The Queensland Outback

Sometimes you need to look quite hard for interesting. And when there's five people with different ages, interests and temperaments to consider, it can be hard work!

In the Queensland outback, I've found that sometimes I've had to try and convince the kids of the 'interestingness' of things. Like the WWII underground hospital at Mt Isa that I thought was great, Dylan ad Evie enjoyed but Lukas thought was average and Max just wanted to get out of. Or the little museum in Cloncurry where we saw Burke's drink bottle and learned about John Flynn on the $20 note. This historical significance really wasn't as interesting as the little playground next door that provided a much-needed reprieve from driving.

Or the promise of amazing dinosaurs at Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond, which had cool models on the outside but proved to be full of fossils of marine creatures that weren't that easily discernible as dinosaurs to a four year old.



I had to talk hard to convince the big boys of the significance of standing next to a 160 million year old fossil in pristine condition found just down the road from where we were standing.

They eventually agreed, but were disappointed when our own archaeological dig outside of town (in the hot sun using improvised tools) didn't magically turn up our own dinosaur.

But then sometimes interesting just finds you.

 Like the camper opposite us at the free camp at Julia Creek who provided the best entertainment of the day by walking around in rainbow-striped underpants and a giant white cowboy hat and serenaded us with the beautiful wafting sounds of the didgeridoo as we ate dinner.

Or Julia Creek in general, a tiny town with a population of 368, whose amazing visitor centre puts bigger towns to shame. We learned about the Julia Creek dunnart, endemic to the area, and watched it running around and eating. We also watched videos about the region and life in the area, so convincing that we all thought a cultural exchange to this town for a year would be great.

An overnight stop in Charters Towers erred on the generally un-interesting side as we walked around trying to find a funky cafe. Usually our radars are very good at picking the semi-trendy places in town with decent food and decent coffee (we found against the odds in Parkes, Katherine and Alice Springs) but not this time.

The nice buildings didn't rate on the interest radar for the kids, but at last we unearthed a gem or at least some gold, in the form of the mining cottage. Basically an old house filled with way too much hoarded second hand stuff (interest factor low) but where the dedicated old man running the place let the kids pan for gold - interest factor and fun factor high! We now have some gold flecks safely stowed in Suzy Q and new gold pans that will accompany us on the rest of the trip so we can stop at creeks to test out our new skills and make our fortune.

And that's our Queensland Outback experience. In a nutshell, interesting if you spend some time looking but expect some shrugs of 'yeah whatever mum' along the way.