Beyond the Black Stump

It's official!  We're well and truly into the outback now.

We left Charleville and headed north to Augathella, about an hour's drive.  This is a great little town and was well worth the hour or so we spent there.  Our first stop was the  Information Centre/Art Gallery where we saw a 20 minute film about the area and it's history.  This was originally sheep country with large merino sheep stations which ran more than 200,000 sheep and employed 60-70 shearers.  Now it is well established as cattle country.  The Art Gallery has a good historical photographic display.  Augathella was known for bullock teams and bushrangers.  The Kennif Brothers were local bushrangers.  Colourful murals line the main street and depict the history of the wool industry.  The local football team is the Mighty Meat Ants and they are celebrated by a large sculpture in Meat Ant Park.

From Augathella we travelled further north to Tambo, a town on the Barcoo River.  It was very hot so we decided to camp 25km north of town.  The vegetation is changing again and we're starting to see some bottle trees close to the road.

The following morning we drove to Blackall.  This is a very interesting town and has the "official" Black Stump which was used to standardise the maps of Queensland.  Now we are definitely Beyond the Black Stump.  From Blackall we proceeded to Isisford and Oma Waterholes where we will be camping for a week.