It’s was no rush to get going this morning as we intended to have a cruisie day travelling about 200 kms, visiting the towns of Ilfracombe, Barcaldine and lastly Jericho.  We stayed the night at Jericho out at the Showground. The cost of the powered camp site was $15.00 and it is an honesty system. If you want to stay a week, the cost is $50. A lady came across when we arrived and I had got out of the car to check for a suitable place to park.  They had been there three weeks.  Her husband has been in both Alpha and Barcaldine hospitals and she can’t tow the van! This is not the first time her husband has been unwell during their caravaning trips. The last time she became stranded in Karratha when he was flown to Perth. “He is getting better” she said. “They should be able to get going again in a couple of weeks”. He was certainly having trouble getting around. Golly! This surely raises the question. How does a family deal with telling the ‘oldies’ “Your caravanning days are over”? The son went to Karratha gto get his Mum the last time and I presume it was from over East somewhere.  The couple live in Victoria.  There is no way this 'Princess' would be camped up at the Jericho Showground for weeks and weeks!  

We walked the ‘Mile of Machinery’ and I took a number of snaps. "As usual" Pete would say!  I counted the graders again and came up with the figure of 21. I counted in 2014 and blogged there was 19, but I must have found another two this time!  Maybe they've gained another two donations! There is a small caravan park in the town and we talked with a couple from the west who were staying there, when we were on the Kinnon & Co cruise the night before.  Maybe worth considering if we travel this area again.  The lady from the hotel organises line dancing in the afternoon during happy hour.  Ilfracombe was our morning tea stop.  The population of the little town is about 350 and since 2008 the local government office has been a regional office within the Shire of Longreach.  

We arrived in Barcaldine early enough to have a walk down the main street to the railway station, checking out the 'Tree of Knowledge' once again.  We told John and Dorothy how we had met up with Robert & Ronda Williamson here, together with Ben & Mena Burton.  It was a bit of scheming on my part to keep Peter in Barcaldine long enough to see the 'Spirit of the Outback' train come in.  It was a very deserted railway station on this Saturday.  

Barcaldine is known as the ‘Garden City of the West'. It is the largest town in the Barcaldine Region and is home to the ‘Tree of Knowledge’, the botanical name being Corymbia aparrerinja or Ghost Gum.  The tree that was growing beside the railway station is famous for being the reputed birthplace of the labour movement in Australia and its connection to the 1891 Shearer’s Strike.  Long before the Shearers Strike though, the tree played an important part in the fabric of the Barcaldine community.  It has always been a meeting place and in the very early years the Tree was known as the 'Hallelujah Tree', as it was where the Salvation Army held their services and band recitals.  This continued until the 1940's.  It has been used as a hitching post for animals carting goods to and from the railway line.

  

Legend has it that striking shearer’s held their meetings under the shade of the eucalypt. In 2006 the tree was poisoned by in unknown culprit. It’s hard to believe that when the tree died it’s remains were taken to Brisbane where it is said to have undergone the world’s first preservation process. It was returned to Barcaldine and placed under the award winning structure. Expense has not been spared for the acknowledgment of this tree and the famous shearer’s strike! The structure has 4,913 individual timbers of which 3,449 have been hung to give the illusion of a canopy over the tree. It is said “The tree now serves as an important place to meet and reflect, and remember those who fought for better working conditions.  In another pamphlet I have kept it is noted that in the year 2000 the 'Tree of Knowledge' was witness to a political demonstration of around 2,000 people from all over Western Queensland protesting against Council amalgamations.  Ever since 1900 when Barcaldine men enlisted for war, they have been farewelled from under the tree.  In 2014 it was a great place for us to meet up with friends. 

The Great Shearers Strike saw more than 1,000 men downing shears to march through the streets of Barcaldine demanding better conditions from graziers and the 'recognition of unionism'.  The strike lasted four months, before it ended with 12 of its leaders arrested and sentenced to three years hard labour to be served at St Helena Island Prison.  There is a Memorial near the Railway Station commemorating the 125th anniversary of the Great Shearers Strike and the 12 men that were imprisoned, have been recognised along the walkway.  There is also a sculpture of a shearer with his dog at the start of the Memorial.  The artist was Milynda Rogers.  The sculpture depicts a shearer pledging his allegiance in the fight for justice during the shearers strike.  The Eureka Flag was adopted by the shearers during the shearers strike and is a 'Flag of Stars'.  The sculpture is made from scrap metal, wire and tools that have been collected in and around the local area.  It took approximately three months to build.

  

The name ‘Barcaldine’ originates from the Oban area of Scotland and we visited Oban in 2003 when we toured Scotland with Tammy.   The first settler to the district was a descendant of the Campbells of Barcaldine Castle and he named his property ‘Barcaldine Downs’. Bit of trivia but the info attracted my attention because it was actually when we were in Oban in 2003, that we found out Fiona was pregnant with Lani.

