Blackall to Longreach

Monday, 7 October 2024

Oh my, we’re just having so much fun in Outback Queensland on a long weekend!! Over the last couple of months, we have checked and re-checked the websites of places that we planned to visit because so many of them included disclaimers about dates and hours being subject to change without notice. Last night we thought maybe we should just check on the opening hours for King’s Birthday Holiday at the Q.A.N.T.A.S Founders Museum at Longreach one more time. Aargh, sure enough the museum is now closing at 1.00pm rather than 3.00pm.

We discussed how to juggle our itinerary and decided that we would not have time to visit the Australian Workers Heritage Centre in Barcaldine (pron. Barr – Call – Din) if we wanted to have any chance of arriving in Longreach with time to visit the Q.A.N.T.A.S Founders Museum. C’est la vie. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are sometimes you just have to accept that public holidays will disrupt even the best laid plans.    

We headed off reasonably early again this morning, pulling out of the Oasis Motor Inn’s driveway a couple of minutes after 8.00am. We motored along the Matilda Way (Landsborough Highway) without incident arriving in Barcaldine just after 9.00am looking for the Tree of Knowledge. We decided that we would have time for a quick look at that and a leg stretch/toilet stop on our way through.

Once an actual tree, a beautiful ghost gum, the site was rebranded as the Tree of Knowledge Memorial in 2006 after the tree died after being poisoned. The trunk remains outside the Barcaldine Railway Station and its ‘canopy’ has been recreated with a wooden sculpture that hangs inside a massive framework. Apparently at night the illusion of the canopy over the Tree is even more impressive with coloured lights creating a striking impression of a leafy canopy.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to see it at nighttime, but it was still an interesting memorial even during the day. The memorial commemorates the gathering in 1891 of the striking shearers protesting the working conditions of the day which led to Barcaldine becoming the birthplace of the Labor movement in Australia.

As we drove into town we had spotted the quirky looking Comet Masonic Lodge. On three sides the lodge is plainly clad in corrugated iron with the front of the building featuring a rare and elaborate façade of horizontal timber cladding painted to mimic a classically styled masonry building. The 120-year-old, Queensland heritage-listed building received a facelift in 2020 to preserve the striking local landmark for years to come.

At Barcaldine we also saw a sign for the Tropic of Capricorn line of latitude. Although, back in the car with the Hema Australia Road & 4WD Touring Atlas on my lap, it seemed to clearly show the Tropic of Capricorn passing through Longreach … which is a little further north than Barcaldine. No matter, as of today we are officially in the Tropics!

Driving out of Barcaldine we spotted our first feral deer relaxing in the shade of a tree well away from the road. Initially we thought it was a kangaroo, but they don’t have Bambi-like spots on their backs. As we drove closer, we could see that it was not a native animal but an introduced species.

We were then talking about the fact that we had spotted all the feral species, pig, goat and deer, but had not seen any feral goats for 100s of kilometres. Wouldn’t you know it, we had barely uttered the words when, about 50km from Longreach, we were spotting feral goats again – inside and outside of the fence line! One thing we have not seen, despite many signs warning us to be on the lookout, is cattle.

As we were driving, the road was shadowing the electricity line for ages or maybe the line shadows the road?? Anyway, we could see that there were large nests on the pylons. We couldn’t see birds on or near the nests, so it was a bit of a mystery as to what species was nesting there. There were lots of kites circling around and a quick Google search now suggests that the nests appear to be consistent with what a kite would build. Not stating it as fact though!

On our journey this morning we caught up with a passed a 4×4 and caravan. As far as we could recall the ONLY caravan we have passed heading north. What we have been observing is an exodus of vans heading south presumably to get out of Dodge before the wet season arrives here in the north. We probably are travelling a little late in the season but so far, the weather has been dry and hot and … getting hotter with 39°C forecast for Longreach today and tomorrow. Gasp!

We arrived in Longreach just after 10.30am and made our way straight to the Q.A.N.T.A.S (for goodness sake, that’s how they write it, with the punctuation but if I have to write it again, I’m going with QANTAS!) Founders Museum. In awe of the Boeing 747 on display we made our way to the main entrance to find that all the guided tours for the day were sold out. What? Guided tours? Despite both Bernie and I looking at the website neither of us had clocked that guided tours are available. Oops. On the plus side they were VERY pricey, so we saved some $$ only being able to purchase self-guided tickets. The only thing we didn’t have access to was the lot where the big planes were parked and the spiel of an expert tour guide, but hey, you basically cannot hide a 747 … even if we could only view it from the wrong side of the fence!

