1 August 2019
We have left the coast and have headed west, largely along the Tropic of Capricorn. This puts us in the tropics for winter, what can I say, the only way to enjoy winter.
Everything is huge up here, the length and frequency of the coal trains, the distances between towns, the size of the farming properties, the trucks, the hats, horizon and sky and even the Van Gogh paintings. All the signs seem to be faded from the intense heat and sunlight and the area is so empty they list the names of the properties on road signs so you think the place is more populated than it really is.
After leaving the coast we visited the town of Emerald. Now Emerald has no emeralds but if you drive out of town a little way you come to the town of Sapphire which does have sapphires. Forget Rubyvale if you are thinking of rubys.
In Sapphire for $20 you can buy two coffees, a scone, jam and cream and a bucket of sand and gravel that might include sapphires. They then teach you how to sift and sort your bucket of gravel. We scored a 3 ct sapphire but it was all fractured and worthless. A lady who filled her bucket from the same pile as us uncovered a 3 ct gem quality stone worth over $1000. Not bad for a $20 investment. We had fun finding our dodgy sapphire and several zircons.
Before heading further west I discovered we had a flat tyre. This was our second automotive challenge and there was more to come.
Travelling on a Sunday revealed just how quiet the Queensland country town can be. They were all closed. No opportunity for a coffee on this day of travel. We were lucky to find a petrol station that was open and it offered a limited range of food for lunch. Now these towns are about one petrol station big and if you are lucky there might be a pub.
At Longreach our time was divided between the Qantas Founders Museum and the Stockmans Hall of Fame, two cultural icons. Every town around here has some claim for the foundation of Qantas either they were where the first board meeting occurred or they were the destination of the first flight or the original Qantas hanger was based at their airport. Regardless, Qantas has very strong links with this remote part of Australia. It’s quite a contrast from the high technology of a 747 jumbo jet to the vast open spaces of the cattle and sheep properties around here.
From the modern technology of flight we travelled to dinosaur country. The area around Winton claims two major dinosaur museums. One full of very old bones of sauropods and the other fossilised footprints of a stampede that occurred one Tuesday afternoon in February 95 million years ago. There are over 3,000 footprints of small dinosaurs in the stampede along with several prints from the predator chasing them.
I am always wary of claims that this is the ‘only one of its kind in the world’ however I am more confident this large scale display of so many footprints is pretty unique. The other unique part of this visit is that to get to the stampede museum you have to drive over 100kms out of town primarily over dirt roads. No masses of tourists that you might see at the terracotta soldiers or tour buses just a large tin shed in the middle of nowhere.
And the car now sports a very becoming crack across the windscreen compliments of a passing road train.
A Traveller's Tale 