Before stopping at the Bakery another of those bakery pies for lunch,  we completed our walk along the main street taking in the murals.  Dorothy and I went to investigate a structure that looked like a seat, that could become a bed and found it was a xylophone made from piping.  It was very well done and between us we put out a tune.  Good enough for a lady to come and investigate.  She said "It sounded very nice"!  

After lunch it was back to the vehicles and the Australian Workers Heritage Centre. We did visit the Centre in 2014 and I had decided I wouldn’t do it a second time. I could have even had a little nap, if I had done what I planned, but the guy at the Visitor Centre did a good job at promoting the Centre and said the Shearer’s Hall would have been new since we were there. Well we had seen the new Shearer’s Hall, but I don’t remember the Hall commemorating the contribution of Australians to health.  It was very good.  I also enjoyed sitting and listening to the audios in the 'One Teacher School' that just happened to have opened in Torrens Creek in 1891, the year of the Shearers Strike.  The new school house we were sitting in was built in 1913.  It was in amazing condition and the architecture for that period was also amazing. 

One of the other halls had many stories  acknowledging the 'Many Hats a Woman Wears', which interested me immensely.   The first display panel said the following; 'A Lot on her Hands'.  Some people identify themselves by what they do.  Our society traditionally defines a man by his trade or professional title 'Jeff the plumber - 'Andrew the engineer'.  But a woman's work can be many things at once - paid and unpaid, commercial and domestic, public and private.  So this exhibition is not about the working lives of a number of Australian women, it is also about the nature of work.  If you are what you do, how many things are you?

Having just been to the Quantas Museum and read the Tambo plane crash story of 1927, I enjoyed the ‘Tambo Teddy’ story and the initiative of the lady who had the courage in the first instance and then dedicated herself to the time that was needed for such a project. 

Mary Sutherland and her friends invented an industry - Tambo Teddies.  Tambo is an important wool producing area.  The idea of making teddies came to Mary in 1993.  it was value adding to wool, but they were also looking for something to trap the tourists passing through.  Something to make them spend a dollar in Tambo.  More than 20,000 teddies had been sold by 2002.  And little Prince George was gifted a 'Tambo Teddy' when he was born.  I got this from the web;  What a lucky pair of babies Prince George and Princess Charlotte are!  Prince George was given a Mr Stockman, Baneda Bob, last year by the Queensland Government on behalf of the people of Queensland. And this month when Princess Charlotte came on to the scene we decided she needed her very own Tambo Teddy!  So we posted off a Mrs Stockman Basil, named Shady Downs Charlotte, the perfect partner for the Prince’s bear. Can’t you just visualise this pair perched up on a shelf in the palace nursery ? Too beautiful – a little bit of Tambo totally at home in Kensington Palace.

The Australian Workers Heritage Centre is located in the grounds of the old Barcaldine State School and many of the original structures have been renovated for the exhibition space. A railway station and police station have been relocated from other locations in Queensland and the huge Bicentennial Tent has been placed within the two hectares of ground. Not that the display in this tent has improved since our last visit. The gardens are still lovely and the only direct descendant of the ‘Tree Of Knowledge’ the eucalypt known as the ‘Young-Un’ is still growing well in the grounds.  Endeavours are in place to keep the linage of the 'Young-Un' alive.  Grafts have been taken from it and trees are growing on the South Bank in Brisbane, the National Arboretum in Canberra and locally in Barcaldine.  Finally on the 'Tree of Knowledge' it is an Australian Heritage listed icon, due to its significant heritage value and the fundamental role it played in the development of Australia.

The four of us questioned the financial viability of the Centre. There are so many buildings to maintain and so much garden to look after and we were the only visitors on Saturday afternoon! The Centre would certainly not be financially supporting itself. 

Jericho is situated on the banks of the Jordan River, not that there was any water in it. Just a small pool at the camping area named Redbank. It looked a pretty nice area to camp for the night but it does not have showers and there is only a drop toilet. The Jordan River is south of Lake Galilee, hence the naming of the town which was settled when the railway line reached the banks of the river in 1885. Harry Jordan was a pioneer of the area and the river was named in his honour.  The name of 'Jericho' has in later years opened up the opportunity to promote the town with the story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho. A group of local artists and historians have created a structure that tells the story of how Joshua wins the battle of Jericho. The structure is called the ‘Crystal Trumpeters’ and is in the main street. The very small drive-in-theatre, in fact said to be the smallest still operating in Australia, is just across the road and it shows a movie once a month. Jericho also has a few murals around the town. Further down the street is a barbwire and metal sculpture, constructed by local artist Milynda Rogers. The sculpture is dressed in period costume playing a trumpet. Milynda also designed and constructed the Shearer’s Strike sculpture in Barcaldine. The trumpeter was looking a bit worse for wear though. He is going rusty and is full of cobwebs.

Golly we seem to have found lots to further our education today!   And then to record it, becomes quite an assignment!  But I am enjoying the challenge to bring it all together, even if it means 'Burning the Midnight Oil' most nights.