After our excursion through outback NSW, we entered Queensland (QLD). This is our last new-to-us state in our Australian journey. We have officially been in every state in Australia now! The plan was to travel north and west up to Mount Isa and then swing back east to Cairns. From Cairns, we would begin our final southward journey back to Melbourne via the notorious East Coast of Australia.
Like the rest of Australia, Outback QLD consists of long stretches of flat, arid country, interspersed with small towns with random knick-knacks and claims to fame.
Statue of “The Cunnamulla Fella” in the town of Cunnamulla.
In 2014, a truck carrying anhydrous ammonia caught fire and then exploded, wiping out the bridge for cars and the nearby railway. We had been in a town further south and thought the railway only looked recently abandoned (only long enough for a small sapling to take root. Now we knew why.
You remember back in school when they told you about people trying to make it rain by sending stuff up into the sky? A scientist actually did the experiment in Charleville to endeavor to end the drought! Of course, it didn’t work, but it was interesting to see these Stiger Vortex Cannons on display there in the middle of their disc-golf course.
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They also had a Bilby conservation center there. We arrived on National Bilby Day and got to see them in the dark room! They are interesting creatures. Kinda the marsupial version of the rabbit. But they are greatly endangered, with only about 400-600 left in small pockets in the wild.
Barcaldine was the headquarters of the major sheepshearers’ strike in 1891, where meetings were conducted under the tree of knowledge. In 2006, the ancient tree was poisoned and died. Instead, they now have a unique memorial around it.
The empty space around the tree represents where its canopy used to be in its glory days.
In Winton, there was a research museum called Australian Age of Dinosaurs with sauropod fossils. They were massive!
For those Despicable Me! fans out there!
On the fifth day after entering QLD, we finally arrived in Mount Isa, in time to restock before we continued on.
The smoke stacks from their mining operations are huge!
Long way from anywhere.
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