Friday, April 30, 2021

Day 10: Fri 30 Apr - Lake Dunn to Aramac, 68 km; total towed: 1 512 km

16-29 deg C, fine and sunny, with a strong breeze

We towed the van a total of 68 km today, back to Aramac, and set up in the Aramac Campground. On the drive from Lake Dunn to Aramac, we saw not one single vehicle, person, just a few cattle and kangaroos.

After a cuppa, we headed into town on the bikes and rode a total of about 5.5 km. We checked out the White Bull, the Tramway Museum, and the Harry Redford Gallery. Harry was a stockman in QLD when he decided he wanted to be rich, so stole some cattle and drove them to South Australia (about 2,000km to sell; if he had treid to sell them in QLD they wojld have been recognised as being stolen and Harry would have been in big trouble. One of the cattle he stole was a big white bull, hence the town of Aramac has white bulls everywhere. They have names such as shoppabull (shop), learnabull (school), princibull (boss of the school), transportabull (transport company), trainabull (tram museum), postabull (post office), etc, outside each of the places of interest in town.

Back to the van for lunch then an LLD before Greg hitt he road again on the bike; (26km) he headed out on the Infracombe road, and saw "not much at all", whilst Wendy did some washing, reading and blogging.

Went to the Aramac Hotel for dinner which was excellent; a typical outback Queensland pub. The pub even had a notary tonight - Stirling Hinchcliffe.





Taken on Greg's early mornng walk


Morning cuppa on our own beach

Aramac War Memorial

Post Office

The White Bull


Aramac Hotel

Seating in Aunt Emma

Railmotor Aunt Emma


Some old stuff at the Aramac Tramway Museum



Aramac Creek rail bridge, or what's left of it



Road to Ilfracombe

Aramac Camp Ground, adjacent the Showgrounds

The Beer Garden of the Aramac Hotel














Thursday, April 29, 2021

Day 9: Thu 29 Apr - Lake Dunn

14-29 deg C, cloudy in the morning, clearing towards lunch

After breaky, we set off with our mornos and lunch to do the last two legs of the Scultpure Trail. These were all unfenced roads, so we encountered lots of roaming cattle, a few kangaroos and emus.

We missed a few scultpures, but managed to find the one we missed yesterday. There is a lot of work involved in sculpting them considering one lady has done them all. She must have a very large and dverse collection of scrap metals. She certainly has an artistic, imaginitive eye, as all sculptures are very life-like. The two legs were dirt roads and in very good condition despite the recent rains. We visted Gray Rock which is a sandstone outcrop that was a stopping point for Cobb & Co in the 1870s. There was a hotel there which served as a changing point for the horses. You can probably Google it for more information, if you're interested. We also visited the Healing Circle which is an ancient sacred healing circle which is connected to six others in the world - Japan, Tibet, Madagascar, Peru, Turkey and the USA. We missed four sculptures - Bush spider, Possum in a gum, Brolgas, and Where’s Wally. Something to look forward to next time we visit.

We were home in time for lunch and then Wendy did some work whilst Greg went for a 27 km ride.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent blogging and relaxing.

Sunrise this morning


The lagoon next to Lake Dunn


Cutting horse cowgirl

Waving chopper pilot

Butterflies

Goanna in Gum


Plane

Koala in a tree

Sideshow Bob tree

Dingo on a stump

Pig

Kookaburra 

White cockatoos

Bottle tree

Eagle and snake

Motorbike musterer

Thirsty cockatoos

Deer

Frog and dragonflies

Mustering dog on a rock

Returned soldier (hard to capture)

Eagle and nest of chicks

Fighting red Roos

Same as above - look at those eyelashes

Roaming white bull

Spring Fish - the one we missed yesterday 

Healing Circle

Ant beds

There is still water on the road, came over the running boards on the cruiser

A real live goanna

Two live white cows

A really red road

A real live emu

A cave near the Returned Soldier sculpture 

Gray Rock


View from the Healing Circle

Wild flowers

On Greg’s ride this afternoon 















Wrap-up and Reflections

  We have been so busy since arriving home that it has taken us two weeks to get around to our ‘wrap up’ of the trip.   It was so nice to be...