Outback Queensland

From Daly Waters in NT it took us 3 days to get to Mt Isa in Queensland. A quick stop meant we were able to catch up with emails and make some phone calls before we pushed on inland. We carried on along the Barkly highway, through Cloncurry to a little place called McKinley and home of the Walkabout Creek Hotel used in the film Crocodile Dundee (and I thought it was in NT):  

Two days later we made it to Longreach and the country’s centre of aviation in the early days of flight technology, as it was here that Australia’s first six-passenger aircraft was built. We visited the Qantas Founders Museum and toured one of the last 707-138s that had been restored in Southend and flown back to Longreach for the museum. We also went on board an old 747 that was stripped back so we could see where the blackbox is and what’s behind all the panels!

The town is also home of the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame which explains about the lives of the first outback pioneers of this country and the hardships they endured.

We had a great couple of days around this small outback town. We continued our journey east and stayed last night in Sapphire (Rubyvale was just down the road) and today we're in Emerald. Many gemstones have been found in this part of the country, hence the names, but all I've seen so far have been in Sapphire's service station/general store! It's quite high up here, so the temperature dropped quite considerably last night (down to about 6C), and it was nice to feel cold for a change. We shall continue north now, through Charters Towers and on to Townsville and the warmer weather.