Day Seven Landsborough Highway to Blackall, Day Eight Capricorn Hwy to Alpha

Waving good bye to Mitchell we climb out of the Maranoa valley following our first road train. It was huge and was actually going slower than we were. Cross a range at about 500 metres we descend into Morven and leave the Warrego highway for the Landsborough which will take us to Blackall.

Towns are really spaced out here. Nothing until Augathella which is off the Hwy in some hills. Then into the plains towards Tambo, which was small but interesting.

Arrive in Blackall and find the ramshackle but friendly and quaint caravan park tucked away in a laneway in the middle of town. Australia Day and the Troopy is wearing a pair of Australian flags we were given when asked in friendly Mitchell, by the spa owners.

So off to the pub for a meal and watch Azarenko slug it out with Li at the Australian Open. Good tennis. But not before a refreshing swim in the town pool, a delightful 30 artesian degrees. We are ruing the sulfur smells though and imagine it pervading everything by now.

The next day we are devastated to hear from fellow travelers going in the other direction that the stockman hall of fame in Longreach is closed totally for renovations. How can this be? We were going to double back anyway to get to Emerald, so we can the extra 200kms or so and strike out for Alpha via Barcaldine. But not before going to visit the Blackall WoolScour.

I had a vague notion of what a Wool Scour was but M had tagged it as a major tourist attraction. Historical attraction. On the northern outskirts of town in a paddock with a flock of sheep and goats. They even let us take the dog on the tour. Being the off season there was only two of us on the tour. But what a superb collection of century old factory equipment, including steam engines, lathes, wool shears, presses, combs, belts, separators, air dryers, lofts, rail sidings. Two hours went in a flash and had us wanting to come back in the tourist season to see the steam engine in action. The town's effort to save this stuff, renovate it and use it as a tourist attraction is an impressive part of the story and the people of Blackall deserve high praise for their efforts. Well done.

 

Barcaldine is more exposed desert like than Blackall and some sort of workers Utopia according to the tourist literature but the Workers Museum was closed for the off "wet" season so we were not to find out, but did see the unique main street with some groovey pubs and the utterly alien Tree of Knowledge sculpture outside the train station.

The rest of the trip to Alpha was unremarkable except for the utter isolation joining distant towns with very good highway surface.

The Troopy couldn't pull the van weight in those temps (greater than 38 degs) and stay radiator cool, with the aircon on. So we were drinking LOTS of water, including 16 year old poodle Louise.

 

Arrived in Alpha in went to the town swimming pool for a non-sulfurous swim and then chatted before dinner with travelers who were diverting all across queensland to avoid flooded roads and some of the contractor road workers who like most of central queensland had no phones thanks to the massive Telstra outage affecting Optus services in most places thanks to main bearers being cut by floods. I only had VHF/UHF ham gear with me with no local repeaters so despite trying, I was no use for emergency comms far west of the troubles. The rest of us were forced to yarn like the old days for news.