Porcupine Gorge and how meat ants can be used as a great disciplinary tool for children.

We left Winton after the quickest pack up ever, keen to depart the flies and what had been a mostly trying stop on our trip, but not before we popped into the bakery to have a quick finger bun and coffee with the local inbreds. Nice.

The drive up to Hughenden along the Kennedy Developmental Rd was pleasant, travelling through sparse grazing land interspersed with the odd driveway apparently promising the homestead of a cattle station at its end. You feel the isolation of these far flung areas very acutely and like real ‘townies’, felt ourselves wondering when we would catch sight of another car or even a roadtrain: we saw five vehicles in just over 200kms. Driving under the vast open blue sky, through light green countryside with just a straight road unfolding in front of us, we couldn’t help feeling that better days were ahead.

"Brolox" Fiela and Marguerite's pet globe spider.
Many a happy  (and disturbing) hour was spent catching
grasshoppers to chuck in his web and watch as he spun
them into his next meal.

And they were. We stepped out of the car in Hughenden and our faces lit up- no flies! Then went to the FJ Holden Café for what Lonely Planet described as ‘excellent’ food. They weren’t far wrong, though the waitress could have warned us when we ordered the ‘FJ Super Burger’ that it involved everything a normal good hamburger would have (like pineapple and beetroot) but with bacon, egg and a steak. It was outrageous and delicious.

We picked up a few supplies and headed out for Porcupine Gorge for 4 nights of communing with nature. And commune we did, on the road, with some cows. Lots of cattle were grazing, and I’d been trying to conjure up some brakes on the passenger side along with a white knuckle grip on the door every time we came near any close to the road. Fiela on the other hand was taking a fairly nonchalant attitude to the stupid beasts until two came running toward us in a narrow gully while we were doing 60kmh. Those cows almost ended up as FJ Super Burgers themselves and I pumped out enough adrenaline to jumpstart an overdose victim.

The top of Porcupine Gorge.

Marguerite "the leader" on the way down. Not to be repeated on the way back up!

We arrived at the gorge, pleased to see there were only a few flies and even fewer people. After a frustrating set up involving chocks, the spirit level and a huge meat ant nest, we settled in for a beer with one of the other people camping there. Unfortunately he was a disgruntled Hughenden Council worker, so while he had some great information about the area, he also liberally sprinkled it with some vitriol directed at his fellow employees. Then we met the one other person camping, who we realised within a few minutes was drinking his way around Australia with a dog called Slushie.

We got rid of those two thanks to the kids and bath and bed time, and sat out watching some unbelievable stars.

Fiela with The Pyramid in the background.

The campground is at the top, and we didn’t realise how high up we were until the next morning when (after watching a flock of around 30 black cockatoos screech their way over us) we made our way to the beginning of the walk down into the gorge. It is a beautifully crafted landscape, all gumtree coated top, red hued cliffs and the beckoning murmur of water over rock bouncing up the walls toward us. The Uys Huis was in love with this part of the Outback already.

Rock hopping and creek swimming fun.

It was pretty hot and the 1.2km descent into the gorge steep so by the time we made it to the creek running at the bottom, it was swim time. Marguerite had a fantastic time exploring little rock pools and hopping between big boulders, and Fiela managed to find one of those magical rapids which is just like a spa. The water was lovely and while it was fairly murky, it was also a beautiful temperature. The hike back up to the campsite was a little harrowing thanks to Miss M’s version of the Crying Games (quote of the day “I don’t want to be the leader I just want a red drink and my moviiiieeeee!!!!!”), while Caesar fell asleep in his carrier, blissfully tuning out to the drama screaming its way up the stairs.

 

Marguerite, ready to tackle the walk she "never want(ed) to do ... again" yesterday.

The Pyramid.

We went back down every day for the rest of our time at Porcupine Gorge, having found an awesome swimming hole directly below the Pyramid, a huge rock formation in the shape of its namesake. Happy days were spent exploring, swimming, marvelling and thanking those beautiful stars that we had the entire place to ourselves.

Swimming hole fun...

This waterhole was a few metres deep and directly below The Pyramid.

Exploring the other side. Clearly we had been to too many museums of late, as Marguerite proceeded to give us a "tour" of this "very very old rock place- now don't touch ANYTHING or you'll have to get off the tour. See this rock hole? It's very very old..."

