Well, Here We Are in Ilfracombe

For the uninitiated, Ilfracombe is a small village just outside Longreach. We prefer to stay in smaller places where possible and travel in to the cities. In this case it's only 25 Km to Longreach.

The trip through to here was interesting, but I suppose I should back track to our last post in Charleville.
Charleville was most uneventful, in fact I don't remember much about it even though it was only a few days ago (no comments about short term memory loss thanks).

From Charleville we drove  through to Blackall, quite an interesting place. Now you wouldn't think a wool scour was all that fascinating, but a lot of time, money and effort has been spent bringing the wool scour back from a derelict state to its current condition as a tourist attraction.
The Blackall area was a very important wool growing area and in the days when wool was worth a pound a pound, wool that had been cleaned was worth more than greasy wool (for a start it was lighter to transport and more easily handled).

Jackie Howe, a local Blackall blade shearer shore 321 sheep in 8 hours and (I think) forty minutes, a remarkable achievement. His statue now stands in the main street.

There were a number of wool scours in Queensland, but Blackall is the only one remaining in working order. If you get up this way it's worth a look.

Blackall, like Charleville and a number of other towns in this area use artesian water. It takes a little getting used to, it has a bit of a sulphur smell when first poured, but it is reasonable to drink. It makes the shower a little smelly but the advantage is that there is no shortage of hot water (it comes out of the ground at about 53 degrees) and you can have a long shower and the shower heads are not of the water saving type (I absolutely detest showers where you have to run around under them to get wet!!).

From Blackall we took a back road through the Outer Barcoo area. You may remember Banjo Patterson's poem "The Bush Christening" that started :
On the outer Barcoo, where churches are few
And men of religion are scanty
On a track seldom crossed but by folks that are lost
One Michael Magee had a shanty.

Michael Magee was based on a real person.   

The outer Barcoo area is fairly isolated but the people of the small main town in the area - Isisford - have done a lot to preserve the history in their town with small museums being made of some of the now closed down shops. There are still two pubs in the town. Again, worth a visit but beware, the road from Isisford to Ilfracombe is of the one lane type and a little rough so if you're not used to that.....
Here are some pictures from the last few days.