Qld Outback Tour - Tyres, Hot Chocolate & a Museum

Robert O'Hara Burke's water bottle

Earliest start of the tour this morning, out the door at 7:15am, so I could investigate the state of the rear tyres of the Forester. Some months ago, we unfortunately wore through a rear set in less than twenty thousand kms when a problem with the camber of the wheels took its toll. Since then, I've had to redistribute the load in the van to take some of the downward weight on the ball and it appears to be working.

This was simply age related wear and tear. This time, the tyres have worn evenly and I was warned before heading out that I'd get about 2000kms more before I might need to change them. We ticked over the 2000km mark on the last leg to Cloncurry.

The new tyres will be transported in from Townsville overnight and should be right for fitting in the morning. As a doubter of "best laid plans", we've booked in for two more nights and have settled in. What else can you do? We are lucky to find such a quality tyre business this far out into the outback.

Later in the morning we went to the Cloncurry Bakery for a coffee and had a hot chocolate instead. No decaf. Its starting to become the norm. Still, it was good hot chocolate. The heavily armed policemen in the bakery seemed to like there's, as well.

We went for a walk around the CBD and took a few snaps and visited a very nice gallery, the David Harvey-Sutton Gallery which is part of the local council complex. Its not unusual for the council offices to be newer and more expansive than other buildings in town and no exception to that rule has been made in Cloncurry. The exhibition was disappointing but pointed to a good initiative, as artworks from year 10 students responding to a favourite image were on the walls. As part of the exercise, they curated their own exhibition. One or two showed some originality and promise and the rest ... well, they're having a go.

Nothing much until late in the afternoon when we decided to visit the Cloncurry Unearthed, the museum at the visitors centre, solely on the basis of a few relics of the Burke and Wills Exploratory transit of Australia.

Sue and I are really over local museums. So often, they are full of junk, badly organised, poorly labelled (if at all) and in need of a curator who can sort the wheat from the chaff. In most cases you spend your time stepping over five or six of the same things just because no one thinks it a good idea to reduce the clutter. This was different!

Our visit started with a really excellent 17 minute video presentation about Cloncurry that has been professionally produced. Then, into the museum where things were in lit cases, with clean labels and spread out. In the midst of it was a personal research desk with copies of local history available to read. Behind the desk, a large window which looks out over the landscape the artifacts have been telling you about. We answered all the question we had ... for instance, the mining town Mary Kathleen was named after the wife of one of the discoverers of the ore. There was an extensive collection of aboriginal artifacts, clearly labelled that the local Mitakoodi people had lent them to the museum. Lots of rocks and minerals but plenty of interesting stuff.

Click for today's photos

Robert O'Hara Burke's water bottle and the medal the Royal Geographic Society struck for his achievement and was handed through the family until coming to Cloncurry, are both there to see. The tree marker for camp 102 of the expedition is also on display. Pretty cool stuff.

By far the best regional museum I've ever see.

Better day today.