of Australia to Darwin, and then head across to Broome where they are booked for a months holiday. Then they head back east all the way to Queensland to Noosa where they enjoy another months holiday before heading back to SA. They were interesting to chat too, and they warned us about having Chinese in Barcaldine. They said it was the worst Chinese they had ever tasted... This view was totally different to what we heard when we reached Barcaldine...
We hit the road again and continued our journey...
The next town we passed through was Jericho. This is sort of a cross roads and if you didn't want to go to Barcaldine, you could branch off here and head south to Blackall or cut across and head to Longreach. We chose to go through to Barcaldine where we were booked into the Homestead Caravan Park for the night.
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| Coming into Jericho |
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| Mural fence as you drive through Jericho |
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| Main drive through Jericho |
We continued on our way and arrived in Barcaldine around 2.30pm in the afternoon.
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| Arriving in Barcaldine |
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| Our first sighting of the Tree of Knowledge... |
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| Our Van Park for the night... |
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| Looks like it was a good day to arrive with live music, smocko and stories of the bush |
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| Checking in... |
We actually really liked Barcaldine.. It appeared to be lovely and green and again the Caravan Park although not real flash, was lovely and welcoming. We had green grass site right next to the amenities and just behind the office. We parked our vans this time so that our doors opened out onto a common area between us...
There was lots of bird life here and we enjoyed seeing them up close and personal. For us city folk it was nice to get so close to them, although I am sure they are probably a bit of a pest out west where they probably eat the seed crops. Still we enjoyed them
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| There are some really strange trees out west.... |
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| Lots of Galahs around... |
We had a late lunch and decided to just hang around the park as they had advertised some live music and story telling which was due to start at 4pm. It really wasn't worth us leaving the park, and besides after the long drive it was nice to have a bit of a break...
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| Kathy and I enjoying lunch |
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| More of the Barcaldine bird life... |
Around 4pm we heard some music coming from a communal area just near the office so we hurriedly cleaned up our lunch mess and then headed over to listen and enjoy some smocko..
Normally they would make a damper and have it with billy tea, but it had been pretty hot, so they had some good old Aussie fruit cake with our cuppa instead...
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| The resident entertainer - Chris Callaghan |
He wasn't too bad... He was definitely a Johnny Cash fan and sang lots of his songs. He had everyone joining in and was pretty impressed by how good an audience we were. He even offers to take us all touring with him.....
He did like a beer or two or three or four, and I think we lost count after his fifth or sixth stubby within a couple of hours...
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| Enjoing the entertainment... |
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| Belting out another song for us. |
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| A little mural of some of the history of the area.. |
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| All the billies all lined up.... |
They did put on a lovely spread for smoko for us all. and after Chris performed for an hour or more we were introduced to Tommie Lockie... this guy was amazing. He had a huge wealth of knowledge about the area and comes down to the caravan park each afternoon to talk to all the tourists and fill them in on the history of the district.
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| Tommie Locke telling his stories.. |
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| He was very iteresting to listen too... |
We also found out that Tommie runs the Artesian Tours out in Barcaldine and we decided then and there that if ever we get back to Barcaldine it would be worth staying for a night or two and doing one of Tommie's tours. We learnt so much about life in the outback from Tommie
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| Great story teller... |
After Tommie finished his stories, the music started up again. There were only about fifteen of us left by this stage...
The music finished about seven pm so we quickly headed back to our van to get our dinner over so that we could drive into Barcakdine and see the "Tree of Knowledge": all lit up at night...
We head dinner around 7pm, cleaned up and headed into town around 8pm to see the Tree all lit up. It was definitely worth the effort...
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| "Tree of Knowledge" all light up at night... |
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| More impressive at night than in the day time... |
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| Looking up into all the wind chimes.... |
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| The roots are all lit up now too. |
It is quite sad that the "Tree of Knowledge" was poisoned some years back and is no longer alive, although the council out there has done an amazing job in preserving the old tree for us all to enjoy...
They have taken a graft from the old tree, and are growing a new tree. It is no where near ready to plant out, but it is to make sure that the "Tree of Knowledge" does love in.
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| A close up of the lit up roots from "The Tree of Knowledge" |
The "Tree of Knowledge" is situated just outside the Barcaldine Raiilway Station...
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| Posing at the Railway Station..... |
There are beautiful park lands around this area in Barcaldine. We found music instruments in the parklands. This particular one was a park bench but had paddles available with it so that you could make music...
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| Ian and Steve playing a tune,, |
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| Kathy having a go now... |
It was also interesting to note that the "Australian Labour Party" was first formed under the "Tree of Knowledge" in Barcaldine...
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| Some night Panoramic views of the "Tree of Knowledge" at night. |
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| Panoramic view of the "Tree of Knowledge" |
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| Really very pretty to see it at night.. |
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We headed home around 9.30pm and headed to our own vans. We had another early start in the morning.
What a wonderful day today has been.
Once again I have things to be thankful for and some of the highlights for me today would be
1.The drive from Anakie with the lovely Drummond Ranges ahead.
2. Meeting fellow random travellers and hearing their stories and sharing morning tea with them.
3. Country Music and Stories of the Past
4. Good company.
5. The Bird life
6. Night visits to "The Tree of Knowledge".
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