Central Queensland

We're in the geographic centre of Queensland.

From Barcaldine we travelled north to Aramac, one of the oldest towns in Queensland and the home of The White Bull.  The bushranger Captain Starlight and his gang stole a mob of cattle, including a rare and prized white bull.  The bull was sold at auction for a tidy sum before the gang was captured. This statue is in the main street.   Legend has it that Aramac got it's name from a surveyor, A A Mac who carved his initials into a tree,  This was corrupted to Aramac when the town was formed.





About 70km north-east of Aramac is the aquatic playground of Lake Dunn.  This would have been a magic spot to spend a week - if it wasn't recovering from recent floods - so we only stayed one night.  The lake is full and we could hear the waves lapping on the shore all night.  Much of the area was under water only a few weeks ago.




After Lake Dunn we drove back to Aramac and from there to Muttaburra, in the geographic centre of Queensland, at the confluence of the Thompson and Landsborough Rivers.  The main claim to fame for this little town was the discovery of the Muttaburrasaurus in the 1960s.  This is the largest almost complete dinosaur fossil found in Australia.  The original skeleton is in the Queensland Museum in Brisbane.

There are several works by a local sculpture on show.  The Muttaburra Mudskippers is the local swimming club and this has been immortalised in metal at the local swimming pool where we had a refreshing swim most days.  The shearer and sheep are near the local picnic ground.

There's quite a bit to see here - the sign says pop. 200 but 50 would be more realistic.  There's an active historical society and they look after the 2 museums in town.  We spent a very informative 2 hours with our guides Brian and Sue.

The Cassimatis Museum is all about the Cassimatis family, a Greek family who settled in Muttaburra just before World War I.  They were entrepreneurs who conducted many businesses from fruit and vegetables to petrol to farm machinery.  I'm sure their motto was "if you want it we'll get it for you - even if we have to make it!".  

The home where the family lived and raised 5 children is located next to their store.  The interior of the house is furnished as it was when they lived there, with their original furnishings.

Their General Store has been preserved just as it would have been with many items donated back by people who bought them from the store in bygone days.  We saw clothing, kitchen goods and equipment, books, machinery and tools.  Even the original office paperwork and books are on show.

The other museum is Dr Arratta's Hospital Museum.  Dr Arratta built and operated this hospital which had beds for 15 inpatients; 11 in shared wards and 4 in private rooms.  He was Queensland's Senior Medical Officer and he maintained a very well equipped hospital.  Again this museum is very well maintained and looked after.

There is a great free-camp site on the Thompson River at Broadwater, about 10km from town.  We visited there to do some fishing - no luck.  There were plenty of sandflies in the cracked silt, although the recent floods have minimised them for now.  We chose to stay in town at the council run caravan park - $12 per night for a powered site with the 3rd and 4th nights free.  In another month there will be hundreds of caravans camped along the river bank.  As with all country towns, the locals were very friendly and made us welcome.

After our 4 nights in Muttaburra, we're in Winton, on the Dinosaur Trail and home of Qantas.  We were last here in December 2012 when we did over the town's many tourist attractions.  We're only here for a couple of nights as we're heading further west this time.  This is Waltzing Matilda country.  

We've spent the morning back at the Age of Dinosaurs Museum, a privately run, not for profit centre devoted to the region's many dinosaur fossils.  The tour of the laboratory was very interesting (again) and we saw  technicians extricating dinosaur bones from their rocks.  There are enough bones in storage to keep them doing for many years - and more are discovered every year.




In the Museum we saw Banjo, Matilda and Elliott, three dinosaurs on display.  Although they are incomplete it's easy to imagine these giants wandering around.  The tour has changed since we were here last and we've promised ourselves that we'll be back again.

One of the things we didn't see last time is the Musical Fence and Percussion Playground.  This is located next to the Landing Ground where the original QANTAS planes used to land.

We're heading further west tomorrow as we take the "scenic route" to Townsville.