NINETEENTH – TUESDAY 27TH JULY
Got up at 7.30 am and had a quick breakfast and went off to see Lilly’s Lagoon. This place was fascinating with coolabah trees and white lilies growing in the lagoon. Apparently these lilies only grow in this area. We looked around for a bit – Graeme collected a bit of firewood then off we went along the Landsborough Highway (Matilda hwy) towards Winton. There were big open grasslands and there were lots of clouds and it rained a bit, however the sun was attempting to peek through. We saw our first road-trains. Its a bit scary when the road-trains go the opposite way, some of them kind of suck you in towards them and it’s not always safe to pull over off the road when they come along so you just hold your breath. There were lots of sheep herds and some cows. We are wondering why everyone seems to be going the other way?? Just before Winton we saw ‘The Age of Dinosaurs’ which was quite interesting after driving along a very bumpy rocky track for about 12 kms. They showed us how they find them and what they do when they do. When they find dino bones they are very careful and dig the surrounding dirt and put a few different layers- first foil then newspaper then plaster to preserve them until they can properly and very, very carefully remove the dirt from around them. They showed us some of the huge bones they have already found of the largest dino that has been found in Australia, they call it Matilda. We then went into Winton and looked at the Musical Fence and wall of all kinds of stuff some guy built into his stone wall. Then we went to the ‘Waltzing Matilda Centre’. This was very interesting – dedicated to the song. There were also other displays of old stuff – collections of bottles, medical type equipment – scary, phones, cameras, shoes, star pickets, cow bells, wood shavers, old pots etc etc – I think you get the picture and Qantas stuff, and we ended up having a nice lunch there in their cafe. We continued towards our camp place for the night. We finally arrived at Combo Waterhole Conservation Park after driving along a dirt track for about 8 kms. But it was all worth it. There were a couple of other campers there also. We set up camp then went for a 2.6 km walk return to the billabong where the swagman supposedly drowned himself – you know the one in the song ‘Waltzing Matilda’. It was a very beautiful spot with lots of coolabah trees along the banks. We stayed and watched the sun set over the billabong and we sang the song. We then went back to cook our tea on the fire. I also made some damper which turned out ok – probably need a little more practice. While we were sitting outside and eating our tea we noticed some weird lights happening in the distance. At first I thought it was lightning but it wasn’t like that either. The lights lasted for ages and we became more curious about them. We could only see them through the trees but the distant sky and trees all lit up – fascinating. Still not sure what it was – I’ll have to do some research.