Rally cars and Vortex guns

12/07/2012

We think Longreach is an OK town, just a shame about the weather and the way we were all jammed into the caravan park, it was all a bit uncomfortable. Anyway, the weather is much improved as we set off south down a sealed but single track road towards the small town of Isisford. We hadn’t gone far before we were edged off the road slightly by a rally car coming the other way………… Twenty rally cars later, all coming at varied intervals, we had spent quite a lot of time off road and now had one very muddy motor home. Each time a car came by I was edged over but had to keep the two offside wheels on the bitumen or lose traction in the mud and get bogged down. Eventually all the cars went by leaving not just the van a little twitchy.
 Isisford is a quaint old outback town which like many others used to be much larger around the turn of the eighteenth century when the main industry was sheep and wool. We stayed long enough to take a few photo’s before driving on to our next obstacle, a off road diversion past road works through the mud. Fortunately the wheel tracks were compacted and we managed that diversion plus one other without getting stuck before landing back on to the sealed road. Normally the verges and bits of off road are no bother but after all the rain it’s a bog.
 A white knuckle day’s driving so we have pulled into a lay by beside a minor highway with just the odd road train hammering past.
Tomorrow we will visit Blackall, a town just up the road.

 13/07/2012

As we continue to move gradually south we are beginning to ask the question ……why? We made the decision to go south visiting Tamworth, then across to Forster and then heading back north via Brisbane visiting friends in all three places but the weather is crap! Heading north up to somewhere such as Darwin, where it is hot, is a no brainer right now as we are seeing the whole population of Victoria de-camping up to the top end. They won’t go home until the end of August so we will stick to our plan and brave the weather like true Brits. We are well below the Tropic of Capricorn, still in the outback, at the country town of Charleville on yet another crowded campsite. Once again we are finding people coming into camps to avoid the bad weather, we will stay two nights.
 Last nights free camp by the side of the highway just outside Blackall wasn’t too noisy until first light when every road train in Queensland set off to rattle past us.
 Blackall had some points of interest. The town water is bore water from the Great Artesian Basin and comes out of the ground at a temperature of 60c. The towns claim to fame is for a champion sheep shearer who sheared 321 sheep in 7hrs - 40mins using blade shears, this was in 1892.…………riveted aint you?

 14/07/2012

 A thoroughly miserable day with non stop rain, bit like the UK we reckon.
 We went out for  look around but like a lot of outback towns the whole place closes down at lunchtime Saturday until first thing Monday. Charleville hasn’t got a lot to commend it but we were intrigued to find out about the Vortex Guns the town is famous for. In 1902 Queensland was in the grip of a terrible drought ( that must have been before the global warming we are currently experiencing) so they brought this bloke in to make these Vortex Guns which were charged with lots of gunpowder. The idea being that the explosion, when they were fired, would alter the atmospheric pressure and make it rain…………. It didn’t work!!……We went to have a look at these things which look like giant ice cream cones, come to think of it , maybe he would have done better if he had fired a load of ice cream up to the gods.
 After that bit of excitement we locked ourselves in our van, put the heater on, read the paper then had an extended happy hour resulting in having to break into tomorrows essential supplies!