Longreach

The APEX Club, bless they’re cotton socks. First plus for Longreach, a free RV camp with toilets, rubbish bins, internet and only three minutes from town. Second plus, by a quirk of history, Longreach is the spiritual home of our national airline QANTAS and therefore has a kick-ass museum and display. And like gravity, other tourist attractions have appeared since, so there’s plenty to see and do. There’s a boat ramp next to the park and the locals have The Outback Watersports Club(now before your eyes light up, the Club seems to be a repurposed shipping container)

As part of my routine, took a long walk to see what I could find. I’d heard that the ill-fated Murray Queen, was “just over there a bit” and that was my point of interest to start. However sometimes, you can just be in the right place at the right time and not even know it. I’d jumped a rail line and was standing by the river angling for some pics, when a train horn blared in the distance. I was expecting a freight train, but it turned to be something much more interesting.

Back on track for just over twelve months, this tourist train runs on the same ‘rails’ as famous motors like the Gulflander and the Savannahlander (https://www.outbackqueensland.com.au/rail-experiences/). This was only a temporary diversion, for just across the river, on a hard stand, was the Pride of the Murray. Now, there’s nothing like small town gossip, to inject a bit of sinister into an unexpected misfortune.

The story is this: The Thomson River flows around Longreach, and there’s a small but popular river cruise scene. A number of families are involved. One of them purchased the Pride of the Murray, a paddle wheel steamer, from down Echuca way, and had her trucked up all the way to Longreach. This was going to be a BIG deal. They got her into the river and that night she promptly sank to the deck level. This is where she remained for many months until engineers and assorted experts managed to refloat her and now is on the hard stand.

It didn’t take long for the rumour mill to crank up that she had been sabotaged by a rival family under the cover of a storm that blew in that night. No-one seems to think it was just the storm. So now, with the engine ruined, the paddle wheels bent and who knows what else, they’re looking for donations. I suspect they’d do better selling tickets to at least look at this piece of river history.

Back at the RV stop, I noticed a regular-like-clockwork routine from a couple of brolgas, that would, each morning, do a lazy stroll around this area looking for edible throwaways from recent departures. Brolgas are a variety of the crane family and their elaborate courtship dance is a feature of Indigenous dance culture illustrating the concepts of ceremony, connection and transformation between the human spirit and the animal spirit. And for my overseas followers, I really DID see emus walking across the main street of Longreach!

There are two major tourist attractions in Longreach, the Qantas Museum and the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. If you’re going to put a 747 under a roof, it’s going to be one hell of a shed. In a flat landscape, it stands out like the ‘proverbials’ . Looking out my van window, I can still see the outline of this open air pantheon 5klm’s away.

The display houses four Qantas planes, but there was only one I really wanted to lay eyes on again – the Super Constellation. Like the love child of Howard Hughes and Art Deco, the Super Constellation is sleek, elegant and, by comparison to the workhorses of the day, sophisticated.

Even the name created an aura in the day. I’ve never flown in one, being before my time, and they were almost exclusively used for international travel including the famous Kangaroo Route from Sydney to London. Maybe its just the imposing tri-tail, but the plane LOOKS fast even when standing still and anchored to the ground.

There is also a traditional museum of the history of Qantas and everything comes with a price and a wristband. By comparison, the Stockman’s Hall of Fame is a ‘shed’ of a completely different nature. Set in parkland, it’s a tribute to Aussie outback pioneers and outback life, using a combination of galleries, cinema and live shows. The displays are lush in their detail and presentation. Both these attractions are almost directly opposite each other and it was a morning of history and highlights.

Next is the push to Emerald 430klms east, then dead south. The target is Carnarvon Gorge. Everyone raves about it, so let’s see.