Day 1a  (Day 1 for most of the crew!)

Hughenden - Winton

Since for the majority this was actually Day 1 the text will from now on refer to  today being Day 1)

The rest of the contingent arrived in Hughenden after some interesting flying from Cairns.  The weather was bad and most had some short term delays waiting for the clouds to clear through Stoney Creek.  After some rain dodging they emerged out behind Mareeba in less cloudy sky. 

The crew in Hughenden woke to 8/8ths blue sky but which gradually changed to 4/8ths high cloud by the time the first of the Saturday crowd arrived.  Once the last of the Cairns crowd arrived we refuelled and set off for Winton, just a short trip to the south west.

At Winton we were met by the President, Vice President and Secretary of the Pelican Waterhole Flying Club.  Those SMBers not already members were duly fleeced of  a few dollars and became members of the PWFC.   We were all then bundled into a fleet of cars and taken into town, with a brief detour of the "Musical Fence" at the old airstrip on the edge of town. The musical fence is just a multistrand galvanized wire fence with the wires strung at different tensions and a clever sound  transfer system to a sound box in the roof of a little open sided shed.  Striking the wires with sticks produces various notes in the wires. Apparently the local kids have been trained up to play "Waltzing Matilda" on the fence.

Back in town we did the obligatory trip to the Waltzing Matilda Centre which was undergoing some upgrades and as a result we couldn't see anything different to our last visit.

Arno's Wall, a concrete wall filled with junk continues to astound us. Mainly we are astounded that anyone could be interested enough to build it, or look at it!

The North Gregory pub served up their usual great dinner and the hospitalty was as great as we have come to expect. We can't recommend it highly enough.