We made our way around the museum learning all about the founders W Hudson Fysh, Paul McGinness and Fergus McMaster. Fysh and McGinness were the aeroplane guys who flew together with the Australian Flying Corps during WWI. McMaster was a Queensland grazier who provided the initial funds. We also leant about Arthur Baird (also spelled Beard on some interpretative boards?) who became the company’s engineer. The company was formed when paperwork was signed at the Gresham Hotel in Brisbane on the 16^th of November 1920. Initially based in Winton operations moved to Longreach in 1921.

Phew, two hours was enough time to get around the museum, view the Catalina behind the museum and venture out to the National Heritage Listed QANTAS Hangar. At 12.45pm there were still sandwiches at the McGinnis Restaurant, so we purchased sandwiches and scarfed them down before they had to chase us out at 1.00pm. In scorching heat we wandered back over to the Boeing 747 to take photographs over/through the fence before clambering into the vehicles to go looking for the Powerhouse and Historical Museum.

We received an email indicating that the Longreach Private Apartments would not be available to check-in until 5.00pm so we thought that we had better find something else touristy to do before seeing if we could check in a bit earlier … but not earlier than about 2.00pm. That seemed reasonable. We checked the website for the Powerhouse Museum which did not say anything about being closed on the King’s Birthday public holiday. We drove to 12 Swan Street and, you guessed it, the Powerhouse Museum was locked up tight! Groan! It seems they lockdown Longreach on a long weekend??!

Although we had the email confirming our booking for the Longreach Private Apartments we had no other information about actually accessing this accommodation BUT, Bernie said, the same people run the Longreach Tavern, let’s head there and see what we can find out. We arrived at the tavern and asked about accessing the apartments. The guy we were speaking to was from the bottle shop, so he knew what we were talking about but had to get someone else to help. Other guy duly arrived and reconfirmed our booking but said the apartments were still being cleaned – we would be in apartments number 1 and number 4 – and we would be sent a text message when the rooms were ready.

Well, it’s 39°C and nothing touristy is open I suppose we’ll have to have a drink in the tavern while we wait for our apartments? We were still on our first drinks when a lady arrived at the bar and started work. After she had been there a while I could hear the owner (manager?) asking her if she had sent the text messages to the apartment guests. Seemed that was a ‘no’ so he called out over the bar that our apartments were ready.

We drove around to Crane Street (all the streets here are named after birds) pulled into the driveway and someone was parked in the space allocated to apartment 1. We pulled into the spot for apartment 2. Hmmn, we went to try the door, and it was not unlocked as we had been told it would be. Grrrr! Fortunately, all was good for apartment 4 which Cathy and Steve had chosen. The occupant of apartment 1 had heard us trying his door so he came out to speak with us, assuring us that HE had an email telling him apartment 1 was his. Aaargh, it’s too hot for this shit! We tried apartment 2 and it was unlocked so we unpacked into that apartment, figuring that possession is 9/10^ths of the law before heading to the supermarket for some supplies.

Getting into the car, apartment 1 guy appeared outside Bernie’s window. He told us he had a phone number for the owner, so he had rung to say his code for the key safe did not work (even though he was already in his room!) The owner told him that he was supposed to be in apartment 3, but agreed if we were happy in apartment 2, we could both stay where we were, and he would contact the party yet to arrive to tell them they would be in apartment 3 rather than apartment 2. Sorted! What a stuff up though. Apartment 1 guy had booked through a third party whereas we had booked directly with the property. We think that may be the problems started with him getting some dodgy info from that booking agent?? Anyway, the a/c was cranked up, so we had somewhere cool to be for the rest of the afternoon, access to a washing machine to get some washing done after a week on the road AND have a bed for the night. Phew.

On our way to the Longreach Tavern for dinner we walked past the Birdcage Hotel advertising Battered Barra and Chips for $20. Let’s eat here said Steve. Some Googling established that the Birdcage has a better rating than the Tavern so OK, let’s eat here. On ordering Steve eschewed the barra and chips that had initially drawn us in and ordered the seafood linguine along with Bernie. Cathy and I opted for the gnocchi with a mushroom ragu to which we added bacon. Wow, our meals were out super quickly tonight. We were back to our apartments within the hour.