Apart from the slow down when cows are grazing by the side of the road thing, there were a few other lessons learnt over the four nights spent here:

·    Meat ants swarm

Fiela and his mini-me.

Or so Marguerite found out when told repeatedly to leave one of the nests alone but of course, couldn’t help herself: she poured some water in and the meat ants swarmed up her legs, giving her a few little bites along the way. This lesson also proved to be quite the disciplinary tool, with Fiela threatening a few times to put her back on the nest.

·    BBQ tools are not fireproof

Or so Fiela learned when he heated up the Baby Weber for a roast, inconveniently forgetting the cleaning wire brush and BBQ tool were inside. Our roast also had a faint plasticky taste, but we all seem fine so clearly no real heavy toxins were consumed. On the plus side he did manage to pick up a brand new set in Georgetown a few days later for $1.

·    Sometimes it’s better to give up and try again tomorrow.

In one day I forgot to bring the computer along to a café we specifically went to so we could use the wifi, put chocks under the wrong wheels and therefore made the camper even less level, made dinner for the kids but forgot about Fiela and I (potato chips for dinner again) and generally had a complete shocker. I managed to get my shit together the next day, clearly proving this last point.

The road on the way out of Porcupine Gorge up to the Undara Lava Tubes....

Porcupine Gorge did more than give us a few simple lessons though. It allowed us to reset ourselves after the Winton debacle and spend time together in the most constructive way possible: in a campertrailer, just us, the bush and a beautiful little gorge.

"Girt: the Unauthorised History of Australia" by David Hunt

Fellow teachers take note- your Year 7/8/9/anytime lesson on early Australian history need never ever be boring and spit ball inducing again. What a breath of fresh air Hunt's history on the 'discovery' of Australia and the apparent 'civilising' effects of the British on this fledgling colony are. From the character assassination of almost all the fathers of our nation to some pretty funny foot notes including references to the likes of Britney and (unfortunately) Lindsay Lohan, this is a funny and enlightening read no matter how much you hated history. Get it, and be girt.

Winton and Dinosaurs

Aaah Winton. How you have vexed me.

We have been on the road for almost a month and this place was the first (and hopefully last) location I’ve ever had a thought process involving packing up and just heading home, tail between our collective legs. But we didn’t and we haven’t, so read on for tales of heat, flies and the occasional dinosaur.

The road between Longreach and Winton is picturesque in a sparse grassland and roadtrain kind of way. Fiela wanted to kill someone after the force of a roadtrain going in the opposite direction knocked his extended side view mirror in for the fifth time. Then I wanted to kill someone when we got out of the car at Winton and realised our fly problem had gotten worse. When everyone in the main street is wearing a fly net over their head, you know you’re going to have a problem.

Fly country.

We parked at the Tattersalls Hotel Caravan Park, which pleased Caesar no end as it was next to the highway and therefore trucks and roadtrains. It was fine, though the sulphur (read rotten egg) smell coming from the water was pretty full on. So it was hot, there were an unholy number of flies, everything smelt like eggs and things just really didn’t improve much from there.

The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum

We drove the 20kms or so out to the Australian Age ofDinosaurs Museum, which is situated at the top of a ‘jump-up’ (rocky outcrop). A farmer found some bones on his property in the 1990s and realizing they weren’t sheep, emu, dingo or anything else for that matter; he sent them off to the QLD Museum for analysis. Turns out he was a bit of a dinosaur boffin and spent his few leisure hours helping to build the AAOD once it was confirmed that the bones were indeed part of a dinosaur. They’ve found a few different bones of dinosaur, though they’ve only ever recovered 65% of a full skeleton (apparently you only need 35% to be able to lay claim that you have found a dinosaur). This is significant as apparently prior to this it was thought there were no dinosaurs in Australia.

View from the top of  the jump-up at AAOD

Dinosaur bones, wrapped in alfoil, paper then plastercast waiting to be processed. They have a five year backlog of bones to be properly 'unearthed', and some people spend weeks volunteering to do just that.

