EIGHTEENTH DAY – MONDAY 26TH JULY
Slept in a bit as we were in no hurry to go too far today. We only went as far as Longreach which is about 25 kms up the road from where we stayed the night. We planned to stick around for the day as there were things we wanted to do. Firstly we went to the info centre and booked ourselves on a couple of tours. Then we did a bit of grocery shopping and went to the bank. Then we went and checked out where we are planning to stay the night. It was pretty crowded but thats ok. Then we went off to see the Australia Stockman’s Hall of Fame. This was really good. There were displays about the early settlers, stockman, all manner of peoples who helped to build up the outback to what it is today. Fascinating. Then we went to our first booked tour. It was a ride on a Cob &Co Coach with four horses. It was a lot of fun riding on the actual track where the Cob & Co used to run. On our way back we even got to feel how it was when the horses ran along the road up to 40 kmh. Don’t think I’d like to ride in a coach for days on end though – its a pretty rough ride – even rougher than our van. After the ride we went to the camp site to find a spot and then get ready for going out to our other booked tour. We had to just go out on road near our camp and wait for a bus to pick us up. There were three other people from the camp site as well. The bus arrived and we climbed aboard. The bus was pretty full. We then went about a kilometre down the road to where the paddle boat is moored. We all got on the boat after having been given some safety instructions. It was only a fairly small paddle boat call Thomson Belle. We were given some nibbles on the boat while it paddled up and down the Thomson River (It’s the cleanest river cause it has no p in it!!!) for about an hour. The sunset was ok but a little bit of a fizzer. Then we got off and were entertained by the skipper of the boat – he played guitar and sang some good old country songs while everyone joined in making sheep, kangaroo and kookaburra noises – we had to sing for our supper. We were then given dinner of a very yummy hearty stew and bread, followed by dessert of apple slice and custard and later on we had billy tea – after it had been swung around six times and damper with golden syrup. During eating time the skipper kept entertaining us with songs and jokes. After this a man called ‘Scotty’ recited some very funny poetry – he was very good. We were told later in the bus that Scotty is illiterate and is very good at remembering poems. He didn’t wear any shoes. We were dropped off back at our camp site and we walked back to our van and settled down for the night. We had a pretty busy day but a really good one.