15/8/2012
Isisford to Ilfracombe - before leaving Isisford we visited the museum with Isisfordia Duncani who was found in 1995 on a property near Isisford, he is about 1m long and is the fossilized remains of a 98 year old reptile believed to be the ancestor of today's crocodiles and America's alligators and another crocodile like creature in India .

Our tour started with a short film about the discovery, it's importance and how they dated the fossils then we visited the museum part that holds the replica of the fossil and a reconstructed model of the reptile, together with more interesting info, Bones and fossils.

The road from Isisford to Ilfracombe is sealed, a bit narrower but again not much traffic.

After settling into the Ilfracombe caravan park we did "the mile walk" which is a mile long museum along the edge of the highway with vintage tractors, wagons, water carts & steam engines used for making bores etc and even a dam and sluice digger, some of them dating back to the 1900's they are interspersed with heritage museums, set up in workers cottages, all free and interesting.

The bottle collection is well worth a look, it's not often you will see so may in one collection, this guy was an avid collector of many things and they are all on display, just driving past you may think it is a junk yard extraordinaire, but not so, it is mainly organized into categories and we saw things from our childhood and things we didn't know existed .

All this made us weary for an artesian spa, which is open in the afternoons, so for the princely sum of $2.50 we had a lovely soak and the services of the friendly lady in attendance to chat to and take photos of us.

On returning to the park just before 4pm, the Tonys decided to relax whilst Marg and Sue joined the camp site's tour of the teamsters cottage, one of the first homes in Ilfracombe, called Langenbaker house.

What made it fascinating is that hardly a stick of furniture has been moved since 1920 when Bernard died. He was the last of 11 children, he lived his life to care for his mother and when she died 30 years before him, he locked her room, and hardly touched any of her things, so you have a real slice of the life and times of these people, here in this cottage. The camp charged $3 for us seniors to have this fascinating guided tour.

Back at camp we were in time for happy hour with nibblys and entertainment put on by the caravan park - BYO drink. It is amazing how much talent there is here in the bush - Caroline a young lass entertained us with bush poetry, yarns and tales for about an hour in a very unique and amusing style.