Sunday morning two weeks ago I arrived in Longreach. I stopped at visitor centre and asked for some informations. When I had walk along the main street everything was closed except one coffee shop where you still could get some breakfast. Hence, I headed over to the railway station. Longreach is nowadays the final destination of the train “Spirit of the Outback”, which arrives directly from Brisbane twice a week. Also the “Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Service” relocated it’s headquarters from Winton, where it was founded in 1920, to Longreach a year later. Hence it’s the third oldest airline in the wolrd, which is still in operation. There’s a dedicated (rather expensive – 30$) museum with some of its former planes, including the first 747-200 Jumbo Jet from QANTAS. I headed off and a few kilometre east of town I passed the solar farm in Camden park. I briefly stopped and had a closer look, as this solar farm is not connected to the man grid, as the electricity supply of Longreach isn’t at all.
In Barcaldine I had my lunch at a visitor centre, before I headed to the tree of wisdom directly infront of the railway station. This tree was much taller with a large canopy and the shearer used to meet here in the shade during their strike against the squatter. In the end the government sent the military to suppress the strike. It was only the second time in history, that this happened against White Australians. In essence from this movement the Australian Labour Party was formed. On that Sunday afternoon only one pub and the fuel station was open, the rest of the town was closed and it was quite quiet. Next to the gas fired combined power plant a new solar farm was constructed a bit east of town. Unfortunately, it was fenced off a bit, so you only could spot it from a few metres distance.
Jericho is a very small town, and the only shop in town was closed, and there was only one bloke in the pub. Nevertheless, they had a nice campground near the creek with a free outdoor shower, but a lot of mossies around. Hence, I decided to head off and went to Alpha. In order to get to Alpha, I needed to pass Beta. The Alpha town is a main centre for collecting cattle and deporting them on the railway. When I walked through the empty town I met the former butcher by accident. He told me that he had to close down his business, as there was no longer enough demand. I also told me that the best sheep come from the region around Blackall. As I already discovered earlier (but actually I didn’t realise back in that time, that I would drive through), Alpha is also in the centre of the Galilee basin, where all the new coal mines are supposed to open in the future.
