The Australian Workers Heritage Centre, Barcaldine (Barcy)

We enjoyed a slow start this morning. Roy arrived at about 9.30 a.m. and spent a good hour or so fiddling under the van. The leak, of course, was trickier to fix than it should have been. He was riding a bicycle, so didn’t have his full toolbox, but he had brought a couple of tools with him. We are, of course, incredibly grateful for his kindness. He said to ‘pass it forward’ and help someone else along the way.

After he left I did some handwashing of our clothes. There was a stiff breeze all morning, but it dropped in the afternoon and most of the things were dry, but a couple of items were still slightly damp when we got back. Stephen put tie downs on our awning which will help in the morning if it is windy.

It was lunchtime by the time we were ready to leave, so we went to the Union Hotel for a meal. The restaurant is called the ‘Witches Kitchen’, but their roast chicken lunch was quite down to earth, good, and cheap.

We talked with the young waitress who is a local girl and went to school with Roy’s daughter. We told her about Roy helping us, and that we thought he was a lovely man. We hope this gets back to him and in this small town it is quite possible that it will.

Then we walked to the Australian Workers Heritage Centre, taking in the little clock tower and tourist information centre.

The story of the shearers’ strike is the subject of one of our Working Voices songs:

The Ballad of 1891

Clicking on the title will take you to the page where the words, music, and sung version are available.

Some of the union members were involved in setting up the Labor Party in Australia.

Tomorrow we continue our journey down to Warwick, and plan to stay overnight in a free camping spot near Tembo. Tembo has something very special to offer, more in the next blog entry.