By the numbers
9.17kms walking
11,274 steps
1 museum
3 Mystery WIFI
I have found mystery WIFI in Winton, although there is several with a Telstra signal hitting Winton, but keeps dropping out so its somewhere close, but unsure the origin. There is one called Taipan that you can sign up for 2 hours for free or $4 for 24 hours and that is just as deadly as a snake. Then the one that is free, but called the Bush Telegraph or something similar that I think could be a council thing. It seems to connect automatically so could be lonely. They all happily appear in my list, but the ones with padlocks are not so friendly.
We had to checkout of the cabin in the caravan park and the bed was really nice and comfy except from my bed the mystery Telstra wifi is nowhere to be found. If I move to the table three steps away it picks up, but not if another device is connected. We are already packed by the time the park manager comes around and tells us to leave the key in the door when we leave, which we do. We consider where we are going to go and the answer is the Waltzing Matilda Place. It was about Banjo Patterson and his writing of Waltzing Matilda apparently while he was visiting a family in Winton. Before we went there I wanted to see the Winton sign just outside of town. I thought it best not to walk there as I know there are road trains in the area. The topic looks into the culture of the song as it spawns many versions of the song over the years for various reasons including for advertisement and is considered to be the unofficial national anthem. Also the whole culture behind the words as well with additional words that were taken out in other versions and their meaning within a multicultural society. The rest of the museum tells the history of Winton and I had read the reviews for the centre and people were upset over the local history as it doesn’t tell enough about Banjo.
Something no one has picked up on is that the centre was badly damaged by fire in 2015, which I didn’t realise had happened as there was a video in the theatre about the fire, so they would have lost quite a bit. I didn’t know there was a whole filming theme that went on in Winton with a few movies that had been made hence the film festival every June. One cowboy type movie was made by the singer Nick Cave. There is plenty of local history in the museum with many objects from vehicles that included an old bed that was made out of cow hide well before we had proper beds in some locations. There were several different types of iceboxes that were used to keep food fresh and many different types of electric shears for shearing sheep. I learnt that when people were in an iron lung they were in there for weeks so they were helped to breath when they had Polio. It was interesting browsing along with the many displays throughout the museum including a train carriage that was dedicated to those who served during World War 1. Once we ended up at the exit I found the reading room was mainly about the family history side of things.
By the time we had a bite to eat and a coffee, we headed over to our hotel in the pub and were able to get into our room. There was someone with a similar name and hope they don’t know who we are. The hotel has a lift and we got stuck part way up and had to hit the up button several times before the lift would go all the way up. We sorted everything out and I went for one of my wanders around town. I found Arno’s Wall as he was an eccentric artist who made a wall out of anything he could find from motorbikes to cash registers and sewing machines. It was interesting. I wandered to where the sunset Winton sign was and decided the one we took a pic of earlier in the day was better. I did find the Crack up Sisters, but that was not running today and I would miss the other shows as we are elsewhere. Nearby was the Willy Mar heritage site for an old Chinese vegetable and fruit market garden, where he was well known for selling produce to the locals. There was a father and son who later took Senior Willie Mar’s name so he was Junior. He ended up going out of business in 1954 I think it was due to either drought or flood.
I made my way back into the main street of town and had a look around. One of the hotels really was closed as it was shuttered. There were some street art works that I came across and various statues to do with Waltzing Matilda or the Swagman. I entered the hotel we are staying at and knew that the Bush poet I had seen the day before was playing. I thought he was finished, but he wasn’t and I ended up getting a book. He signed both copies, which was nice of him. Then we faced the dreaded line to order out food and the line was long enough, but wait we did and the food ordered. I have to say the size of the meals are incredible especially when I cant pick up a plate one handed. After we had eaten, we went to try the artesian pool that was warm water from the artesian basin bought up by a bore. We had sorted out accommodation for our trip back home, so that’s at least something done as we now have the route. Tomorrow we visit the Age of the Dinosaurs that is nearby. It looks like it is on a pretty big site when looking at the map.
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