Winton QLD

I was hoping to have my museli this morning outside my room overlooking the front grounds and maybe see a few kangaroos . I purchase flavoured milk and i put it in my motel fridge. I had a couple of beers in the arvo before working on the bike (adding 20mm handlebar rises which I rec'd a day before I left on my trip) and I turned the bar fridge up to ensure nice cold beers.

So you guessed it, in the morning, my banana milk was a popsicle. Rock solid frozen. Bugger. So I left just before 8:30am, filled up with petrol and purchased a lime milk. Hey, it was different and did remind me of ice cream spiders when I was younger.

Leaving Longreach I spotted a yammie / kawasaki dealer and dropped in. Purchased 2 air cartridges (ie soda stream cartridge) as I only had 1 on me. As I was leaving it dawned on me, now that I purchased extra cartridges, I AM going to get a flat.

After about 50kms I came accross a rest stop so, I parked and had my lime museli. No one else around as I was setting up and an old biddie walked to the rubbish bins with her dog to drop off some rubbish. Scared the #}{%^* out of me. Where did you come from? She must have camped there the night and i coming in, I did not see their car / caravan. Why pay for a camp ground when you can camp for free.

I really liked Longreach. The ppl are so friendly and they have made an agricultural town into a tourist attraction. Very similar story here in Winton but not the same scale as Longreach.

I always wondered why our early explorers were so intent on visiting the middle of Aus. It is actually very simple.

Rivers flow towards the sea. Thats it. So when explorers in sa, nsw & qld saw that many of the rivers flowed inland, the conclusion was, there must be a huge inland lake system. Which obviously means rich fertile land where farmers can make a killing.  Not the case unfortunately. Lake Eyre is below sea level (hence the water flow) and the huge Eyre basin covers an area from outback nsw, qld & sa.

I was really looking fwd to coming to Winton given its history. I was thinking maybe 2 nights but am only staying the one night. I visited the Waltzing Matilda musuem and to be honest was much better than the Stockmans Hall of Fame. Great history lesson and again seeing how tough it was back in the 1800's.

Below are some pics from the museum.

Andrew Barton Patterson below..

I reckon this is what Peter Brock would have driven if alive back then. 

Check out the wheels. Oh so comfortable - NOT.

This is a fridge.

This was used to kull camels on outback stations.

These were used to kull the roo population

The two pics above - I am in heaven. All angle parking, but opposite to Melbourne. Everyone backs in which is so much safer. Gotta love Winton!

Dinner tonight is at a famous outback pub. North Gregory Hotel had the first public hearing of Waltzing Matilda. It's now a slightly up market pub with great (expensive) rooms. A loud mouth thug is in the bar and the resturant has a function, so we are outside in the beer garden. It's about 27 degrees now, so its very pleasant.

LOL I am in either NZ or QLD - HEY!!! Heard it many times up here, hey, and it just ^#*% me hey! What do cattle eat - fucking HAY!!! Hey.

I saw that apple have introduced a lighter, faster and bees dick bigger phone costing $1k outright. Hmm apart feom the looks (as they do look good) aren't they playing catch up to Samsung? What's so innovating dropping Google Maps....