As we crossed the border into Queensland along the Overland Way, the topography changed. There were cattle stations where you could actually see the cattle! There were clumps of healthier looking trees dispersed amongst the pasture. Even the roadkill kangaroos were bigger and the fattest dead snakes we’ve ever seen. Ruthie wasn’t impressed with the snakes or the change of speed limit from 130 to 110 kmh. Although, our entry permit was in order, the Queensland authorities weren’t there to check it. It seemed the Northern Territory police were far more interested in who was entering their state from Queensland.

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After driving through the town of Camooweal we headed to Mt Isa which was our stop for the night.One of the Mt Isa mines is right in the middle of the town. The town seems to have grown around the mine. Mining vehicles and workers in High Visy’s dominate the town. With limited time, we did our own tour. A visit to Mt Isa’s first cemetery was followed by a stop at Casa Grande, the property the Queen stayed at when she visited in 1970. Hard to picture a Rolls in this town! It was then on to Buchanan Park which houses the racetrack and rodeo arena. We were 10 days too early to be able to witness the biggest rodeo in the Southern Hemisphere. Mt Isa rodeo, 62 bucking years and still going strong. We had a cool drink at The Isa Hotel on Rodeo Drive which is nothing like the one in Beverley Hills! (Not pronounced the same either.) We finished off with a walk up to the Mt Isa lookout with a view over the town at sunset.

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It was a shock to the system having only driven 7 hours to now be waking up to an overnight low of 7 degrees and soon we were scrambling for warmer clothes. Once more we hit the Highway, this time on the Fossicking Way scenic drive of 115 kms to Cloncurry. I couldn’t help but notice that the traffic had changed from caravans and campervans to mining vehicles and road trains finishing their overnight runs.Mary Kathleen is an abandoned uranium mine which also used to have a township, now a ghost town. We detoured to have a look. The poor Camry sedan nearly got swallowed up by some of the holes in the unmaintained road. We got as close as we could and walked to get a closer view of the mine with some very strange looks from the steers and cows grazing. If only we’d known that it was recommended 4 wheel driving!

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We’ve taken the Matilda Way which also incorporates Australia’s Dinosaur trail. We didn’t stop to check out the dinosaur fossils but were told it’s a unique experience not found anywhere else in the world. Matilda Way goes through Winton onto Longreach. It’s named this after Banjo Paterson whose song Waltzing Matilda was first performed in 1895 at the North Gregory Hotel in Winton. There’s a statue of Banjo Paterson in his honour in town. Winton is quite an old and historic town and the birthplace of Qantas in 1920. The first meeting of the Qantas board was held at the Winton Club. There are a couple of eccentric tourist attractions such as Arno’s Wall which is a 2 metre high wall in which Arno has incorporated junk he has collected from the local tip. There is also a musical fence made up of strands of wire which you strike with a stick and rubber hose to make different “musical” sounds.

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It was a long day in the car but we arrived in Longreach where we were stopping for 3 nights. It felt like that now we were heading south, the magnetism of home was drawing us in and we were doing longer driving days.

On our first full day in Longreach we visited the Qantas Founders Museum. This is a not for profit museum and not owned by Qantas. However, the airline does assist the museum. They donated a 747 Jumbo jet at the end of its flying life to the museum. Qantas could have sold it for $5 million so not a bad donation. We did the air park tour which included details and walkthroughs of several planes. These included a DC3, a Super Constellation, a 707 and the 747. It was fascinating. To think it was just over 100 years since Qantas began with a mail run. The sheer harshness of traversing the outback underlined the need for an alternative way to travel hence the beginning of aviation in Australia. It was then onto the museum where we spent another 2 hours learning more of the Qantas history.

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We weren’t finished yet and headed back to the Qantas museum again the following day. This time it was a more thorough examination of the 747. We were allowed in the cargo hold, flight engineer deck, sat in the pilot seats and walked out on a wing. These wings can flex 4 metres up or down. If they were solid they’d snap in the air. We jumped up and down on the wing to emphasise this. We were told we made it move a metre! After absorbing all this knowledge, Ruthie reckons she could fly the plane now.

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Off on our next leg, we passed through Barcaldine. This town is steeped in history relating to the great shearer’s strike of the 1890s. It is one of two workers strikes in our history where workers took up arms. The other being the Eureka Stockade. This strike also led to the origin of the Australian Labour Party.

Passing through Blackall, we stopped at the black stump. We were really deep in outback Queensland now. Then it was Tambo which was the site of the first Qantas crash in their early days. Major Mitchell was the early explorer whose name seemed to feature a lot in this area. An interesting initiative along the Matilda Way was the trivia quiz to avoid fatigue. There would be a question board, 500 metres further a hint board and 500 metres further the answer. It certainly helped my alertness as Highway hypnotism can get to you on these straight roads. Well, it was working until someone had come along and spray painted all the answer boards. Doh! No phone service to google the answer either.

Our lodging for the night was the famous Hotel Corones in Charleville. The hotel dates back to 1929 and was owned by Harry Corones, a Greek immigrant. He was quite a colourful character and the hotel entertained many of the early aviators we learned about along the way. His hotel was the first caterer for Qantas. The Hotel had so many VIP guests over the years and the walls were adorned in historic photo’s. Charleville had never seen so much opulence back in 1929. The hotel was known as the Taj Mahal of the outback. That night we went to the Cosmos Centre and Observatory. The highlight was seeing Jupiter and it’s moons and the rings around Saturn through their magnifying telescopes in the clear outback sky.

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Another day and 7 hour drive and we arrived in Toowoomba. The town is described as the garden city where quaint country charm meets big city buzz. It is Queensland’s biggest inland city with a population of 122,444. There are some beautiful older and historic houses on big blocks but I noticed that most of them seem to have been turned into business premises. We walked the Queens Park Botanical Gardens as well as Laural Bank Park. As beautiful as they were, it would be stunning with the Spring flowering. The Picnic Point walk is stunning with views of Table Top mountain and the Lockyer Valley. It was hard to imagine the deadly torrent that flooded this beautiful valley and took lives in 2011.

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It was a deliberate decision to head east even though we knew we couldn’t drive through NSW because the entire state was considered a COVID red zone. Initially we were going to drive to the Queensland coast, put the car on a car carrier and fly home at our leisure. Suddenly that plan hit the fan, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast had Covid cases and became red zones. Toowoomba was still a green zone and that’s how it happened that we spent a week here. I organised a car carrier and we booked a flight home from Toowoomba. We realised all our ducks had to align for us to get home. The first duck nearly fell off the perch with the car carrier being 2 days late to pick up the car. On the flight home I was able to reflect on what a remarkable road trip we had. Nearly 10,000 kms of driving with the car doing another 1,800 kms on the back of a truck. The things we have seen and experienced on this trip will never leave us and most likely we will never get back to most of what we’ve seen. There may have been a lot of driving and distance in-between but it just served to give us a better appreciation of this country and it’s people. To those looking on you may think it not ideal in the Camry with our swag, tent and car fridge but we’ve done it, loved it and have some great memories.