Hoping for less flies but getting more, we went in and were directed to the first part of the tour. This occurred in a shed where Ben, a trainee was practicing his tour spiel on us. This became quite amusing once his supervisor joined us and shadowed the rest of the tour… so of course the kids tried their best to throw poor Ben off by running amok. He was unfrazzled and was really quite a sweetie, though the little toad who took the second part of the tour was lucky in two respects: 1. He didn’t have a supervisor watching him have a melt down when the kids didn’t make appropriate oooh and aaah sounds when he spouted his amazing wisdom about dinosaurs and 2. We’ve been trying to curb our (OK, my) language after Marguerite started muttering “Bloody flies!” everytime she stepped out of the van, and didn’t want to set a bad example by giving this trainee a dressing down. The exhibit is interesting, but my children weren’t.

Some bones are easily identified before they are preserved in the alfoil and plastercast combo...

... and some aren't.

Ben and Marguerite with a partially processed bone. It's a dinosaur vertebrae, with the white thing a vertebrae from a cow.

Fossils found from around Winton, which was once at the bottom of a sea.

Fossilised shark teeth found around Winton.

The processing centre.

Toad seen trying to get in photo at left...
Otherwise the bones they've found of this dinosaur with thick wire replacing those missing.

The dinosaur 'Banjo'... the one they've found the most bones for.

What we wanted to do with the kids after this museum visit.

Random emus.

So what would most intelligent people do? They’d avoid another museum type thing, but no, not us. We are clearly a bit stupid.

Even the bins in Winton are from dinosaurs...

Fun in the main street of Winton.

That afternoon we went to the Waltzing Matilda Centre, which if we hadn’t been to the Longreach museums a few days prior probably would’ve been great, but apart from a stirring explanation of the song given in a life size fake billabong, none of us were particularly taken with it. There’s a lot of history and what life was like when Banjo Patterson was alive, lots of old stuff (artefacts for the nerds) and another run down of the Qantas story. Unfortunately it was a complete waste of money for us, Marguerite and especially Caesar (luckily they got in for free!). But we’d done it, probably in record time, and decided to celebrate by eating out with the flies (the barflies were sensibly at the bar) and in the heat at the Tattersalls Hotel. The food was pretty standard for pub grub out this way- the steak was excellent, the vegetables were of the frozen variety and the garlic mash was plentiful. We went back to the van, put the kids to bed and sat up talking to a couple from Brisbane late into the night (about 11pm).

Feeling the history.

Marguerite struggling with the amusing billboard and your imposed face concept.

Caesar defiling some of the old stuff.

Lark Quarry.

Cool moveable model dinosaur.

The next day we trekked out to Lark Quarry, a 220km round trip on dirt road, feeling nothing but gladness that this would be our last ‘educational’ experience for a while. We got there just in time for the 10am tour with Gary. What a breath of fresh air. This experienced, local and friendly tour guide endured our noisy children with a smile and was happy to ‘get off track’ from his informational ‘speech’ (unlike some other trainee guides who have been aforementioned). Lark Quarry is the only evidence of a dinosaur stampede in the world. The stampede, which happened around 90million years ago is now enclosed in an environmentally controlled ‘shed’, though Gary told us how when they uncovered it in the 1960s, anyone could and did walk over it. Then they put a roof over it to try and protect it from the rain, which the cows and kangaroos thought was really kind as it’s hard to find shade out here. It was then fenced, but the stampede was then set on fire by a welding spark causing black plastic to melt onto it. Finally in 2002 an actual enclosed building was erected with some nifty looking stone walls, one of which promptly collapsed onto the stampede before actual walls that could pass a building inspection were put up. Luckily, when the section containing the stampede was first excavated a silicon mould was taken, preserving the integrity of the footprints for eternity, even if the site hasn’t been. It was really interesting and we did a quick walk around, admiring the stark landscape, and thinking that perhaps our luck had changed.

The stampede... you can see the predator dinosaur marks in a line on the right.
The rock shelves show how far down they excavated to get to the stampede.

Close up of the big dinosaur and then the scattering of the smaller ones. Below is a better explanation..

Beautiful colours at Lark Quarry.

Back to Winton and the flies, took the kids to the pool for the afternoon in an attempt to escape the searing heat, only to be told this was the only day of the year it was closed because of the school swimming carnival.

