25 June 2014

Winton today, Not like it was in the route that one would normally take to go around Australia, but then this trip so far has been more about seeing places while going around. Both Winton and Longreach were originally on the list as places that I wanted to go to, but they sort of got dropped as it was really too far out of the way to go there, Winton is 348 kilometres from Cloncurry, back towards Brisbane and Longreach another 183 kilometres on top of that. Anyway I went to Winton just to have a look and it was a nice little town, though dry as in that area, so very dry, it's been in drought for the last three years. makes foe a very dramatic on the drive out there though, some amazing colours and vast distances

The town itself is filled with some very friendly people and some interesting characters. Mind you that may be because two of the people I met said I was identical to one of the locals, big Ben they called him, except he had hair one said, haha. Well they helped me out, went out of their way to, with a little family project I had in the area and gave me what help they could, which was very kind of them. The delay with getting this update posted is that again there is no service unless you are with Telstra in the area, sadly the locals don't like it and are unable to do anything about it. People mentioned that times were tough for the town with the drought and the problems with the live cattle export market and that they really were desperately clawing on to the Waltzing Matilda link and anything they could get from the dinosaurs that they could. It's sad to think that the entire town is almost at the mercy of the tourists now, unless it rains sometime soon.

It's a little town and there are lots of closed shops, well lots in comparison with how many there actually are in the small place. Mind if they are relying so greatly on the tourist dollar they really need to make it worth the tourists while to see everything. For example they have the "Biggest Deck Chair" in the world (their claim), but I didn't bother photographing it as it can't be called a deck chair when the canvas in only held on by a couple of frayed strips.

 The Waltzing Matilda centre, unfortunately I always hated the tune after being made to learn it for school many years ago, so I didn't go to the show

 Winton main street

 The Great Northern pub, this is the 5th reincarnation of it following fires over the years, thus the Deco look

 QANTAS memorial in the main street, the first Board meeting was held at the Winton Club, before it moved to Longreach

 One of the local families loves old Holdens I was told, not too much if this is what they do with them I would think, sad really

 More QANTAS history, this plate and the "Cairn" below are all there is 

 Local tourist attraction is the Musical fence, not so much a fence as a collection of junk you can bash about to make a racket. Obviously children love it.

 Now you can tell how dire the situation is when one of the local tourist attractions is a fence containing all the junk an eccentric old member of the townsfolk collected from the local dump and put into a wall at the side of his house. In other areas local council planning would have it down and removed in seconds, here they give him his own park right next door. It's ..... different.

  

 The Junk Wall, Oops sorry it is Arno's wall

The old open air cinema is still there and looking a tad tired, they do however run nostalgic movies on Wednesday nights. Mind I was there Wednesday night, perhaps I was too early for the show. Oh and to add to it's public service ability, it also used to be the town roller rink.

 Some of the most interesting things I saw in town were the old glass slides that were shown before the start of the movies, wasn't old advertising something else again.

I have to say I think I am sounding a little harsh with Winton, there is also the Diamantina Truck museum there too (which was worth a look and really very sad to see the waste some vehicles have been left to though) but I won't add pictures of that just yet as there are too many already today. I think I spent the most amount of time in Winton there, well except the accommodation. I must add though if your passing through the area it is worth a stop to have a look, I will go again personally so it was good it was a special side trip for me and thus worth the extra near 700 kilometres. Mind I did have the most incredible slow cooked braised beef with mash and steamed broccoli at the Great Northern Hotel, so that alone makes up for any distance...