Road trip to Outback Queensland

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Mattg said:
Yesterday I had a look around Emerald, which was a nice, friendly town, although there didn't seem to be a lot for tourists in the town itself. Other than the botanical gardens, the main attraction seemed to be the "Big Easel".

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It turns out that @craven morehead lives in a nearby town, and he joined me for a very pleasant lunch.

Finally, yesterday evening I flew back to Brisbane with QantasLink.

The Qantas Regional Lounge in Emerald was open. It wasn't that big, but there was enough space for the 5 or so people using it. There was a selection of soft drinks, tea/coffee, beer & wine available, and snacks such as cheese & crackers. If you wanted anything, you just had to ask the attendant and she would get it for you - I assume that's a covid thing to stop people rummaging through the food etc. There was a small outdoor seating area attached to the lounge as well, which overlooks the apron.

The inbound flight was early an we started boarding really early, around 45 minutes before the scheduled departure time. We then ended up leaving 25 minutes early, which I think is a first for me! This was about 5 minutes after the last passenger checked in - it's amazing what's possible at a small but efficient regional airport!

The sun was setting as we took off from Emerald on the Dash 8, and we got some nice views.

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This was a standard, pleasant QantasLink flight. Everyone got a bag of crackers & water, and that was it. Pretty much identical to what I got on my last QantasLink flight two months ago.

That's all for my contribution to this trip report. Hope you enjoyed reading, and I would definitely recommend visiting outback Queensland if/when you can!
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Was great to catch up and chat over lunch @Mattg. I can only imagine anyone eavesdropping wouldn't of had a clue what we were talking about 😁 I have now in the last 3-4 months been fortunate enough to meet 2 real AFFer's in person. The other being @Cessna 180 🛩 It has only confirmed that in my 12 year learning journey on this wonderful forum we are indeed a different breed.
 
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craven morehead said:
Was great to catch up and chat over lunch @Mattg. I can only imagine anyone eavesdropping wouldn't of had a clue what we were talking about 😁 I have now in the last 3-4 months been fortunate enough to meet 2 real AFFer's in person. The other being @Cessna 180 🛩 It has only confirmed that in my 12 year learning journey on this wonderful forum we are indeed a different breed.
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Good report Matt and Sam.
It is good to see some folks appreciating the outback. I have been fortunate enough to see a lot, but there is always more. I see a lot of it from the air, but find I really enjoy driving along and being able to just pull up in any town as you have done. Charleville is one I really want to get too at some point. I have been to the airport for fuel, but not in to town.

I think a lot of Australians are so keen on getting over seas and often do not realise what we have right outside our backyards.

Craven, it was indeed good to catch up with you as well. Emerald is a good spot and that is even now becoming difficult for me to visit given the latest restrictions.
Hope things are well with you.
 
Cessna 180 said:
Good report Matt and Sam.
It is good to see some folks appreciating the outback. I have been fortunate enough to see a lot, but there is always more. I see a lot of it from the air, but find I really enjoy driving along and being able to just pull up in any town as you have done. Charleville is one I really want to get too at some point. I have been to the airport for fuel, but not in to town.

I think a lot of Australians are so keen on getting over seas and often do not realise what we have right outside our backyards.

Craven, it was indeed good to catch up with you as well. Emerald is a good spot and that is even now becoming difficult for me to visit given the latest restrictions.
Hope things are well with you.
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All good out here thanks @Cessna 180. I figured you may have trouble getting back out here any time soon given the current situation. Definitely agree with your comments above. The outback is awesome. Give me a shout if you find yourself an "essential worker" under the new tougher guidelines and head back up.
 
Thanks for the trip report gents. We are doing our own "Outback Odyssey" (in lieu of Canada/Alaska!) in a few weeks visiting Roma, Emerald, Longreach, Winton and then further north, so your experiences have been most interesting.
 
Thanks for your great trip report. We too are on an outback Queensland road trip. We were in Roma the same time as you but we headed up to Carnarvon Gorge to stay and hike for 3 days. We are now In Barcaldine and heading to Longreach today. We have booked some tours and wondered about the luminescence, so now have just booked it for tomorrow night. Thanks for the recommendation. We are in our caravan so I guess grey nomads, there are certainly lots of them out here! We will probably then head north to Winton.
Thanks again I enjoyed reading your report And seeing a lot of familiar sights. If people are visiting Roma it’s worth visiting the Roma saleyards a very interesting information centre and you can view the cattle sales and happenings on Tuesdays and Thursday. Roma saleyards is the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere.
 
samh004 said:
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I want to finish with a post about my car. I imagine many people think that to explore the outback you need a 4WD and a campervan like all the grey nomads you'll meet out there. However, I want to dispel that myth.

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The car I drove into the outback is a Suzuki Vitara, it has a 1.4L-turbo engine and most importantly, is a 2WD. The only thing I made sure I had was plenty of extra bottles of water everyday, and a jerrycan with emergency fuel in it. My range is usually 650-750KM per tank and the jerrycan covers about 25% of the tank with 10L.

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That’s parked in Winton in front of the North Gregory Hotel!
Cool! If one still says that.
 
Great report, only just discovered this. My highly recommended visit would be the Outback Film Festival in Winton, held in winter every year (except 2020 of course). A quite remarkable juxtaposition of outback location and cinema glitterati (?), it grew out of the open air theatre next to the North Gregory, and the extensive use of locations around Winton as film settings. Has become very popular and you need to book accom way in advance - Winton is virtually booked out for this year.


drron said:
A lot of work has been done on the roads as the unsealed roads we drove on 20+ years ago are now mainly sealed.
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20+ years ago everyone drove Holdens and Falcons down those unsealed roads, because noone told us then you needed a 4WD.

cheers skip
 
I went on a day trip to Charleville today on the final QF flight so I thought I'll post some photos here rather than start a new thread...
samh004 said:
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Rome lays claim to a lot of bottle trees, they're scattered all over town. This is the biggest in the town itself, but we felt we saw bigger ones as we travelled further West.

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Charleville has the oldest tree:IMG_20211231_130211152_HDR.jpg


samh004 said:
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An aptly named hotel to stay at. There is a lot of history behind this old place, they operated the first catering for Qantas, among other things, such as hosting famous people like Gough Whitlam.
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Spot the typo - and it's on all doors!IMG_20211231_170904532_HDR.jpg
 
AIRwin said:
I went on a day trip to Charleville today on the final QF flight so I thought I'll post some photos here rather than start a new thread...
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I thought the flight immediately returned? Was there a second or did you come back on REX/take the train? I considered joining you on the flight last minute as there were still reward seats available.
 
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