{"id":552,"date":"2017-08-13T16:14:48","date_gmt":"2017-08-13T06:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/?p=552"},"modified":"2019-04-02T23:46:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T12:46:12","slug":"charleville-to-quilpie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/charleville-to-quilpie\/","title":{"rendered":"Charleville to Quilpie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next stop Quilpie – along the Diamantina Developmental Road (Australia\u2019s longest road which runs from Charleville to Mt Isa – approx 1350kms\/850 miles – according to a sign we passed). It\u2019s odd how something as \u2019simple\u2019 as a black bitumen road can change one\u2019s perception of the dry red land through which it passes. It is but a tiny black man made ribbon in a seemingly never ending & ancient landscape, but somehow the road becomes the dominant feature. This perception was reinforced when the colour of the road changed to a reddish\/beige more like the country it was taking us though. It felt more natural, not as natuaral as an unfenced dirt road of course, but still with the smoother, quieter benefit of no corrugations. We think that we like to have the choice, but that often taking \u2018the dirt\u2019 is our preference.<\/p>\n

Quilpie appeared very clean & tidy, with green grass & sheet metal sihouettes of cattle down the centre divide of the main street giving a hint as to what is important to this rail town, but arriving after the shops shut at midday on a Saturday, combined with the fact that most of the town\u2019s population were 80kms away for the annual \u2018knees up\u2019 at Toompine, at the polocrosse finals, the town was deserted, bar the motley collection of grey nomads scattered along, what we thought fairly uninviting banks of the Bulloo River. Little shade, low water levels & very steep banks resulted in our decision to pay to stay somewhere for just the second time since leaving home. At $15 per night for two, on the banks of a lake, under shady trees & with hot showers available at the station\u2019s main compound, it wasn\u2019t a hard decision. Sitting eating breakfast this morning we watched cattle & sheep join Emus, Brolgas & Ibis at the water\u2019s edge to drink. Pelicans glided past whilst Little Friarbids called insistently from the branches of our shade trees & the impressively luminous colours of Red Backed parrots added brief moments of excitement. The usual Apostle Birds remind us of a crowd of the grumpy old men from the Muppet show. We\u2019ll be here for a couple of days & then on to Windorah.<\/p>\n

Sheep in Quilpie’s main street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Cattle in Quilpie’s main street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
T’was washing day at The Lake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Drinking at The Lake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Water levels are down so jet skis have been banned. What a shame. \ud83d\ude09<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next stop Quilpie – along the Diamantina Developmental Road (Australia\u2019s longest road which runs from Charleville to Mt Isa – approx 1350kms\/850 miles – according to a sign we passed). It\u2019s odd how something as \u2019simple\u2019 as a black bitumen road can change one\u2019s perception of the dry red land through which it passes. It … Continue reading Charleville to Quilpie<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-queensland-channel-country","tag-australian-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8PHoJ-8U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cuppa500.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}