Day 15 - Boulia to Winton via the Kennedy Developmental Road

Overnight (about 2am) i was awakened by the sound of plane engine and i lay awake waiting to see if it took off again. It did, some half hour or so later, and i wondered if it could be the RFDS as planes do not fly out here at night. I was told (by caretaker at campground) it would surely have been the Royal Flying Doctor Service and there must have been an emergency to have them fly in at that time

We were up early and headed off into the wild blue yonder for Winton a short 363 Kms - just down the road.
It is very flat country out here for the most part - but we do come through some "jump-up" country in the latter section at Lillyvale Hills.

On this leg of our journey we saw many wedge tail eagles on the road at the road kill sites. At one there was 4 - 5 eagles all together....a great sight to see them take off and only go about 6 metres off the road and wait for us to pass.
Have to be careful as the are slow taking off.

Our lunch stop was across from the historic Middleton Hotel (built in 1876) located about halfway from Boulia to Winton. Population of Middleton is 3.
This was the site of a Cobb & Co changing station until the service ceased in 1915.
The town has since disappeared giving Middleton Hotel the distinction of being one of the most isolated pubs in Qld.

We decided to head over to the pub to have a drink and check it out.
There we met an old character who had us bailed up on the front porch and was hell bent on telling us all of his family problems.....regardless of you want to hear it or not.
He was very wearing and did not leave us with a good experience of this place - despite the fact this is a pub in the middle of nowhere run by a very interesting guy (Lester the publican).....didn't get to talk to him though.

But the pig (family pet aptly named "piggie") was more interesting and he came across the road to see what we had for lunch. Ruth was reluctant to share her sandwich though.

Our next stop was Cawnpore Lookout & the Lillyvale Hills. This was a stunning outlook with panoramic views across a spectacular landscape of "jump-up" & Channel Country and Mitchell Grass downs as seen in the photos here:

We continued on across the Diamintina Causeway and into Winton - catching sight of a couple emus on the way in.

We chose our campsite and set off to explore the town. It was pretty quiet all around on this late Saturday afternoon - so after checking out the main drag we took and long walk to the other side of town to the "Musical Fence" - a wire fence designed by a percussionist/ composer that can be played as a musical instrument. It is the. First permanent musical fenc din the world. It has other percussion instruments made from all different kinds of tools, drums and many other varied implements made of metal - including for example hubcaps, garbage can lids, pipes.

We had now pretty much walked the length and breadth of Winton.

Today there was a very cool wind everywhere we stopped and tonight in Winton it was cold enough to get us into bed early.

Travelling the roads between towns out here you are primarily travelling through properties and so there is always cattle grids and cattle can often be crossing the road.
Today coming int Winton we started to move into some sheep country - and consequently we saw our first sheep on the road. Sad to say they we also saw a couple of baby lambs dead on the road.

I have to report that after 2 weeks - we are really in the rhythm of this life of travelling on the road and we are really enjoying it!!

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