Once again, we opened the blinds this morning and the campground was empty. That’s OK we only are moving onto the next town, Winton, 150 kilometres away.

 

The land was fairly flat with a lot of floodway up and downs.

 

We were 10 kilometres out from Winton when it was a total standstill due to clogging traffic but not what you think.

 

The area has been in drought for around 7 years and there was a large herd of cattle being driven along the stock route which is also the highway.

 

The cattle were just been gently moved along, eating the grass along the way.

 

It took about 15 minutes to get through the herd at walking pace. We were nearly through when the young steers mad a run and got around in front of us again.

 

Arriving into Winton, I tried the first 2 caravan parks and they had no vacancies unless we had a booking so it was off to the final one before we looked for free camps.

 

The Matilda Country Tourist Park didn’t take bookings so it was your place in line determined whether you had a site or not. We were lucky to get one of the last few sites.

 

Once set up, it was time to have a look around town (it is not that big) and the area.

 

First stop was the original landing field for Qantas although there is nothing there now apart from a musical fence and a commemorative rock.

 

Next it was down to the original location of Winton at Pelican Waterhole. Even though the site was up on high ground, apparently it flooded out so the town was moved to even higher ground.

 

It was then time to drive the “Route of the Gums”, a self drive tour through Bladensburg National Park. It used to be a cattle property but is now a National Park.

 

At the old homestead, there was a lot of information about the former life of the property. The drive took in  a number of waterholes and a couple of spots with some intriguing history.

 

The 1891 Shearer’s Strike Memorial was at the location of the Camp of 500 striking shearers which was the beginning of the foundation of the Australian Labour Party.

 

At Skull Hole back in 1888, 200 aboriginals were massacred in retaliation of the murder of a station cook.

Most of the camping areas in the Park were packed with free campers.

 

Our van was sited next to Banjo’s Barn in the caravan park so we had country music while we had dinner and then we went round to listen to a bush poet, Gregory North.

 

It was a good show with some modern twists on some of the classic bush poetry of Banjo Paterson.