DAY 4 Charleville to Longreach 512k Via Augathella, Tambo, Blackall Barcaldine and Ilfracombe (the home of the Govenor General)

Started the day with breakfast in Charleville, great little café, beautiful homemade pies. I had a lovely bacon and egg roll with red sauce, and a lovely pot of leaf tea, AA had the special muesli and yoghurt.

On the road again to Barcaldine.

The temperature was climbing very quickly. I was looking forward to seeing Barcaldine again. The Tree of Knowledge would not be the one I saw with my father many years ago. The tree stump is now housed in an amazing acoustic structure with the most enormous wooden wind chimes with a very haunting sound. (PA) There were so many caravans, Winnebago's, grey nomads everywhere

We had lunch in the Shakespeare (no E) pub. AA had the chicken snitzle in the shape of a heart evidently sold at Woolies for $3 neither looked nor tasted good. I had the hamburger awful manufactured meat, no tomato and no beetroot, wont be back. We proceeded to the bar for our obligatory beer. Was getting hotter, so I asked if the pub was air-conditioned and the bar maid said 'this is not hot darlin! I then asked what is he temperature????? She said 35c and I said no way was it 35 as I would be apoplectic!! I said about 30 I thought so AA immediately on the net and confirmed 29. We were both wrong but I wasn't sulking, worn out our welcome so headed for Blackall.

On the road again Barcaldine to longreach VIA Blackall & Augathella and the home of the Governor General Ilfracombe 107K

We stopped at Augathella for diesel, whilst AA was filling up I went into the Servo to get a paper, I asked if they had an Australian but probably too early she said no but she had last week-ends but I settled for the Courier Mail.

Nothing at Ilfracombe very small town very close to Longreach so continued on. Long day so we had done some research for accommodation and found a motel

With a pool and close to the Hall of Fame. Was 35c when we arrived very very dry, humidity 6%. We unpacked our gear turned the aircon on and went to have a look for my old home. My lovely old home was gone, the only part of it remaining behind the very new modern house was the huge tank stand where w with a new tank I used to build cubby houses under the tank using each leg to hang our curtains, brought back so many. memories. A couple of young English boys were in the house next door formerly owned by our much loved neighbors Mary and Herb Springer. I asked if I could come in and have a look, huge extension on the back of the house but the beautiful front rooms not changed. I used to spend many happy hours before I went to boarding school at 11. I used to hide out there if I was in trouble which was quite often. knowing that Mum or Dad wouldn't come in if their part dingo was not tied up. Brought tears to my eyes. How I missed Mum that day to get on the blower and tell her all about it.

We returned to the motel and headed for the pool which was covered with great shade cloths, I had a swim and we sat around had a drink and watched the beautiful sunset.

We had made a reservation for dinner at the motel Restaurant. The doe was beautiful, had a rainwater tank a couple of water® bags. We had spoken to the young English chef earlier in the afternoon at the pool. He came out and welcomed us and asked for a recommendation. AA had pork chop with a lovely citrus sauce and small beautiful dumplings on a bed of parsnip puree. I had the marinated boneless ribs, lovely combo mash and greens, was beautiful. Arranged our second day in Longreach and headed off to bed.