 Winton 3, the Uys Huis 1.

Winton isn't all that bad, having a very lovely main street, but it was definitely time to get away from it all. Next stop, Porcupine Gorge.

Longreach, museums and children

Having left Barcaldine armed with the Best Hot Cross Buns ever and only a relatively short drive to Longreach, we reached this Outback hub with one purpose- to get a phone with better reception than our stupid Vodafone supported ones. The Grey Nomads had imparted their infinite wisdom upon us and we dutifully purchased a Telstra Bluetick phone from the Longreach Newsagency. Instant mobile reception.

With the choice of two caravan parks in town, we initially went for the one with a full page ad in the tourist brochure we’d picked up extolling its virtues of friendly service and shady sites. The unwashed body and general dirtiness smell that hit me in the face as I walked into the reception ‘hut’ caused me to turn straight around (if you can’t keep your reception area even slightly clean, I can’t imagine the amenities block fair much better), and we went with the one recommended by Lonely Planet. It was here, at the Longreach Tourist Park, that we had confirmation of something I had secretly believed since Carnarvon Gorge- we were two weeks too early for the Outback. We had planned to do the fireside readings of Banjo Patterson, a paddle steamer cruise up the Thomson River and lots of other kitsch Outbacky things. But it was the 22^nd of March, not the 1^st of April when “the season starts”… Someone forgot to tell the flies though, they were also a bit early and in their thousands outside our campervan. Anyway, all the Longreach-ians were very cheerful about letting us know so it was hard to put on my ‘just do it’ teacher face. Lucky for us the caravan park had a pool so we spent the rest of our first day in Longreach escaping the incredible heat and flies (but not the Grey Nomads) splashing around in it.

A model T Ford like the one Fysh and McGuiness used to travel from Central Queensland to Darwin.

The next day we started our off-season Longreach tour with the Qantas Founders Museum. I wasn’t particularly excited about this, but since it was airconditioned and fly free, I was willing to take one for the team. It started with a pretty cool short film about what Qantas means to the Outback and Australia in general, and despite the bad press they’ve received lately, I’ll admit I had a tear in my eye and couldn’t wait to pay exorbitant prices next time I flew anywhere with them. The kids ran around like headless chooks for about an hour infuriating us and the other three people in the museum, until we admitted defeat (the naughty corner wasn’t working) and went to the café within the complex for some food. They calmed down after some lunch, and again I was pleasantly surprised at the quality (and portion size) of our food- this restaurant was also clearly a local favourite, with quite a few tables taken up with big groups of Longreachians (identifiable by their RM Williams and smug ‘I’m so glad it’s not the 1^st of April yet’ looks). 

The first Qantas plane.

More planes.

Anyway, we went back into the museum, Caesar fell asleep in the pram, Marguerite was happy to play with the toys in the Childrens’ Corner, and Fiela and I could finally look and learn in peace. The Qantas Founders Museum is excellent. I think that most of its success is that it has a clear story to tell: instead of being just about planes and airports, it’s about the hardships suffered and the resolve of Fysh and McGuiness, the Qantas founders. The story of two WWI mates who left as horseman and returned to the Outback pilots, had an idea and made it a reality is quite amazing. Even their initial effort to drive in a modified FJ Holden ute (or bakkie) through the centre of Queensland to Darwin, making their own roads, bridges and bush repairs as they went is astounding. Interactive visual displays, multimedia and original planes, cars, even uniforms and first hand accounts of events and a general history of the region and life in the Outback make it really interesting. Of course, since it wasn’t ‘the season’ we missed the one tour you could take of a Boeing 747 scheduled that day. Feeling our minds had been broadened and enriched, we went back to the Uys Huis and the pool.

Another plane, this was the first kind to have a toilet. Luxurious.

 The next day was Stockman's Hall of Fame Day, and having discussed our failings re children and museums from yesterday, we had a new plan of attack. Food. Of course, the scones with jam and cream we had envisaged and pumped the kids for were not available since “Oh, it’s not the season yet!!?” Silly Uys’s! We made do with some defrosted cake instead. Anyway, the plan failed and since it was really just a repeat but in more detail and without as many planes as the Qantas thing, I took a whinging Marguerite home after 90 minutes and Fiela pushed a sleeping Caesar around and looked at the exhibit for another few hours. I had intended to come back at 2pm and swap the kids and Fiela for the Hall of Fame, but just couldn’t be bothered. During ‘the season’ there are all sorts of men on horses doing things and whipcracking and working dogs (whatever, saw that at Glengarry), but since that was a week off, just a couple of bored museum attendants were in attendance. Besides which, we had a night out planned and I needed to ready myself.

