Day 57 - Longreach

It was a fairly slow start to the morning for some, Katie wasn't one of them with first spot at the washing machines reserved around 7:30ish.  After breakfast there was a bit of school work to catch up on for Griff, journal mainly. The lady at the local pool last night also works at the Stockman's hall of fame.  She is a local that stays in Ilfracombe and takes the money for the pool 7 days a week.  She worded us up on the stockman show starting at 11:00 so that was our deadline to do the 25 kms into town.

One thing we noted was the cost of going to events, all pretty high but they have you captured somewhat as you don't want to travel all this way and then not go.  It made us curb and prioritise somewhat.

We made into Longreach by 10am. Charlie enjoyed the drive without Ernie holding him back, the joy of travelling at 110km/h, got some wind in his hair!  This stretch of road for some reason attracted larger than usual numbers of roadkill, every 50 to 100 metres there would be something, the toll on wildlife seems very high, particularly kangaroos.

Arriving before the show meant we had a bit of time on our hands to wander round.  The volume of infomation is immense.  So much to read and look at.  You could seriously read for days!  They had some good displays balanced with a few videos that gave the boys a good idea of what it was like back in the pioneering days.  The roles that horses, camels, bullocks and then mechanised transported played.  All good stuff, I think/hope some of it sank in.  Will see how much of it comes out in conversation of the coming days.

 Merchant cart, explaining the idea that couldn't just go down the shops like today was interesting.

 Bullock wagon

At 11 the cow bell was run and we were off to the Stockman's show out the back of the hall of fame.  Lochie Cossur runs a 5 days a week with two on Tuesdays and Thursdays, just in case you are interested.  The show was a mixture of comedy, singing and obviously displays.  It was good entertainment that slid in the messages he wanted at the same time.  We saw displays of stockman ship including the different horses used and why, sheep dog displays.

When the dogs came out Andi was none too pleased and started climbing the stand's railing. After their bit in the show they wandered through the crowd which sent him scourging again but after a few pats he settled down.  That was until the finale of the show.   The surprise at the end with a bull called Jigsaw, some 1060 kg Brahman bull.  Andi was sitting on my lap at the time and I used most of my strength to keep him there when Jigsaw appeared.  He did settle down and whispered in my ear, "That's a lot of steak Dad!".  He wasn't wrong.

 Jigsaw was a big softy and we had a pat after the show.

After the show it was back to the museum to look at the remaining displays.  We had only done 2 of 5 levels before the show.  The boys came across the Flying doctor display, probably the highlight for them.  Lots of new knowledge came to be from that display. The boys were mesmerised by the plane you could fly, as well listening to the phone calls of patients to the service and how they talked them through a diagnosis and how to use the kit that each station had been provided to treat them.  It has so much more than just an airlift and emergency treatment capability.  It drove remote radio communications development in some areas with the peddle powered radio.  Nowadays they are moving to a more holistic health care service, not just emergency care.   

By this stage tummies were rumbling and the wail of "I'm hungry" was being echoed through the place.  We tried to scurry round the other displays but only briefly. We took the offer of a pass out so that we could return either that afternoon or the next day.  We didn't get back there but took lots of pictures of the displays and boards for later reading.

We made our way to the local Anzac park for lunch.  There was a playground for the boys to blow off some steam and some shade for us to relax under.  It was warm still during the day, around 26.  During our lunch quite few people arrived at the park for a memorial service for one of the locals, Cecil.  We didn't catch his surname but it was nice chilling out listening to the obituary of Ces, he seemed to travel a bit between Southern Australia and Longreach, and he sounded like he had a very rich life.  It was  bit noisy in the background, with traffic etc, but it didn't bother them. I guess that's what happens when you hold such events in a public place.

After lunch we split up, Dad off to the qantas museum, the kids and Katie off to the local swimming pool.  I mentioned costs earlier, we didn't see the point of dragging the kids through another museum with more reading.  From our chat with the locals  it sounded like there wasn't a lot of interaction in the museum aimed at kids.  The wing walk on the 747 which is one thing I was hoping to do with boys wasn'topen to under 12's and turned out to be around $200ish dollars.  So we thought we would do something they would enjoy, swimming being top of the list.  And they did, spending more than 2 hours in the pool, jumping, bombing and playing around.

At the qantas museum it was certainly not aimed at kids with lots of information and a few displays. It's a great story of perseverance of a few men and women to establish an airline.  Lots of new infomation and history. Strangely though there isn't much past 2003 apart from the arrival to the fleet of the A380.  Not sure why, maybe there hasn't been a lof of good news for the airlines.

 The jumbo that got there in 2002.  Undertook 18,020 flights over a distance of 5.4 million kilometres! Impressive for a bird commissioned in 1979.

Whilst in the original qantas hanger a couple of helicopters arrived, the museum is located right next door to Longreach's airport.  Not sure if they were going to drive into the hanger, they felt close enough!

Before heading back to pick up the family Dad took a quick lap of the airport.  Small regional one so nothing special, however saw this in the car park.

 Hate to see the rest of car if this is what was left in the car park!

We met back up around 4:30pm and ventured back to camp.  Dad went off to happy hour and to hear a performance from Karen's other half, Jesse. It was as  just as entertaining.  Dad did have a good laugh. Mum was trying to fill empty tummies back at camp.  It took a long time as the wind had picked up, making cooking on a gas stove a tad difficult! Once the boys were fed and entertained, we attempted to cook our dinner but again it took such a time that we weren't feeling particularly hungry by the time it was ready! So we had a little bit but saved the rest for dinner tomorrow night.  With it being a little chilly we scurried back inside for an early night.