The Outback by Train

The room gradually brightens from the light between the blinds and I become aware that we are moving. A turn of the knob and the outback passes by outside the window. For the past eight hours we have been gently rocked to sleep by the Spirit of the Outback, the train the runs from Brisbane to Longreach.

Hayman Island

We came to Hayman Island, in the Whitsundays, Central Queensland for a laid-back holiday. Not carrying dive gear around adds the diving to the laid-back experience. Carrying that approach to the extreme we check out our first dive site from above. A Coral Air Beaver seaplane service operates from near the Hayman Island Marina and we board it for a scenic flight over the turquoise waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

Hayman Island Dives

Our dive site is in one of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park’s protected areas and the effect below water is obvious. Staghorn corals stretch away like a colourful forest and schools of fusiliers, snappers and other fish cruise all around. Thousands of small blue, yellow and green fish amongst the corals vanish instantly if I make a sudden move, then just as suddenly reappear.

George the Queensland Grouper

“That’s George,” said the words on the dive slate. Mal our guide grins and points at the massive shape hanging under the hull. The fish has to be three metres long and we can only guess how heavy. We look back at the slate - 350kg! Mal had anticipated our thoughts.

George the Queensland groper, lives underneath the Fantasea Reef Sleep barge in the channel that runs like a river through the Hardy Reef system. The current is reasonably strong but we move closer, noting tiny yellow trevally hovering around George’s mouth and suckerfish or remoras underneath. No doubt they are quite safe as a fish that size would be looking for much bigger game.

Waltzing Matilda Centre

“Once a jolly swagman . . .” the words ring out around us, but no one looks like standing to attention. Maybe it’s not Australia’s national anthem. “. . . camped by a billabong . . .” the words continue around us.

The story comes to life at Winton’s Waltzing Matilda Centre, the only museum dedicated to a song. Just inside the foyer the scene is played out with the swagman, the squatter and the troopers on horseback around a billabong or waterhole.

Winton

Just off Winton's main street we find Arno’s Wall, a rock and concrete wall, handmade by an eccentric creator. The wall has the addition of motorcycles, washing machines and almost every household item you can think of - including a kitchen sink.

Once around the block and we’re next to the North Gregory Hotel under a sign, Royal Theatre.

Opals

We didn’t realise that Queensland had opals but on a trip out with longtime Winton tour guide Charlie Philpott we head across the red dirt into the remnants of the Gonnaway Range. The peaks are only 60m above the surrounding flat land. At a spot known as Old Tom’s opal mine there are heaps of rock and dirt.

Spa in the Outback

At Nardoo Station, our guide asks “Want a close look at a bore?” He stops beside a large curved pipe with a valve protruding from the ground. He turns the valve and with a roar, a jet of water gushes five metres out from the pipe.

“That’s hot water gushing out. It comes from the Great Artesian Basin, a huge reservoir that sits about 1000 metres below us. The water temperature is around 60degC, but no one’s quite sure how the water is heated up. It’s great for the spa though.”

Stars

The Cosmos Centre at Charleville is pretty impressive with an array of telescopes and a bunch of keen people ready to take us on a tour of space. We just need the sun to go down.

We fill in time with the impressive audio-visuals and over an hour get an understanding of ancient star-gazers, meteors and space rocks. The elaborate 3D models bring the stories to life and the Dreamtime legends of the local Bidjara Aboriginal people and their views on space.

Dinosaur stampede

The foot prints below us look almost fresh and could have been made by birds. They go every which way across the red slab of hardened clay. A much larger set of tracks runs through the middle of them. The big ones are deeply imprinted and obviously created by something huge.

The Age of Dinosaurs Museum

At Winton, my imagination gains a little insight into the dinosaur footprints at Lark Quarry. A model of the big dinosaur towers over the smaller ones it hunted . . . and us. Yet the size of that animal pales against the bones of another of Winton’s prehistoric populace.