Big Day - over 500km

Today was another great day. With the help of a strong tailwind, I covered about 565km in a single flight. I had planned on stopping at Longreach, but was going so well, I thought keep going and instead stop there on the way back down. So I'm spending the night in Winton - the proud home of Australia's National Song: Waltzing Matilda. They even have a Waltzing Matilda Centre, complete with bronze statue of Banjo Patterson.

It was really interesting flying over this countryside. This area is where Qantas started up. Flying across the barren landscape (aka tiger country). I just cannot imagine what it would have been like for them flying over the same landscape all those years ago, but with no GPS, no maps, no air traffic control, not even any airports! It's quite remarkable when you think about it.

The motel owner was telling me how when he moved here, there were no trees at all in the town (I think he's been here for a long long time). It makes sense as there are not really any trees around as you get further from Blackall in this direction. Now there are quite a few established trees so it's hard to imagine what it would have been like. I can't imagine living somewhere with no trees.

I'm getting very close to Burketown. I've been looking at the maps today to try and work out if I can do the whole rest of the trip tomorrow. At this point, it is looking very unlikely. It would be a bigger day than today and I would need to get going very early, which will be a problem as there are no taxis in town and I'm relying on the motel owners to give me a lift back to the airport once they've done people's breakfasts. The afternoons up here are very hot and not very pleasant in the air so I'm avoiding them. Hot afternoons are best spent near a pool, I think!

The bit between Charleville and Longreach is very remote - I really admire those early pioneers who flew above this landscape.

Would not want to have to land around here.

Back to paddocks and scrub. Time for the in flight service



Winton has interesting wheelie bins. Wonder which one is recycling?



Part of a scuptural interpretation of Waltzing Matilda in town.