Going out clothes.

Readying myself for a night out takes much less time now that I have limited makeup and only one outfit option, which is lucky as we were to be picked up at 5pm at the front of reception for an Outback Aussie Adventure. We had booked a sunset cruise on the Thomson River, but looking at the gathering storm clouds in our finest camping gear, it didn’t look like we were going to get the full experience yet again. The guide, Alan, seemed pretty funny in a tour guide kind of way, so when it started to pelt with rain and he said he wasn’t sure whether the 2WD bus would get us home but, not to worry, there were “some 4WD options”, I thought he was joking. Then when he said, “This is going to get slippery, hold on, quick!” my smile faded, he gunned the engine and we fishtailed through about 50metres of slick mud. Marguerite and Fiela in particular thought it was pretty funny, but the grey nomads in the back looked grim. This continued on for around the last kilometre until we skidded to a halt in the pouring rain, watching as four soaked waiters ran around the boat getting all the tables off the top deck and removing them to below.

More going out clothes...

We then sat in the bus for around 20 minutes waiting for the rain to stop and a wooden plank to be found so we could get across to the pontoon, because as Alan said, “You’ve got to stick to the bush in the dry, ‘cos in the wet, it’ll stick to you ha ha ha!” For those who haven’t been out this way, the mud around Longreach is notoriously boggy- in ye olden times when it rained, you stayed put until it dried out or literally (and occasionally lethally) became stuck in the mud.

Inside the Thomson River cruise.

Anyhoo, it stopped raining, we got on board and off we sailed. The Thomson River is actually a 10km billabong and has a collection of Aboriginal ‘shield trees’, where bark has been collected for shields or even small canoes. Alan gave a really good running commentary on the history of the area and ecology of the river, and we took about a thousand sunset photos, as you do, of which I’ll only force a couple on you here today. We had a fantastic and sumptious antipasto platter (Marguerite ate almost every olive and of course, lots of ‘fancy cheese’) and then we went down below deck for dinner.

Sunset, kids exceptionally excited.

 This tour was actually a training and refresher course for all of Alan’s staff, so there was a 5:1 punter to staff member ratio which was excellent news for us as Gayle, with nothing to do, offered to push Caesar to sleep in his pram while we had dinner. This was quite an effort as he wasn’t too keen on going to sleep, after pushing him for about 20 minutes, Gayle asked Kevin, another staff member to take over so she could clear some dishes and of course Caesar fell straight to sleep, leaving Kev with all the credit. This seems quite trivial, but we’ve been with these kids, alone, for three weeks and the idea that someone else took over the management of even one of them for half an hour so we could both eat dinner, together, at the same time- that was pretty special. So we had a great night talking to all the other tour-goers and enjoying Alan and his team’s lovely hospitality. We enjoyed it so much we wobbled through the campsite and went to bed having done absolutely none of the pre-packing we had planned to do.

An aboriginal shield tree, you can see the one on the left where the bark has been cut off.

Looking back 'upriver' toward the storm we'd just experienced.

The next morning’s pack up was tedious to say the least thanks to the flies, the heat and our hangovers, but we’d had fun in Longreach and enjoyed its friendly people. I’d recommend any of Alan Smith’s OutbackAussie Tours (there’s a lot of them) and if you can only do one, I’d go for the Qantas Founders Museum over the Stockman’s Hall of Fame any day (it’s also cheaper). Visiting the Outback during ‘the season’ would make it even more Outbacky, if a little more crowded. The lovely lady running the impeccably clean Longreach Tourist Park said that at the height of ‘the season’ it’s nothing for over 150 caravans to come in and out of the park each day. Somehow, I’m glad we had most of these places to ourselves even if it meant there wasn’t as much to do and ‘experience’ in a touristy kind of way. Except for the flies, we experienced plenty of them.

Thomson River sunset.