Day 4 was another day of lots of driving. We got away from Charleville a bit later than we should have – but I let Michael sleep in a bit, knowing he was getting tired from the driving. We had some DVDs on iPads for the 2 younger girls to watch if they woke up early – and had earphones for them so they didn’t disturb anyone else. Bethany and I got up around 7am, but the others (including Hannah) slept longer, which I think they needed. I did a bit of grocery shopping in the main street of Charleville while Michael took the kids to a park. It was nice experience the relaxed shopping in the main street of an outback country town – I visited the IGA, the bakery and the butcher – and there wasn’t a shopping mall in sight. The others picked me up from the side of the main road, I loaded the groceries in the caravan fairly quickly, and then we were off, heading towards Blackall. It was the usual drill with schoolwork again once we were on the road. Lauren and Sam weren’t too happy about how much schoolwork I was asking them to do, but Michael and I both reminded them, it was best to get it done while we were just sitting in the car for long periods as we wouldn’t be doing as much once we were out and about sight-seeing. And they weren’t able to do much more than about an hour’s worth anyway, as we couldn’t acces their maths on the CD ROMS yet.

At Blackall we stopped at the monument to the “Black Stump” – early surveyors in the region used the stump to sit their equipment on to read the stars etc. The colloquial saying “beyond the black stump” seems to be traced back to the stump here at Blackall – everything west of Blackall was “beyond the black stump”. We also briefly stopped for a photo of the monument to Jackie Howe – the shearer who set the world record for hand sheep-shearing. In ? he sheared 325 sheep in 8 hrs ? mins.

Next stop was at a little village called Tambo which is an the Barcoo River and it has a lovely rest area and picnic spot near the river. We had lunch there and the kids rode their bikes and had a play.

Then it was back in the car for another hour’s drive to Barcaldine. I drove this stretch (the first time I drove during this trip – Michael wasn’t as confident of my driving with the caravan in tow – but since it was mainly such straight roads, and he relished the rest, he passed it over to me. I think it was about half an hour before he started to relax though – still, I’d rather he was on the cautious side than being too overly relaxed about the care needed when driving with a caravan.

At Barcaldine, we got out for about 20 mins to see the site of the first artesian bore which successfully drew water in western Qld. And just outside the train station is a memorial to the ‘Tree of Knowledge’ – a tree which marked the site of an historic gathering of discontented stockmen and pastoralists in ? – they were unhappy with wages and conditions – this gathering was the beginning of what became the union movement and ultimately the Labour Party. It was a very unique kind of memorial – the stump of the original tree was still in place, but surrounded by glass pavers in a way that you could see the roots underneath. Hanging over the tree, making a type of roof canopy, a whole lot of timber reeds, forming an interesting pattern.

Once again, back in the car, and this time headed west for the hour’s drive to Longreach. It was going to make it a late setup, but we really wanted to get there, so we could set up and stay there for 2 nights. We arrived about 6.15pm, Michael, Lauren and Sam set up while I drove the couple of blocks to get some pizza for dinner. This was dutifully demolished and then Hannah and Beth had quick showers and off to bed, followed not too long after by the rest of us.