Friendship Flight 2010: Morning Glory: Winton Wanderings

I found myself wandering the streets of Winton today, looking for interesting things to photograph. For a town that started off with no trees, I found an amazing variety of them, many with beautiful flowers. I’ve included photos of some of these below. There is one in particular I would love to find out what it is if anyone knows. It looks really nice and smells wonderful, especially in the evening.

Winton is not very large so my wandering didn’t last too long. One of the things I was looking forward to for the trip was spending a few afternoons reading a book. I had 4 books I wanted to read, so I posted 3 of them to myself in Burketown and brought the smallest one with me. It’s one my sister had recommended and is called ‘The Tall Man’ by Chloe Hopper. It is based in this general Nth QLD area and is about “the fatal collision between two 36 year old males, black Cameron Doomadgee and white Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley.” I started reading it yesterday and I’m sure it’s a great book, but let’s just say that the first two chapters wouldn’t exactly make you want to run out and spend 3-6 weeks out here, let alone as female by yourself . So it had to go to the bottom of the bag before it freaked me out completely. Sorry Michelle – I’ll read it when I get back.

So I had to get something else to read. There is a newsagent here so I thought I’d check it out. Choice was limited: Janet Evanovich or Justin Bieber’s unauthorised biography. I kid you not! You’d think the Bieber Biography would be the size of a pamphlet, but it was the bigger one of the two, so although I would have loved to find out more about my fellow Canadian (not), I had to go for Janet.

Forecast is still saying moderate winds for tomorrow morning. Apparently the Glory won’t come when there is a southerly, so I don’t think I’ll be missing out. Have book, can wait.

Some galahs flying at the airport this morning. Notice how flat and treeless the countryside is.

Trying out where best to put the new GoPro camera for the best view on the Glory. Bought this little camera especially for the trip and though I had lost it in Cobar. Thankfully found it going through the bags yesterday.

A part of "Arno's Wall", a local attraction. This man made a wall from rock from Opalton and a bunch of junk. Apparently council tried to stop him and after a number of years, gave up and made it a tourist attraction. They even built a park next to the wall: Arno's Park.