In the morning we went to a place called Al’s Luck in Rubyvale, where we fossicked for sapphires. It was at someone’s house, so it wasn’t as commercialised as the one yesterday. It was lots of fun fossicking for sapphires! We actually found a few! From there we went back to the caravan and hitched up. Back at the caravan park you can hold out a tiny bit of bread and heaps of Lorikeets come and land on you. It was a little bit scary because they fly really fast, but it was fun. Afterwards we drove to Canarvon National Park. We were lucky to be able to get in, because the roads had been closed for quite some time due to flooding. There were still some flooded bits that we had to drive through! By the time we got there and had set up it was late afternoon so we went over to the communal camp fire and cooked our dinner. It was very yummy! Sitting around the fire was very nice too, because it was cold and reached -2 degrees that night.
Tara

In the morning we walked around the town then went to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. There, we learnt that Australia provides 96% of the worlds opal! We also heard lots of stories about the early settlers in outback Queensland, and how tough it was. Sometimes they use a helicopter to drove cattle, but most of the time they just drove on horse back.

After that we went to the QANTAS (Queensland and Northern Territory Arial Services) museum.
Some men that were pilots in the first world war returned to Outback Queensland and realized that there was a future for aeroplanes in the outback, because of the long traveling distances and poor roads. They ended up starting up a company called QANTAS. At first their company nearly went bust a couple of times because people were too frightened to fly in the old planes. The company survived because the government got them to do a mail run by air. But eventually it became more and more successful and became the international airline we know today. We saw a video about one of the first female pilots. She said that when there was a scared passenger on board, she’d fly low so they could see the telegraph poles and things and they would be fine. But when she took them higher, which is safer, they would get really scared again. She also said that once there was a man on the phone to the manager that really needed to get some where on time, but there was no set flight, when she, the pilot, walked in the manager said to the man on the phone, “hold on the pilots just walked in, I’ll put her on.”
He handed her the phone And she said, “hello.”
There was silence, then he said,”by golly, it’s a woman!”
Woman pilots were very rare!

We then went back to the caravan and packed up, ready to leave early.
Tara

This would probably of been what an early settlers place would have looked like.

This is the female pilot.

Today we went to have a look at some dinosaur foot prints from a stampede that happened 95 million years ago. There were three sizes the biggest one was a big meat eating dinosaur foot print. They found out that the big dinosaur went down for a drink at the water near mud flats that used to be there. It then went away. then a lot of littler ones came down for a drink. They then ran away because the big one was coming but one didn’t make it away. The foot prints are covered over in a big special building to keep them well. Next we went to the Matilda center. First we watched a little light and sound show of the waltzing Matilda story. We also had a look at the museum that had lots of old things in it. We then drove to Longreach. When we got there we set up and had dinner.
Tess