Before breakfast, I went back into town in the Little Motley to fill the gas bottle.
We drove to Winton for lunch but couldn't find anywhere to eat so we set off again towards the west. There is a Travellers Rest at the western end of the town but it is only suitable for small vehicles so we pressed on.
I had thought that we would go to Mt Isa via Boulia rather than through Cloncurry as we had done last time. At the turn off to Boulia we found a turn out where we stopped for lunch.
The road to Boulia goes due west through the Mitchell Grass Downs. It crosses the some mountains, well hills actually, on the way and here the Mitchell Grass gives way to saltbush. The hills, though they are only small, are rugged and made from red rock. Dropping down to Middleton, one enters a ring of such hills called The Amphitheatre.
We stopped at Middleton just before dusk and visited the pub for happy hour. There was a group of caravanners from around Taree in the pub and the barmaid was a Dutch girl who is travelling round Australia with a Swedish fellow who actually knows the town of Jonkoping which I used to visit while working on the submarine project.
One of the caravanners was an ex dairy farmer who has given up because the unregulated market has driven the farm gate price of milk so low that most small dairy farmers cannot make a living and have left the industry. This of course has reduced the supply of milk and so the price is now rising but not soon enough for those who have left the industry. It remains to be seen if anyone wants to enter the industry on the back of the rising price. If no-one considers it worthwhile to make the considerable investment needed to start up a new dairy farm, then presumably we will have to import milk to satisfy the demand as it grows with the population. Our conversation seemed to me to lead to the conclusion that not only is our secondary industrial capacity being sold overseas, but also our primary industry. Eventually all Australians will be waiters or web-site designers - or perhaps that should be hairdressers and telephone sanitisers.