Barcaldine

The next stop on our trip is Barcaldine and where we were to pick up Marilyn, until that is Queensland Rail cancelled her train replacing it with a bus, more on that later.

I had booked the caravan park for here, Longreach and Winton because Marilyn was joining us for this part of the trip, and it was the start of the tourist season, at least that is what I thought, the truth was the tourist season gets busy in June, July and August when all van spots are booked out even the free camps. This was the only time that people get ready for the yearly onslaught, a dress rehearsal, if you could call it that, I say the best time to visit, no crowds, not too hot and tourist places are not run off their feet so they have time to smile and say hello.

We had 3 nights here and if we were not booked ahead, we could have stayed much longer as there is much to explore and see.

Barcaldine is not a large town, but it does have a lot of history, and like a lot of Outback towns shows signs of stagnation if not dieback, it is well past its heyday when it had a population to support the Sheep and wool industry along with the numerous hotels, many of which are now closed or in decline

This dependence on the wool industry is also the basis for some of Barcaldine’s history, the Shearers Strike and the Tree of Knowledge.

While here we toured into Aramac to find to our amazement a Tramway Museum, yep way away from the big cities, to remember a tramway built because the railways would not go to Aramac, we also located the Lake Dunn Sculpture Trail, a trail of some 40 sculptures about 200km long, hesitant, I did the drive and did not regret that decision, as we really enjoyed it!

We also decided to explore the Centre of Queensland by travelling to Muttaburra where we found more dinosaur information.

For Photos Please see the galleries

 

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