After a cold night, today started out quite windy for our 180KM drive on the Matilda Highway from Longreach to Winton. And Matilda is a clue to what is celebrated at our next destination.

Heading deeper into the Central Queensland outback brings with it even drier conditions. There is very little sign of greenery, the grass is blonde, the tree leaves a grey/olive colour and the soil red. Occasional patches of pale purple flowers line the roadside but even they soon disappear as the landscape opens out into just scrub. It’s a very barren place and any sign of a distant farmstead or windmill comes as a surprise. However, this is a busy road compared to many that we have driven on within the Queensland outback.

Road Trains

This is a major transport link to the East with more road trains than we have seen anywhere else on our trip to date. We were advised that the road trains would affect the stability of our caravan as they passed but even coming barreling straight towards us on the narrow sections of the highway hasn’t had any impact, which I have to say happily surprises us. Maybe our rig is either very stable or the anti-sway controls of the car and caravan work better than expected. In most cases where the road is narrow, drivers do the right thing and keep left as far as possible. It’s appreciated by us towing a large caravan and the truckies too.

A large section of the highway is being reconstructed at the moment but we were fortunate to be driving at the weekend when the only restrictions were a slightly reduced speed and a short 40-KMH section as we were diverted between lanes. The highway surface isn’t in the best condition right now and we suspect a combination of the heavy road trains and the effects of floods during the Wet.

Winton

Before long we could see the mesas just south of Winton appear on the horizon – a stark contrast to the expanses of flat scrub up until now and the appearance of signboards by the roadside indicate you are approaching an outback town. A couple of turns from the highway and we were at our latest site – Pelican Fuel Stop and Caravan Park. Pelican was the original name and town location but repeated floods led to the growing township being moved to higher ground and named Winton.

Winton is the birthplace of Qantas and the centre of Australia’s dinosaur discoveries, which we will be exploring further.

Waltzing Matilda

Waltzing Matilda is often described as the unofficial National Anthem of Australia, so much so it was played in error at the medal presentation ceremony during the Montreal Olympics in 1976. Written by bush poet Andrew Barton ’Banjo*’ Patterson, the song has become Synonymous with Australians wherever they travel. It’s a song described as ‘being able to bring a tear to any Australian away from home’.

Winton has had a much loved and celebrated Waltzing Matilda Centre since 1998 but in June 2015 an electrical fire destroyed the building. Local residents joined fire crews to try and save the building and as many of its artefacts and paintings as possible but little was left untouched. The Winton Shire Council contracted a team of Brisbane architects who set to work designing the unusual, contemporary, some say ugly, building, which opened in April 2018 at the staggering cost of $22-million. It’s a mix of concrete, Cor-Ten steel and what looks like mud-based render peppered with stones. It’s equally unusual inside too being spacious but very angular and more a case of design over function as anyone trying to find the doorways will discover.

Entry fees at the time of our visit were $30, which seemed a bit excessive but for some reason we must have appeared older than we are and were charged only the concession rate. Included with the admission fee is a self-guided tour with a headset, which plays audio descriptions as you move from exhibit to exhibit… if you’re lucky, it’s not very reliable and often plays the wrong audio in the wrong place.

Entering the main museum gallery and you’re confronted with a huge, curved floor to ceiling screen made of hundreds of perspex rods with light projected onto them. What this represents I have no idea. Every so often a video is projected on the screen along with thunder and a voiceover but it’s far from clear what the video image is meant to be.

Being the Waltzing Matilda Centre you would be forgiven for thinking that that is what this museum is all about but far from it. Just one small corner is reserved for the story about ‘Banjo’ Patterson’s song. I can only assume most of the exhibits were destroyed in the fire. What remains is a collection of artefacts from the period the song was written but there is a lack of descriptions. Instead ‘technology’ has been used to show a map of each exhibit and you’re supposed to click on the one you want to read about. Why? Only one person can read it at a time. Labels beside exhibits are far more readable, they’re cheap, they don’t go wrong and can be read by many at the same time. It’s technology for the sake of it.

Outside is a collection of old farm and industrial equipment, again mostly without any description. One area of interest that has clearly had some thought put in is a corrugated steel wall with mounted wool bale stencils. Every bale of wool was legally required to bear the name of its station of origin. 

Some personal collections are a little more interesting but just consigned to what feels like a shipping container. It’s a very odd, disjointed place.

There is one positive note, however, and that is the video presentation of Waltzing Matilda in the cinema. It explains the meaning and story behind the song in a creative way. Oh, and the Tuckerbox Cafe crafts a good coffee.

*Banjo, by the way, was the name of Andrew’s favourite horse.