Day 25: Tues 5 Jan: Tambo to Longreach 383 km

We were woken at 5.30am by the big family who had arrived late in the afternoon. Their three kids were literally running around the park screaming. It took all our self control not to yell at them to shut the hell up!  By 6.30am we'd had enough so Laura staggered off to have a shower and Steve tried to sleep. 

The boys were yelling and shouting and peeing openly around the campground. The unisex toilet that we were all sharing, because the amenities were flooded, were absolutely filthy where the boys had thrown towels on the floor and trampled dirt all over them. There was mud and grass all over the shower and basin and urine all over the floor. Absolutely feral!

Laura did her best to clean it up a bit and then walked back trying not to stare at the boys who were now hitting each other while the parents did zilch. 

Thankfully it wasn't long before they packed their bizarre "house" back into the trailer and left, although we did have a moment of panic when their car refused to start!  Fortunately, they did get it going and drove out with the kids still screaming on the back. Phew!

We had beanie weenies for brekky and hit the road about 9.30am after checking the forecast and also that the road was open after the flooding yesterday. It was still only 23 degrees but at least it was sunny with just a few clouds. The whole area does still need the rain, but not all at once, as it just washes the top soil away and damages the roads when it floods. They need lots of slow steady rain to really break the drought. 

We stopped at Blackall to see the original Black Stump which we discovered was used to mount the surveying equipment which accurately mapped the entire colony of Queensland. The puppies enjoyed it too!

A bit further along, we stopped for a look around in Barcaldine and the Tree of Life where the Labor Party was formed, easily lov stable opposite the 5 pubs: The Commercial, Shakespeare, Artesian, Railway and Union Hotels!

In the 79kms between Barcaldine and Ilfracombe, the roadside was absolutely littered with roadkill. Yes, we've seen plenty of roadkill on all of our trips, but this was something else entirely. It was like some awful holocaust scene with bodies piled over one another in various stages of decay. We estimated that there were between 5 and 10 dead Roos for every metre so that would make it over half a million dead animals just in that one stretch of road. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it and hope we never do again. Perhaps the poor critters were starving and came to the road in their thousands to nibble on the few blades of grass there. Awful. 

Not long after, we pulled into Longreach, the home of the Stockmans Hall of Fame and the Qantas Founders Museum. 

It was now 31 degrees but we found a good shady spot to camp and then went for a stroll. 

We sat in the shady garden for a while with a beer, reflecting on our latest amazing experience and thinking about the next one... Maybe Kakadu, Litchfield, maybe some shorter trips to the Burdekin  Falls Dam?

Dinner listening to thousands of frogs then bed :)