Longreach, still...............................

We will stay another night here at Longreach, because the camel races at Winton means that there is no room for us. However, Longreach is a nice place, so we will have a further look around and take some pics. Off to Hughendon on Sunday.
Helen will be on the air again, as she bought a new laptop today to replace her dead one. Good on you Helen!
More tomorrow.

Back again.  Went into Longreach to have a look around.  Pics tell the story better than I can.  This is a great western town, the gateway to the Australian Outback and steeped in history and folklore.  I like the place - nice people live here.

We found out that there was a (sheep) shearing championship in town at the Youth Centre, so we went down for a look.  It was great to see the shearers vying for position (best time to shear four sheep) with the female shearers giving the blokes a bit of a scare - well, some of the blokes.  I enjoyed the whole thing, as it has been a lifetime - literally - since I stood in a working shearing shed.  It evoked some great memories, like being covered in lanoline at the end of the day from carrying and stamping wool in the press.  The smell of lanoline was everywhere.  The great difference that I noticed was that the sheep had no nicks or cuts - at all - which is a bit different to a working shed.  One of my chores was "tar boy" to dab tar on the cuts on the sheep the shearers made when shearing.  Yuk!

And a video of some of the action:

Off to Hughendon tomorrow.  More from there.

Hoo roo.