Blackall to Winton

Longreach and Winton have a lot of tourist attractions. Winton is the dinosaur capital of Australia. Longreach has the stockman’s hall of fame. Qantas began in Winton. Longreach is on the Tropic of Capricorn. Last year I visited both and they fully deserve the number of tourists who flock to them. They are worthy of several days, but I need to get back to my schedule, so I decided to go through Longreach and stay only one night in Winton. Once I passed Barcaldine again, the land was very flat. It’s always been a grassland and the native Mitchell grass is superior stock food. The land naturally turns over - it’s self mulching black soil country, which made looking for fossils quite different to normal fossil digs, but makes the country some of the best in Australia for cattle. But it’s pretty boring to drive.

There were a lot of cattle road trains - I counted six in a row at one stage. Eventually I reached Winton, and discovered that someone here has a date farm, and I’m having fresh dates for the first time in my life. They’re nice.