DAY 7 - ON THE MOVE AGAIN TODAY - JERICHO TO LONGREACH

We woke to rain this morning...
Our first wet day on the road... It meant that we all slept in this morning and  stayed indoors to eat our breakfast.  Normally we join each other for breakfast outside our vans...
We had a pretty leisurely start to the morning as we only had 197 kms to go today.  We left around 9.30am and headed off to Barcaldine.  It is a couple of years since we have been out here and a few things have changed.

One there was no where need the road kill of the side of the road this trip...
We noticed quite a few small termite mounds on the side of the road.  Some looked like long skinny pencils.  Quite a few were dressed this time through.  Some had T Shirts, others just had a bow tie and hots.

We arrived in Barcaldine around 10.30pm and headed for the Bakery to pick up some morning tea

 You could tell it was a good bakery as the place was packed.  there were queues of people inside waiting to be served.  Every thing is large and very expensive but the place was packed.
 We had morning tea in the main part of town, opposite all the pubs etc...

Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine

There are a few new things in Barcaldine since we were here two years again....
one of the new things we found was this sculpture in the main area of town, that was conpleted last year for the towns 125 years

Pledging allegiance to our Australian Country

Love the dog....

 This scultpure was made of metal found in the area.  Mostly it has come of machinery that has been passed it used by die but had a connection to the shearing days or the history of this area.  It was very well done..

One of the things that really gets to me about Barcaldine is the number of pubs in the main street and how close they are to each other...  had to post a couple.  I think we counted either six or seven just withing a couple of blocks from each other...

One of Steve's ex students worked at this pub...

 We had heard about these amazing rose gardens so thought we would go and check them out...
We got a little lost going there but finally found them to find that they are not really rose gardens for viewing but  tea  gardens for morning or afternoon tea...  Had we have realized this we wouldn't have
had morning tea in town but would have waited until we had arrived here and had morning tea here...

Tables were all lovingly set up with tea pots , full of roses

 We found this little puppy ornament hiding in the gardens

 Whilst we were in Barcaldine, Steve managed to catch up with one of his past students.  She was his dux in year twelve in 2015.  She was lovely and took time off from work to meet us in the main street to say hello...
We finally left Barcaldine around 1pm heading straight for Longreach and arrived somewhere just after 2pm and set up in the Longreach Tourist Park.  The idea of staying in the park was so that we could get washing done before heading to Winton. 

Setting up in Longreach.

 There is no grass in the park in Longreach,  just plenty of dirt and mud today as it rained here last night and all morning....
Tomorrow we take off again heading to Winton.  This is all new territory to us...
We did get a bit of sad news this afternoon.  Barb and John who are heading our way to catch up with us and travel down to Alice Springs has had car trouble today and will now be held up in Rockhampton for three days whilst they wait for a new fuel pump.  We know exactly how frustrating this can be...It just means now that they will catch us closer to the NT border rather than at Winton.