Longreach 22/10/07 -23/10/07

Swimming in the Thomson River. Longreach gets it's hot water from an artesian bore, and the drinking water from the Thomson River. The land around Longreach very flat and the temperature was 38 degrees. Would you drink this water after we had been swimming in it?

Longreach – Stockman’s Hall of Fame
Called the Hall of Fame because it is dedicated to pioneers, farmers, and stockman who setup the first farms in outback Australia. It was a very hard life. This museum had levels for each period of time, starting with explorers and finishes with drovers.

Every little town we have been through has a war memorial dedicated to local people who fought for Australia. Mitchel and Callum are trying to shoot at a vintage Qantas plane. Luckily, they were arrested and taken away before they could do any damage.





Larks Quarry – 100kms South west of Winton. 23/10/07
Real dinosaur footprints and fossils baked into the ancient mud. This area tells the story of a carnivorous Tyrannous chasing small dinosaurs in all directions. This inspired the dinosaur stampede used in the film Jurassic park. There was a dinosaur robot that Mitch and Callum played with. The country around this site is almost desert (its called Jump Up country).. plenty of lizards.

Yabbie Racing! There is no Lobster flu affecting effecting the racing today.

Winton 24/10/07
Lots of opals around Winton. An opal miner gave us some opals. Winton is the town where the famous song Waltzing Matilda was written.

The world famous Mckinley Library. Mckinley led a search party to rescue the explorers Burke and Wills.

Cloncurry 24/10/07
Cloncurry has the hottest every temperature recorded in Australia – 53 degrees Celsius. When we where there it was 38 degrees so we built a fire.

Burke and Wills Roadhouse
The famous explorers came through here in the 1800’s. Burke later died under a tree after looking for Aboriginals that had helped him earlier.

Boodjamulla National Park ( Lawn Hill) 25/10/07-28/10/07

It is 40 degrees and no electricity for power, Mitchel sleeps outside on the ground between the snakes, spiders and Cane Toads.
Boodjamulla is beautiful. Plenty of wildlife; crocodiles, Barrmundi, Archer fish, Salmon catfish, kingfishers, cormorants and wallabies. We spent much time in the water, and both Mitchel and Callum were to large to for the freshwater crocodiles.

The trip to Boodjamulla was quite a challenge, one lane dirt roads that we had to share with 3 trailer road trains. The dirt roads destroy car tires.. we managed to get through without loosing a tire.. but we did crack the windscreen.

Mitch comes a cropper in the water when someone fell on him, making a gash in his head and sending the local nurse to his rescue. Luckily, after a bit of attention and a good night's sleep Mitch has made a full recovery.

Mitch, Kate and Richard go in search of crocodiles, Callum stays behind to collect firewood and is the only one to see a crocodile.

Mitch and Richard find a wild bore and it runs off in Kate's direction. Kate is not amused....

Willie Wagtails nest, didn't like the look of me, but she would not leave her nest

Swimming in the rapids, the fish swim around you...

New friends.. Brian and Alissa nurse Mitch after his accident, and Ayden lends his bed to make Mitch comfortable. Michael, Lyndel, Rebeka and Connor make the stay in Adels grove great fun.