Winton - Longreach - Barcaldine

306 kms / 5 hrs

We left the North Gregory Hotel around 7:30am and our first stop was the Musical Fence (it's a wire fence that can be played as a musical instrument and is the first permanent musical fence installation in the world. There are also other percussion instruments to play including a bush drum kit, a tank swing set and hub caps and gas bottles). We stayed for close to an hour and the kids and I had lots of fun playing everything. We refuelled then drove to Longreach. On the drive we saw cattle walking in a single line within a paddock. We think they were probably walking to the water trucks as it's so dry out here we have seen quite a few properties filling up dams and troughs from water trucks.

We arrived in Longreach around 10:30am and went straight to the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame to see an Outback Stockman's Show. We were just getting out of the car when our neighbour from Sydney came over to say hello. We were so surprised to see Dom and very excited to see a familiar face again. Unfortunately we couldn't chat for long as we had to get to the show and Dom had to join his tour bus.

We watched the Outback Stockman's Show which included some whip cracking, some horse tricks, how to train a horse, how to pack a horse, some cattle dogs rounding up the sheep, some little pigs and a shetland pony. There was also a lot of singing as the performer was Pete D who is a country and western singer and won his first golden guitar this year in tamworth. We were lucky enough to hold his golden guitar (which is actually really heavy). We saw the French girl who won the greatest job in the world and is in QLD for 6 months as a park ranger (she came to watch the show also).

After the show we chatted to a family from VIC for about an hour as our caravans were parked next to each other in the car park and the kids had a great time playing together.

There wasn't too much to do on a Saturday in Longreach as we didn't realise that most things close at midday. So we did a quick shop at the IGA and had lunch then realised we lost one of Bronte's shoes so had to back track and still couldn't find it (eventually we found it in the caravan under the stool!). We looked at the planes at the Qantas Founders Museum.

We then went to the Bureau of Metrology to watch the weather balloon being released at 3:15pm. It was really interesting seeing how they get the balloon ready (it is attached to a styrofoam triangular shape), then set-up the radar, then watching the balloon being filled with hydrogen (it is filled for 1 minute 50 seconds which takes it to a diameter of 1 metre) then watching the balloon being released. They are tracking for wind patterns and horizontal speeds which takes approx. 1 hour. We watched for a while as it became a small dot in the sky. The balloon inflates to approx. a 6 metre diameter before it bursts.

We then refuelled and continued onto our campsite at Barcaldine which we arrived at around 5:15pm. The kids were starving so we just had hard boiled eggs and noodles for dinner then we walked to the cemetery to see the kangaroos. The kids have befriended some grey nomads who have a dog.