Heading south

After a relaxing day at Lake Dunn, we headed off and now just 3 days later, we are at another lake - this time at Quilpie. We were very tempted at Lake Dunn to do the whole sculpture  trail of 200km, but erred on the side of caution as we were getting low on fuel. Just as well we didn’t do the whole circuit, as when we arrived in Aramac, there was no fuel until the truck came later that day. Luckily we saw several sculptures along the way and marvelled at how clever the artists are. These are a couple of our favourites. 

Muttaburra is also the home of many sculptures and we enjoyed touring around this town seeing the different structures. They have claimed to be the centre of Queensland and have a wonderful monument by the old hospital. Most effective is the rainfall records depicted on a bar graph made of pipes. Very cleverly done and interesting to see the fluctuations over the years. 

Muttaburra is a tight community, working hard to make the town attractive and suitable for tourists. We can certainly recommend the Thompson burgers purchased from the store and we were most amused when we learned the laundromat was housed in the post office! 

The shearing sculpture is still one of the best - we admired this many years ago on our trip northwards. The road from Muttaburra to Longreach provided us with prolific bird life - and the country was lush and beautiful after excellent rains. We stocked up on some groceries at Longreach then headed south to Stonehenge. This cute little place has a population of 10 and a very astute hotel owner as the deal was,  you’d save $10 off the camping fee if you dined at the hotel. So of course we did that, saved $10 but spent $81!! 

Today we felt very privileged to cross the Cooper Creek at Windorah as you wouldn’t believe how green everything was all along the floodplain. The desert has blossomed into a green oasis which is amazing to see. We are now at this beautiful spot out of Quilpie - it’s so tranquil and here we are sitting enjoying the scenery. 

We had a laugh as once more we’ve been sucked into parting with some $$ as the owners send their children around with produce and home made meals to sell. So we’re now $25 poorer but richer with figs, lemons, mandarins and a goat curry!! We’ll have a relaxing day tomorrow then study the  maps to work out our next moves. Seems funny, but once we head south, our thoughts of family and home become to the fore so I suspect we’ll be home soon. Don’t know if we’re ready for the cold as we’ve enjoyed sone glorious days of late. 

Trust all is well and we send our love to you all, ❌❌❌