Bundoora to Blackall 15th to 18th

             Monday 15th

Bronze Dingo in Dingo
main street

      Travelled 26km to Middlemount to catch up on the shopping and continued on to a rest stop 75km from a little town called Dingo, mid morning. Had Brunch and a nap until  moving on to Dingo van park at $25.00 per night by mid afternoon.  We had to visit Dingo  --? just 'cause we could.

Street corner in Dingo

    

     The town is only small but one of the things it is known for is the bronze statue of a dingo on the main street. I took a walk this afternoon and took a few pictures. this one of these lovely flowering trees impressed me, pretty aren't they?,  don't know what they are, just that I like them.
    

     Found this courtesy car outside the hotel, it says it all!!



     And while taking Yip and Dot for a walk the next morning came across this sign on what looked like the local rodeo ground, Ouch!! don't want to mess with the likes of these instructions so stayed out of the fenced area.

                      

                                  Tuesday 16th
          Time to go, but first had to have a photo shoot with Yip and the bronze dingo.



      On to Emerald today. Stayed over night at the Emerald Botanical Gardens, a council free camp on the Nogoa river. It is right between the road bridge and rail bridge over the river, thought it might bother me but not too noisy at all.
    



Nogoa river running through
Emerald Botanic gardens

     The gardens were a treat to have a gander through and even the pups seemed to enjoy all the greenery.




Yip and Dot in Emerald Botanic
gardens



   




Wednesday 17th
Did a bit of shopping in Emerald before heading west toward Barcaldine, Passing through some neat little towns as we went.

Blackwater International
Coal Centre

Roadside trees through
Comet

    

     One was the Coal Capital of Australia, Blackwater and another was a little place called Comet.
     Blackwater was fairly large with mining sites all along the way, but Comet was only a street of the main highway we were travelling. All the towns along the way were the same, as they all had at least one pub, just the Australian way I guess!
    


Alpha park land

     We came across a roadside stop and had a short rest, it was at Boguntungan, just a rail stop and cemetery which I had a little walk through, the oldest grave was 1884 and newest 2013, not fun but interesting.

     Stopped at Alpha for lunch and time out. not much here, this engine was outside the window where we pulled up.



Jericho Camp on Jordan river

     Drove on to Jericho where we found a council camp beside the Jordan River and spent the night here.

     On the way we passed a heap of bottle trees such as the one in this photo.

Bottle Tree on roadside to Jericho

Very unusual looking trees, they vary in size a lot, The trunks are shaped like bottles and some were huge around the girth of the trunk. They were scattered along the way in the roadside paddocks.
     There were Quite a few other travellers at the camp in Jericho, not surprising as it is a very nice camp, requiring only a donation for their trouble.

                                      Thursday 18th
     On through Barcaldine. We stopped to have a look at the tree of Knowledge. The tree is all but gone now but have preserved it in this way as photos show.

Tree of knowledge
in Barcaldine

Tree of Knowledge plaque

Monument in - Barcaldine representing
shear blades

    



     We travelled on for 30 km to a rest area for a couple of hours then continued on through Blackall (we were here in May -  it got too cold and we hi-tailed it back north) then a further 8km to another rest area. We spent the night here and will continue south tomorrow.
     That's all for now, wait for the next episode of Vannessa's Story when I get back too you.