Sunday, July 11, 2010

Longreach - cowboy country


Yesterday we headed out to the Stockmans Hall of Fame in Longreach. Part of the deal was a demo with working dogs, horses and bullocks which the kids loved. 
We heard there was a shearing comp on in town  (the golden shears), so we then headed there. It was amazing watching how quick these guys (& girls) can shear sheep, in fact in the heats they had to shear four, whereas in the final ten was the go.  The weather was still quite mild but the sweat was pouring off these guys, can’t imagine how tough it would be during the hotter weather in an old tin shearing shed !
After that we went to another show (Rusty’s) where there a great demo of how they train working dogs and a gun whip cracker and a girl from Wangaratta with a demo on snakes. We hung around for a good ole sanger and bread afterwards.
Today we went to the Qantas Museum which had great displays, and we had a tour of the 747 they’ve got parked there. They had to virtually gut it to lighten the load to land it on the short strip here. The other issue they had was the strip was only half as wide as the wing span so they could only use the two middle engines in reverse thrust to bring it to a stop. 
We had a walk around town in the arvo which was pretty dead being a Sunday. Tomorrow we’ll be back as Lachlan wants to buy an Akubra and apparently this is the place to do it ! Today’s weather was spot on, mid twenties and the shorts finally came out. We’ll be heading to Mt Isa in a couple of days (via Richmond) where it’s been around 30 – ideal beer drinking weather.

3 comments:

Ossie Traveller said...

Glad it's warming up. Would be interested how you managed on the single strip roads with the road trains. I understand you have to get off the tar completely and give then right of way. With wet shoulders that would have been interesting. Looks like you are back on schedule after the few days in Birdsville. Drive safely
Ossie

Ossie Traveller said...

Does not take you long to get back onto dirt!!! Just checking the route to Richmond on Google Maps which has details (including dust) all the way. We saw more trees on the Nullabour. When Google photographed this road there was 6 inches bull-dust. Now it should be 6" MUD. Lots of black stuff past Mt Isa but don't worry you will be back in the dirt on the Gregory Downs - Camoonweal Road to Burketown. Will be checking the rest of the route before we leave.

Cape Crusaders said...

As in last post, the golden rule is "biggest always wins". The soft muddy edges aren't an issue as long as you slow down enough.

Now plan to head direct to Lawn Hill NP from Cloncurry via Burke & Wills Roadhouse & Gregory Downs, most of which is the black stuff.

C.

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