Carnarvon Gorge, Emerald and Longreach

We journeyed onto Carnarvon Gorge where we took a 14km walk to see the Moss Gardens, Ward's Canyon and some great rock art. Although that seems to sum it up well, the walk was great and what we saw was really amazing.

We stopped in Emerald for the night and checked out its train station and, get this, the world's largest Van Gogh painting. It was really, really big (you can see Phil and Neil at the bottom of the picture) and has nothing at all to do with this town.

Longreach was one of those towns with so much to do. First stop was the Stockman's Hall of Fame which detailed the pioneering history of the Aussie outback. The best part was definetly the video of a man boxing a kangaroo!

We also took in the QANTAS Founders Museum where we got a tour of a Boeing 747. Now, I have been on a lot of planes heading from here to there and was kind of dubious about how good a plane tour could be, but it was really great. We got a detailed description of how things like the weather detectors worked and even got a quick tour of the cockpit! I learned, for instance, that a plane can run on a single engine and it keeps fuel in its wings.

We took a nice boat ride up the Thompson River one night and enjoyed whip tricks, fish, steak, a nice sunset and wine out of a can - how can you beat canned wine?