Friday, 4 July 2014

Charters Towers to Winton

 

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We left Charters Towers and our great, quiet caravan park up spot at the showgrounds. Rifter had a visit to the vet this morning as he's itchy so tablets and back on the fish oil for him.

 

So many things to remember to do. One day we'll get everything done. So far we haven't forgotten anything too drastic just a mildly embarrassing aerial left up or a hatch open. Today we forgot the mirrors, hardly need them though as there us NO traffic!...but they're. On now!Then headed for Hughenden with the country out the car window SO dry and has been declared drought affected. Al the creek crossing were dry. There were a couple of small settlements before Hughenden. We stopped for a coffee, that where the van is so handy. It's all there. Plenty of sign posts to stations out of sight but not much else.

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I am writing this as bounce along the road from Hughenden to Winton. Oh we just went through a flood way. The road is double width bitumen with a road verge that is about 150 metres wide. The soil is fertile grey or brown cracking clay soil that apparently springs into life after rain. It's called channel country.

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There are lots of water courses, dry now though.  The highest tree would only be two metres. They look more like dry sticks and they're sparsely distributed. At the moment  it feels like we are right in the centre of it all as the road is lower than the dry, barren almost treeless plains around us for 360 degrees.

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It's 27C the music is cranking, no radio here, and the windows down to keep us cool. Not a car in sight, very few animals...only the odd dead kangaroo and live, hard-to-see, emu. A sign tells us that road trains 53 metres long use this road but we've only seen a few going in opposite direction. They manage to fold our mirrors in and the smell of cowsh is potent. Ten kms back there was a mob of cattle on the edge of the road that required some serious braking. A beautiful blue sky full of fluffy clouds above. It really feels very isolated; however running side the road are huge power poles.  The road is straight and looks like the Nullabor. It's 214 kms to Winton.

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Ahhh sheep on the road... They aren't as road savvy as the cattle and unpredictable. One just ran across our bows with a long tailed lamb running beside her. Good little car brakes!

Finally we see some hills in the distance, Winton is close. A walk through the main street, running into the tooth lacking evangelist musician in the park, finished the day.

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