Longreach

Longreach is a town that we have driven through dozens of times when we were living in Julia Creek and yet we never stopped to have a good look around.  We knew the Stockmans Hall of Fame was here, but our thoughts at the time were "we live that life, why would we want to see it in a museum".  Our bad.

When we first arrived here on Sunday and unpacked the van, we took a long walk into the town centre.  The council have done a magnificent job of tree-scaping a pathway from the Stockmans Hall of Fame and Qantas Founders Museum right into the heart of the town.  It is just under 3km in length.  The town centre is green and lush and it is far more attractive than the last time we were here. I really loved the white statues showing stockmen sitting around a bush campfire. We walked for around an hour and our bodies, once again, thanked us.

 Yesterday we walked to the Stockmans Hall of Fame.  We are fortunate that the caravan park we are staying at is within easy walking distance to both the Stockmans Hall of Fame and the Qantas Founders Museum.  I must admit to you that I had not set the Stockmans Hall of Fame very high on my list of places to visit but from the moment we were handed our headphones to when we walked through the doors into the museum, I was totally enthralled and engaged.  The whole experience at this place runs so smoothly.  The headphones pick up where you are standing and looking and start an audio.  We particularly enjoyed listening to Stump Malone, an old Julia Creek identity, sadly passed on.

We only had an hour inside the museum before we were called into the theatre for a video showing the outback from the early days to today.  It was informative and even though we knew a lot of the information I still found the video to be very interesting.

Philip showed me this saddle that was the exact same one that his grandma gave him.

From the cinema we were directed to the outback stadium for a show conducted by a single gentleman.  We were shown horse skills, dog skills, sheep skills and he could really strum that guitar and belt out a tune.  I loved it.

After the show we went back inside the museum to pick up where we left off.  We were home by 1.30pm in time for a quick salad for lunch.  We didn't want too much to eat because we were booked on another tour in the evening (pick up 4.30) that would take us for a sunset cruise along the Thompson River with nibblies, then back to the bush camp for dinner (stew, mashed potato and bread) followed by Apple Pie.  Before the dinner we all sat around a campfire and listened to our host regale us with bush tales and then bush poetry.  After dinner we were directed to an outback cinema where we watched the movie about Harry Redmond - the greatest cattle duffer of all time - who got away with it!  That last thing on the agenda was billy tea and damper that was dripping with golden syrup.  Yummmmm

You can just see the roof of one of the paddle boats that unfortunately sank earlier this year.

Today it was the Qantas Founders Museum, once again within easy walking distance.  We were booked on the 9.30 tour that ran almost two hours.  It was good value for money.  There is lots to see here.  We started inside the museum that is very well laid out.  After the museum we headed into the old hangar that was filled with memorabilia and from here we passed into the restricted area that houses the giant Qantas jets.  Our guide spoke almost non stop for the two hours and spoke rapidly!  I couldn't pick up a lot of what he was saying but he was well informed and you could tell that he loved his subject.

The "black box" flight recorders that are in fact, orange and yellow!

As I said, Longreach has been a wonderful surprise and a place that I would readily return to.  Our caravan park is neat and tidy with concrete slabs that make life easy.  We were visited by a couple of brolgas yesterday that made all the campers happy.......