Day 10-12. 14th, 15th 16th May – Longreach. Flights of fancy.

Long drive to Longreach – 5:30 hours but with the weather now clear and the roads in ok nick, it made for a more pleasant trip.

Longreach is a bigger town and is famous for the QANTAS founders museum. For those playing along from home overseas, you may not know that QANTAS actually stands for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service. It all started up around this area, and the museum has a 747 sitting in an open Hangar along with some other planes. It really sticks out in droving country, and it probably says something that there is more shade here for a defunct plane than the cattle. Having sat in many a 747 for numerous hours with recirculating air and microwaved food, I felt no need to go and revisit it again on the ground.

We also declined the wing walk after we realised even though you had to wear harness, the plane doesn’t actually take off. While some of the gloss from Qantas has been rubbing off lately, it is good to see where it came from and reminisce about the glory days of customer service and wearing a suit to go on a flight.

With a three night stop it allows some time to slow down, do some washing of clothes and the car and do some casual sight seeing with some down time. The weather has now picked up to 30 degree days, and while that is what we have come for, it has taken us a little by surprise and we hadn’t prepared for our little stash of treat chocolates became liquid.

Facilities – Mixture of combined shower and toilet, and some separate toilets in a large quite new building. No shower screen and plenty of room to move – rain shower head lacked a little pressure but nice to shower in: 8/10