Before leaving Yaraka pub in the morning, I had a cup of coffee with the owners. They’ve just bought the place a few weeks ago and were incredibly friendly and generous – typical country hospitality. If anyone is in the area I recommend you drop by and have a beer, maybe stay the night. Even Fourex doesn’t taste too bad when it’s on tap and cold!
Just outside Yaraka is Mt Slowcombe, which has great views over the surrounding countryside. They held the dawn service for Anzac Day up here, so the flag is still flying.
Cutting cross country on patchy dirt roads, there was plenty of wildlife around. These two emus were running full tilt parallel to the road for several kilometres, they couldn’t get through the fenceline.
The next stop was Blackall, a major regional centre with a lot of history. The saying “beyond the black stump” generally means the more remote parts of the outback. The original black stump was here, used as a base for the surveyor’s theodolites – anything further west of this point was outside the original colony of Queensland.
Another interesting point in history is that the Australian Labour Party had its origins here, arising from a strike by the sheep shearers over pay rates. They formed a union and decided to seek political representation, first in the state and later federal parliaments. This is the memorial marking the spot of that first public gathering.
The other major attraction in Blackall is also to do with sheep farming, an original restored woolscour. Australia “rode on the sheep’s back” to prosperity, mainly from wool exports. We’re still the largest producer and exporter of Merino wool in the world. The woolscour was a steam-driven plant that washed, processed and packed the wool ready for transport. This particular factory has been fully restored for historical and tourism purposes, still operated by a steam boiler.
Back on the road, the terrain became more varied and interesting, as threatening clouds gathered overhead.
Although I seemed to dodge the rain again, and was rewarded with a rainbow.
On the flipside, I did come across several snakes, sunning themselves on the roads. I’m fairly game about most things, but snakes generally scare the shit out of me – considering we have something like 8 out of the 10 most deadly species around, I think it’s kinda justified. My uneducated guess has these two as Western Browns – dangerous and aggressive bastards. They were about a metre and a half long each.
Country roads often have strange little random adornments.
With sunset approaching, I pushed on to the next town, clouds still gathered overhead.
I’m sure that panda climbed up the tree to avoid the snakes.