Isisford to Longreach

Longreach – Gateway to the Outback

Well we dragged ourselves away from Isisford today after checking out the neat little bakery and general store ‘museums’ which we were free to wander through in the main street.  Really interesting but sad to see a town that used to be such a busy little mecca, now struggling to survive!

Old Bakery Store in Isisford left open for visitors to wander through

General Store in Isisford

Really interesting to wander through the general store which would have up to 6 people working behind the counter on ‘movie’ nights and would stay open until 3am!!

Clancy’s Overflow Hotel – Isisford

From Isisford we headed to Ilfracombe and spent a couple of hours wandering through the main street which is basically a museum of old cars/machinery, a dedication to Wellshot Station (the largest sheep station in the world, which we drove past today) and an interesting bottle and rifle collection.  Once again all of the exhibits were free (we really appreciate this as a travelling family!) and the best bit was that the kids could climb all over the machinery and cars so they were really interested in it all!

Bottle Collection – Ilfracombe

Ha – Mareeba tobacco tin – been a long time since we have seen one of those!

Tobes loved climbing up on to all of the old tractors!

Lex said she was driving ‘bobes’ to a party!

From there we went on to Longreach where we spent the afternoon getting some jobs done; getting the spare tyre valve fixed, going to the bank, letting the kids spend their pocket money (they saved their pocket money in money tins for the last 18months and we have decided to hand out $2 each Friday – Tobes chose some army men from the cheap shop and Lex a fairy wand, Jacko opted for a chocolate bar!) and we also did a big grocery shop in preparation for the long weekend with all the family.  The best bit was that we got to catch up with a very old school friend who was Matt’s best mate, Kelvin, and his wife Libby and their new bub!  It has been 16years since we have seen Kelvin so it was great to catch up and we might even go to visit him on his family station next week!

Beautiful sunset as we were pulling in to our campsite tonight

Sunset – just out of longreach

Beautiful sunset

Tonight we are camped at another free camp, a rest area about 24km’s out of Longreach on the way to Winton.  It is a little noisy as it seems to be a truck stop for all the cattle trains but there is plenty of room in the bush behind the rest area and there is only two other caravans here tonight.  We are loving the free camp spots!  We had planned to camp at a spot just 2km’s out of Longreach but it was jammed in like sardines with all the Grey Nomads – we haven’t yet got this travelling down pat – we are still arriving at our camp site far too late in the day, so it is always very full by the time we arrive!  We will have to work on that!!  Ok – off to bed as we are hoping to get an early start in the morning – looking forward to seeing all the family tomorrow – wahoooo!

Favourite Parts of the Day

Lexi –  having a cupcake from the bakery

Toby – playing with my new army men in the dirt

Jack – having a treat lunch at the bakery (sausage roll & chocolate milk)

Jess – walking up to the shower by myself (ie no kids!) and having a long hot shower to wash my hair etc – heaven!

Matt – seeing a good mate Kelvin again!