Maleny to Darwin Day 2 - Duaringa to Winton

Surveying Duaringa - more or less all of it

Went to bed early, woke up early.  I had coffee in the motel room and was on my way by 6:30.


The ursine overseer maintained his somewhat aloof air, so I'm not really sure if he had a good or a bad night.  Being concerned not to cause a temper tantrum I did return him to his place behind the front seats before setting off.


Road reports said there was water over the road at Winton, my target for the day, but that's not the same as saying it was closed. Having followed these reports for the last week or so I knew that the situation changed daily and it was best to just get a move on. 

I wanted to be in Emerald for breakfast, for no other reason than I'd passed through a few years ago and thought it a pleasant place.  But it is a small town and this was Sunday, so I didn't know what my chances were.

This was not yet proper outback and there were small towns - villages to my British way of thinking - every few tens of kilometres, positively built up and high density compared to what I'd encounter later. That said, I was surprised at the size of Blackwater, for it had at least three servos, a back street and a KFC or MacDonalds (I think - I didn't take proper notes). 

Blackwater is a railway and a coal town, and I was beginning to twig that I was going to be paralleling the railway for ... well for hundreds of kilometres.  I didn't mind the railway at all, but it's electrified as far as Emerald which means an endless procession of power poles marching into the distance.  Not quite what I was anticipating.  Perhaps I should have gone via Dalby and Roma!

Emerald is BIG.  Well, big enough to have not one but two small shopping malls, one with  a Coles, the other with a Woolworths.  And I did get breakfast there at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, so three cheers for Emerald! 

This is where electrification ran out and the view became unspoiled by the poles.  It was now that the real drive began, becoming miles and miles of miles and miles.


Following the recent rains few places were as dry and parched as they had been, and for the most part it was positively green. 







Sometimes the flat or rolling landscape was broken by hills in the distance.  There were far more trees than I'd expected










Driving on from Emerald the distances between towns began to open out.  I stopped briefly in Alpha - big letters on the map, small town in reality - where I'd got a decent cup of coffee at the bakery when passing through in 2009.  It's closed on Sunday.




In Barcaldine I saw the sign for the Tree of Knowledge but failed to stop.  Wasn't it poisoned a few years ago?  I don't recall much else of this town.  I think I realised that as it was Sunday a lot of places would be closed, and in any case by this time I was man with a mission - Winton or bust.  Well, sort of!



No idea - these were outside a Winton real estate agent
They seemed be nailed in place


Longreach - I didn't even stop. 

Stockmans' Hall of Fame?  Done it.

Quantas Museum? Yep. 

Where's Winton? 

I got there just before 5 pm.  What water over the road?  I saw nuthin'!      


Line shafts displayed outside one of the several pubs in
 Winton.  I'm guessing they came from a shearing shed.

For some reason I felt very tired, rather like yesterday.  Perhaps 770 km and 11 hours on the road has something to do with it.  I found a motel and once again slept rather well.