Penny's news: Day 13 – Longreach

Looking for a final hurrah before we farewelled Longreach, after packing up the car, we called into the Qantas Founders Museum that tells the story of how Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service) started in Longreach. We spent about an hour there and could easily have spent a bit longer but were keen to hit the road. The museum had quite a few video presentations, some interactive exhibits, models of planes, actual planes, and lots of stories from families and employees etc. It was certainly a pioneering move to start the service, but it was immensely important to those in the outback initially and, then of course, Australia as a whole.

I was really excited to see a Catalina as I talk about them all the time when I volunteer at the Heritage Centre at the old RAAF Base at Rathmines, but I’d never seen one up close before. The other planes were interesting as well. They offer other tours where you can actually walk out on the wing of the Boing 737 (or is it 747?). Gaz & I were not interested in doing this and certainly did not want to pay $100 each for the privilege.

Anyway, we were soon on our way and even though it was only an hour to Barcaldine (remember, BAR-CALL-DIN), we decided an early lunch was in order as apparently there isn’t much else between there and Emerald. The Ridgey Didge Café did themselves proud and we were soon fed (bacon & egg rolls) and watered (or ginger beered in Gaz’s case), and on our way. It was a pretty monotonous run to Emerald – nice straight, flat roads - until we hit some hills (mountains?) and then we noticed a spot to stop for a quick leg stretch and photo opportunity.

Back on the road and we hit town a bit after 3pm, checked in to the Emerald Cabin and Caravan Village who had thankfully been able to fit us in for the extra two nights. The cabin is definitely the best we’ve had so far – lots of space to store everything and not too pokey … which is good as we’ll be here 4 nights now. It backs onto the golf course so, fingers crossed, we might get to have a hit if it doesn’t rain too much. The rain had held off so far, thank goodness. As I unpacked, I sent Gaz out to stock up on groceries to reduce the need for us to drive in the rain without wipers.