Winton

We have been to Winton before. The museum here was much better than in Longreach and when you look at the main street full of vans any time of the day, a lot more must think the same. Word of mouth is the name of the game on the road.

What we did do that was something new and different was go to the Winton camel races. It takes forever to walk the camels to the starting gate so in between they run novelty events. Egg and spoon for the kids and hay bale rolling and the like for the adults. You could fill up on junk food and overflowing sundaes if you needed to and we had damper and billy tea for morning tea. Now the camels are tricks on their own. One came out of the stating gate and turned the wrong way and 2 others decided to forgo the turn and race straight on. Seemed the jockeys were mostly women and the most successful team came from Shepparton in Victoria …. Lol

Lunch time entertainment was 3 times world champion gum leaf player and very impressive she was, and two girls aged 11 and 8 told very funny poems. Between the dust of the motot bikes and the dust of the camels……

Sat around later in the afternoon with great anticipation, to hear the Qld music festival contribution of The Earth Music Machine – what a load of rubbish! It consisted of an accordion player imitating the sounds of farm machine so someone drove on 2 tractors and he played all this rubbish stuff – it was supposed to make up appreciate out farmers more – and this is out taxes at work. Most walked out and headed off to better things – very disappointing after waiting all day for the ‘treat’.

Poetry is very big in this part of the country and back at the caravan park, before dinner every night you could go and listen to a C&W singer but after dinner a wonderful poet who went without a break for 1 ½ hours. She was very entertaining!