AND EACH TOWN LOOKS THE SAME TO ME, THE MOVIES AND THE FACTORIES…

AND EACH TOWN LOOKS THE SAME TO ME, THE MOVIES AND THE FACTORIES…

By now, we had Longreach in our sights.  Lesley lived there for a year or so about 60 years ago.  Her dad, Bill Fraser, was the Commonwealth Bank manager there, back in the day when Regional Bank Manager was both a real job and a big deal. So, she was indeed, homeward bound.

But, as has become the norm, we detoured – to Roberta and Peter Donelly’s property, Dunraven, outside Barcaldine.  Connections never end in the bush.  Roberta is Roger Lewis’s cousin (it doesn’t matter who he is or if you’ve heard of him before in our travels; just that there’s a connection).  Even more connected, Lesley and Roberta vaguely recognised/remembered each other from school as Roberta was a year or two behind the girl wonder at St Margaret’s!

The end of the day at Dunraven, ATGANI in the background

As well as farming fine Santa Gertrudis cattle and running thousands of Merinos, they conduct Tag-Along-Tours.  As it says on the tin, you jump in your 4WD, turn on your UHF and tag along behind whilst they tell you about the property on the radio, show you some of the sights and involve you in whatever is actually being done that day.  Not for us, of course – as ridiculously preferred customers, we jumped into Roberta’s 4WD late afternoon, saw everything hoi-polloi see plus oodles more, took in a glorious sunset at the front gate (yep, with drinks), then parked our van at the homestead, slept like logs and started again in the morning to see son Paul drafting cattle and then coffee and…so it goes.  Privileged doesn’t begin to describe.

Baled up by the geese the next morning

Three little insights: stocking levels for both sheep and cattle are back to just over 50% of capacity after the big drought – levels at the height (bottom?) of the drought were under 10% and wild dogs were taking out any lambs that dropped.  It’s the best part of three years now with two fantastic seasons, so still a long way to go.

Second insight:  exclusion fencing to keep out the wild dogs costs around $8K a kilometre installed.  They’ve now fenced more than half the property, extending to around 40km, doing it themselves, because the contract cost was simply too much – on the other hand, the wild dog menace was also simply too much.  The view is that dingoes hunt to eat but dogs hunt for fun!

Exclusion fencing with an apron at the bottom. Strong and tight.

Third insight:  those of you keeping up will remember that the scrap metal merino ram was very wrinkly. One of the key things that makes merinos good for wool is their wrinkly skin – wrinkles mean more total skin area per sheep and therefore more wool per sheep.  I hope you’re amazed – I was.

And we were still no closer to Longreach!  But we were shown a bumpy and only-a-bit muddy short-cut and soon arrived at the Stockmans’s Hall of Fame, the Qantas Founders Museum, the School of the Air (Distance Education please)….and Swan St.  Crucial drive-bys were made to Lesley’s  old home, her old school, her old church etc etc.  Except for a sadly neglected garden at the house, it was all still there, scarcely altered. 

Swan St home – no satellite dish in 1963

Longreach has made the most of its tourism opportunities and has quite a buzz about it.  The big ticket items (Stockmans, Qantas) are unavoidable and well done (albeit the “wing walk” on a 747 was probably the least exciting “exciting” thing I’ve ever done).  Our personal favourite by miles was LSODE (just to help out – Longreach School Of Distance Education) where we saw wonderful people teaching wonderful people (somewhat younger) over way-better-than Zoom.  It’s not the school of the air any more but the tour around the site and the effort being put in was totally inspiring and their motto should ring through the ages.  We loved the video of the 10 year old lad who was now able to drive, so “school” was a bit less enticing – able to drive, not ‘cos he was old enough, merely ‘cos he was tall enough to reach the pedals and see over the dashboard at the same time. 👍👍

What was once the School of the Air
If you’re doing any of it, then do it all

We also had a fine night doing a Thomson River cruise on a paddle boat, followed by an “authentic” beef stew, a madly amateurish movie about one of our most accomplished cattle thieves, followed by damper and golden syrup – what’s not to love?  It’s worth a mention that the rustler was Harry Readford and when he was finally dragged to court and conclusively proven as guilty-as-sin, he was still declared innocent by the jury because he was a charmer!  The judge reportedly said to the jury, “Thank God, gentlemen, that verdict is yours and not mine!”  I simply say, where were the women?

Paddle boat and riverside movie

The report on Longreach is short, because we loved pretty much all of it but it’s also geared for tourism – you can read all about it, quite accurately, in any touristy article.  I should point out though, that Lesley fell for a singing cowboy on a bull – the bull, not the cowboy.  Proof below!

New mates

So we left the Muddy Duck Caravan Park (👍, just because it was better than all the other options) and, after a quick trip to Sydney, an appointment with a sadistic dermatologist, lunch with Tracy who was blowing through town from Sao Paulo and dinner at Palazzo Salato (👍👍) with Tracy (again, jetlagged beyond comprehension), Chris, Sue and David (relatives!), headed towards Winton.

Winton is dinosaur capital of the entire universe, all reports alleged, and we were very enthusiastic to see every bit of it. We camped off-grid at Long Waterhole, but Lesley succumbed to Covid and felt dreadful, so we went absolutely nowhere! Not even to the famous open-air theatre where they were showing “The Dish”. Apparently, some wretched woman on the plane back from Sydney, coughing and sniffing with a box of tissues by her side in the row in front of us had infected her.

Covid isolation outside Winton

But the wonders of the modern world!  A 10 am phone call to our Sydney GP generated a 12 noon tele-health call, an e-script for anti-virals 15 minutes later, filled by the Winton Pharmacy before 1pm – now that is actually PDG.  The pills helped and all was going well by the time we left Australia’s Dinosaur Capital in search of more savage beasts.  Porcupine Gorge outside Hughenden was our target.

We’d booked 3 nights in this NP through the Queensland National Parks Service (why does no single part of that description make sense?) but, due to Covid, only took 2 nights.  All the medical advice was not to do too much after being unwell, so we jauntily headed down the hundreds of rough stone steps to the (magnificent) Porcupine Gorge but the trip back up was not a great success, especially the snake encounter, and more rest ensued.  Porcupine Gorge is indeed beautiful and a top spot for a swim – it’s described in the brochures as Australia’s “little Grand Canyon” – it’s fabulous, but the writers have clearly never seen the “big” Grand Canyon.

Pyramid Rock in Porcupine Gorge

Enough of this inland space – we zoomed towards the coast and Townsville, looking for tropical bliss, recovery and anticipating yet another trip down memory lane. Lesley recalled walking around Magnetic Island at night when she was 7 (!), while her parents (obviously drunk) sang “Show me the Way to Go Home”. It was a very happy memory, so we decided to give it a re-run. What could possibly go wrong?

3 thoughts on “AND EACH TOWN LOOKS THE SAME TO ME, THE MOVIES AND THE FACTORIES…

  1. T&L wonderful yarn about travels Tks for insight into life on a real cattle/ sheep station and noted geese “wrangler”. Stay safe and look forward to catch up down track of life.
    D&C

  2. Dear Lucretia and Tonto,
    You seem to be having a great time( except for the covid) . No comment about any mechanical issues be they vehicle or human so I assume all is functioning well. I thought the script had picked up and the photos are still terrific.

    No comment about sitting on a railway station got a ticket for my destination so I guess no train travel.
    Keep on chooglin’…..

    1. As you may have seen, not all mechanics are perfect – but we do indeed choogle on

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