Day 215 / 2014 - Longreach to Barcaldine

Leaving Longreach we headed towards Barcaldine while travelling through Ilfracombe we had a brush with the Law...

Ilfracome is a small town about 24Km east of Longreach. Its one of those towns you can see the open road going out the other side of town as you are coming in. As we were coming into town the police pulled us over I assumed it was for a breath test but the policewoman informed me I was speeding and should have only been doing 50km/Hr. I was quite shocked as I hadn't seen any speed signs while driving in and the only reason I slowed down is because Anne said there was a school crossing ahead. The police said I was lucky because they hadn't recorded the speed on the gun so I got off with a warning.

We stopped in town as we wanted to look at the machinery mile they advertised and in the process we walked back to where we came into town to check to see if there was a speed sign. Sure enough it is there a little 50Km sign straight from 100km zone positioned on a bend with a number of other signs around it to distract you. Not sure how others drive but I am looking around the corner to see what coming not looking straight ahead into the bush where the sign is poisitioned. You would think there would be a few more speed warning signs for us old fellas in case we miss the main one.

As well as the machinery mile Ilfracome has a large collection of Wartime guns and bottles. The public pool and spa is open for a couple of hours and entry is $2.00 per adult. There is also a caravan park where they claim to have the best happy hours in the district. Some vaners choose to stay here and drive the 24km into Longreach to see the attractions.

Leaving Ilfracome we continued on for another 75Km to Barcaldine. The stretch of road between Ilfracombe and Barcaldine seem to us anyway have a higher percentage of road kill it almost looked like a war zone with the amount of dead animal bodys littered along the side of the road.

We had though of camping at Lloyd Jones Weir Camp Area about 15km south side of the Barcaldine township It seem to be highly recomended and the road in was mostly bitumen with the last Kilometre good dirt track. When we arrive the place was quite full and we really couldn't see a suitable spot anywhere except near the main entry road. The area was quite dusty so I could imagine the amount of flying dust as cars were driving in and out so we decided to go and stay at a local caravan park instead.

Barcaldine Tourist Park is the first park in from the south and it had grass woo hoo we hadn't seen grass since leaving Darwin so it was a little bit of luxury for us. Its a smallish park of about 40 sites but vey friendly and during the tourist season almost each night they put on a free Damper and Billy tea with a local tour operator giving a history talk on the surrounding area.

We mainly wanted to see the Tree of Knowledge opposite the railway station which is touted as being the birthplace of the labour party. It is worth veiwing by day and by night as it is floodlit in green light. The actual tree is a Ghost Gum which is now dead as it was posioned in 2006 but it was preserved and a multi million dollar wooden structure built over the top. At night the green lighting is position in such away that it gives the image of the green leave canopy that use to adorn the tree.

The other attraction we looked at was the Australian Workers Heritage Museum. This is a museum deticated to the the rise of the Australian worker and the fight for fair woking condtions as well as the birth of the Labor Party. It is a little like Disneyland without the rides in that it is broken up into a number of centres dedicated to different types of work such as Rail Transport, Main Roads, Education, Health, Pastorial, Energency Services, etc... It is well worth a look and we spent about 3 hours just looking at all the information and various displays.