Winton’s Musical Fence

The morning we left Winton we had a quick look at the Musical Fence.  I’m so glad we did. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  I was picturing something like this (which ran around the outside of the area), where you could run a stick along it and make music on a fence.  But that by itself didn’t sound too special, you can do that with nearly any fence. I’d heard you could play music on the fence.  That’s what this area was, complete with sheet music! It couldn’t be any other song, could it?  Winton is home to the Waltzing Matilda Centre which we had planned to visit.  Unfortunately the centre was damaged by fire just a few months prior and won’t be open again until sometime next year at the earliest. As for the fence, there were some markings on the fence and you were supposed to be able to play the song on it.  I didn’t have much luck with making anything that sounded like a tune. But there was other music to be made!  Check out the ‘bush drum kit’. A few other things around, but the drum kit seemed to be everyone’s favourite. Nearby was a cairn marking the original Qantas landing ground.  Lots of history in this area!  When we visited the Qantas museum in Longreach we learned that Qantas was originally started in Winton, the first board meeting was held here.  The headquarters were soon moved to Longreach. We made this stop on the morning we were leaving, and I forgot until it was too late that there was one other stop I wanted to make: Arno’s Wall.  It’s a tall concrete wall with all sorts of junk cemented into it: sewing machines, hubcaps, even the kitchen sink.  Would have been great fun for the kids to look at…maybe next time!