We awoke to another perfect day. No wonder they call this area “big sky” as all we could see was clear blue sky. The temperature continues to rise and is very pleasant. We have heard stories of how cold Sydney is and can now understand why the grey nomads travel north for the winter. We are not missing the cold weather and actually ran our air conditioning yesterday.
After our community breakfast, we headed towards the local BP station only to see a long queue for diesel. We decided to come back and headed to a local supermarket where we wanted to purchase coleslaw. When we stopped yesterday the owner indicated that coleslaw would be delivered tomorrow (today). Much to our surprise, he made the same statement today.
We headed back to the BP station and after a long wait, we refueled. We made one more stop in Winton to visit a museum, purchased some buns from the bakery and then headed out of town for the turn-off to Middleton.
Middleton is midway between Winton and Boulia on the Kennedy Development Road. We now understand that a development road comprises a one lane strip of sealed road where the only way to pass oncoming traffic is to head off to the side of the road.
The trip to Middleton was incident free and we probably only had to leave the road for a dozen or so vehicles coming in the opposite direction. The scenery was magnificent with the final view of the plain leading to Middleton leaving us almost speechless.
We arrived in Middleton (one hotel and a population of 6) without problems and then managed to bog the car in the process of parking the motorhome. Whilst turning through some soft dirt, the front wheels of the car decided to head in another direction and dug into the ground. This was easily solved by uncoupling the car and then parking both vehicles. “He” decided to take the car for a spin and found that everything appeared to be OK.
We had a late happy hour before heading to the hotel for a BBQ evening meal. During the happy hour it was mentioned that storms were forecast for central Queensland so we re-hitched the car just in case there was a need to move to firmer ground should we experience heavy rain.
It was agreed during happy hour that we would depart early the next day to ensure we have the best opportunity for the group to camp together at Boulia.
We finished dinner by 7:30pm and returned to the motorhome and were in bed by 8:15pm. It rained during the night.