2022 - (Almost) Lap of QLD

Day 97: Sun 31  Jul -  Aramac to Barcaldine Towed 69km (total  8,260km towing of  10,129km driven this trip ). 10 to 24 deg.  A cloudy day with strong winds gusting to 40km/hr. With only a short distance to drive today, and feeling tired after the Lake Dunn Sculpture Trail yesterday, we took our time packing up and driving away from Aramac at 9:00am, arriving in Barcaldine within an hour. Being a Sunday most businesses were closed, in fact, it’s a very small town with five pubs within a short distance, but not many other businesses at all, but there were a lot caravans and campers parked in the Main Street; it’s obviously a main thoroughfare.  Check-in at our planned stay, the Barcaldine Tourist Park, is 12:00pm, so we found a spot in the main street and headed to the only cafe for a brew (and egg & bacon roll), then walked to the information centre and on to the Tree of Knowledge. We ended up c hecking into the caravan park early at 11:30am. Our alloca...

Day 96: Sat 30  Jul -  Aramac 6 (Felt like 1) to 24 deg.  Another fresh morning turned into a warm, clear sunny day. Strong wind in the morning settling later in the day, but for the first time in a long time - clouds appeared in the evening. We left the van at 8:30am to drive the 200km Lake Dunn Sculpture Trail loop comprising 67km of sealed and mostly single lane road to Lake Dunn, onto 65km dirt road along Balneety Road, then 77km along dirt road from Jericho to Aramac. The dirt road was corrugated in places, but mostly in reasonable condition. Stopping regularly to photograph the sculptures broke the monotony. The sculptures are all work of one person - Milynda Rogers who lived on a grazing property along the trail. It's one of the biggest, permanent, outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the world, with all pieces made from farm junk. Each piece takes her anywhere from a few hours to three months to make, depending on the size. The JT sculpture took about 10 months while ...