Day 33, Wednesday 3rd September – Charters Towers to Barcaldine

As I got into Charters Towers last night I had noticed quite a few cattle trucks in town, and a busy saleyards on the edge of town. And so I googled up and found you could visit the saleyard on sales days.

So I put on my RM Williams t-shirt 😁 and set off.

Checked in about checking in and was told no check in required, unless I wanted to put my hand up and buy something😁.

Was given the lay of the land and let loose to watch and figure out what was going on. 2,800 head on offer today, but if I was around Friday’s sale would top 5,000 head

This heifer was noted as lame since it seemed to be missing a rib

Fella with bucket of pink paint and pool scoop handle taped to a brush was in charge of marking which cattle in which line were sold as a lot by slapping said paint on shoulder or loin.

Each pen/line of cattle had a chalkboard with Selling Agent at the top, selling Station in the middle and the number , sex and other details on bottom left

Bottom right has the sale price and buyer.

Even got to learn some slang.😁 The cattle below looked dirty, that was because they’d “been on the lick”aka molasses and would have benefitted from a wash “They’ll get marked down” old mate warned

After an hour or so I decided to make tracks, I had 500 kms to cover today. But not before checking the noticeboard.

As the train came past. Panicked and then realised I didn’t need the rally/scavenger hunt flag in either photo😁

This sign at the pumps doesn’t give you warm and fuzzy feelings,

But this one on the locked door had me cold, since today is the 3rd..

Might explain why so few customers (and I would find out later that unannounced closures are a regular occurrence here)

Some quick math had me making the decision to BACKTRACK 50 kms to get fuel, therefore adding 100 kms to the days total. The leg from the closed servo to Aramac was 270 kms, and I was already 170 odd kms into my 250 km range. My spare 4 litres wouldn’t cut it, so I broke out the fuel bladder that I’ve been carrying unused since Melbourne, which means it can come on the next trip👍

I should mention here that by the time I got back to Torrens Creek I had seen the SAME Highway Patrol car FIVE times, so I was pretty smug having an attached mudguard AND a top speed of 90 kph (which explains 2 of the 5 times 😁)

In researching the Torrens Creek to Aramac road I’d found a report that says there’s 35 km of “good” dirt at the northern end, but that the southern section was “good two lane bitumen”. That report is WRONG. There’s not 1 inch of dirt on the 270 kms , and there is 50 or 60 kms at the southern end that is barely 1 lane wide in places. You’re welcome…

The highlight of this 270kms was scoring the shade of the 1 tree at the rest area before these guys turned up.

3 of 1000 units of a pre-fab building en-route from Melbourne to Cairns

None of the stopped silhouettes seemed anywhere near as cool as the moving ones…

Stopped for fuel in Aramac. Could barely contain a straight face when the response to my “What should I expect between here and Barcaldine?” question was a “Don’t know” before the fella grabbed a map and proudly told me it “should be sealed”. Barcaldine is the next town down the road, 65 kms, 🤦

Staying at the Shakespeare Hotel, might be worthy of a wildcard bonus?