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Well, the team have survived so far (no thanks to Roothy’s cooking) and have seen some pretty amazing stuff. Come along for part two of their journey from Brizzy to the Top – this instalment takes us from Blackall to Priscilla Bush Camp. And yes, it is as strange as it sounds…

Words by John Rooth
Photography by Robb Cox

Judging by the quiet and reflective nature of the next hundred or so kilometres to Barcaldine, that afternoon tour of the Blackall Wool Scour had left us all feeling perhaps a tad thoughtful. I know for my own part it revived the machines, heat and dust that’d been so much a part of mining and farm work in the outback for the first time in a decade. If there’s a place where the sheer heart and hard yakka of generations of bush workers is right in your face, then this stretch of the Matilda Highway is it.

I was travelling with Roy Wyss in the Patrol that afternoon and even though the comfort of our plush air conditioned carriage was a long way from sitting on top of a John Deere harvester in a swirl of chaff on a stinking hot summer’s day, the huge flat stretches in all directions brought back memories of massive wheat paddocks and chasing near-feral sheep for miles all the same. But as I looked across at Roy it occurred to me that there was a lot more to this hard work caper than dealing with the outback.

Here’s a guy who’d been working 20 hour days for years to make his dream of building superbly comfortable and practical caravans a reality. He’s had to learn many practical skills from scratch, become an expert in labor relations and design and marketing and all sorts of skills that’d make a shearer shake his head and walk happily back to the boards. And here we are doing something most other caravan manufacturers would shy well clear of, taking a couple of caravans – and one a prototype at that – on a 10 day trip involving massive mileages in the company of journalists who aren’t well known for sparing the rod.

Yep, there’s a lot more things that can come under that hard work banner than a blue singlet and a lamb chop breakfast. Yet despite embarking on what would for many have been a trip through stressful hell, Roy was beaming and chattering away like a bird released from its cage. I guess touring the outback has that effect, no matter what the reason you’re doing it for. That and the fact that by now he knew we knew that both his caravans – straight off the assembly line – were towing superbly and had ‘done the deed’ in the comfort stakes too. Roy had rolled the dice and won, any thoughts of potential disasters had been replaced by the task at hand. And right now, that meant getting to Barcaldine!

Barcaldine is home to the Tree of Knowledge and birthplace of what became the Australian Labor Party. That’s well known, but what’s not always so well known is that this junction town is the centre of a thriving citrus orchard district too. Barcaldine was the first town in the country to tap into the Artesian Basin which opened up a whole swag of farming opportunities across the continent.

Originally a railway town – too obvious given the number of pubs across the main street from the railway station – ‘Barky’ as the locals call it was founded in 1886 when the tracks were pushed west from Rockhampton. In 1891 it became famous as the centre of the great shearers’ strike when over a thousand men camped around the town and it’s no surprise that now it’s home to the Australian Workers Heritage Centre, an attraction that almost rivals Longreach’s Hall of Fame. With limited time on our hands we missed a visit to the centre in favour of a cold light beer at the Artesian Hotel – what a great name for a watering hole and what a great call Editor Gil! No wonder you’re so popular with the troops!

Then we crossed the road to pay homage to one of Queensland’s icons – the Tree of Knowledge. It was under this 160 year old ghost gum that the meeting which led to the foundation of the ALP took place as disgruntled rural workers planned their campaign for better pay and shorter working hours.

About 80km west of Barcaldine we stopped briefly in Ilfracombe, the rail head for Wellshot Station and another of those little places where the whole town seems to sit on the highway and not for long at that! However on the right hand side is a collection of old machinery courtesy of the Folk Museum that runs for as long as the town itself and for anyone with an interest in pioneering it’s a great place to take a leg stretching stroll. And when you’ve done that, there’s always the bar at the Wellshot across the road or the possibly healthier option of a swim in the Ilfracombe pool.

So it was just on dark when we pulled in to the Gunnadoo Caravan Park just over the road from the Qantas Founders Museum. The Gunnadoo is a beaut place to stay with plenty of good sites and clean amenities as well as an outside barbecue area. Between April and September they hold an Outback Kitchen every night at 5.30pm featuring a buffet style roast that’s followed by camp fire entertainment. Unfortunately this time we arrived too late and missed it but there’s always next time!

There are so many things to do around Longreach apart from soak up all the outback history and heritage. River cruises up the Thomson, scenic helicopter flights, tours of working sheep stations, brilliant star filled nights listening to bush poetry, visiting the Outback Theatre or maybe a climb up the lookout where Captain Starlight hid his men. You could spend a month around here and still find things to do. For an outback experience Longreach has got the lot, including digital phone range so you can call and let your friends know how good life can be!

While there’s often CDMA (the old analogue) phone range in many towns along our route, the more popular digital reception is rare and far between. Anyone who’s questioned the wisdom of privatising Telstra would find plenty of ammunition amongst our not so favoured country cousins!

Next morning, roused by Gil whose fisherman instincts won’t let him sleep past sunrise, we left Longreach early, heading north-west now towards Winton. Although it’s usually only a two hour tow the vast expanses of flat country had our photographic and film crews anxious to get plenty of touring footage so it was almost lunch by the time we got to Winton. Sitting with Roy once again in the Patrol we missed a turn thanks to roadworks and took a backstreet through the side of town.

It was Roy’s first time in Winton and I heard him say, “Good Lord, to think I’ve named my top of the line luxury van after this place?” It did look a bit sad to be sure, as many outback towns tend to when you view the back blocks first, but once back on Elderslie Street the magic of this laid back place took a hold. And, as you’ll come to expect when travelling the ‘Matilda’, there’s a claim for Banjo’s song here too in the guise of the Jolly Swagman statue.

Winton’s claim is that it was here that the famous poem was first performed in public in the bar of the North Gregory Hotel in 1895. Given that Longreach tenders it’s own claim to Patterson’s ‘curse’ with regular theatre performances and the actual poem was supposedly written close to a waterhole further up the road at Kynuna – where Richard Magoffin’s Matilda Expo contains the original manuscript among other things – one could imagine there’d be a fair degree of confusion amongst tourists from overseas as to who, where and what was actually going on! The truth of the matter is more to do with the nature of the 1890s – when even fewer people filled these vast landscapes – the fame of Patterson in later years and of course, the never ending urge to cash in on the tourist dollar.

In fact the confusion could really set in. Didn’t we see the Qantas Founders Museum complete with a Jumbo nailed to the ground back there in Longreach? Yet at the Qantilda Centre in Elderslie Street – a name born from a marriage of the towns’ two claims to fame – there’s irrefutable evidence that Qantas was born right here in Winton! It was of course, but outback history is always open to interpretation. At least there’s no disputing that it’s this region as a whole that spawned these Australian icons. No wonder either, given the sheer distance involved to get anywhere!

Which is why we didn’t get a chance to drop out to Lark Quarry Conservation Park where the world’s only recorded dinosaur stampede is set firmly in over 3300 fossilised footprints. Hundreds of coelurosaurs and ornithopods – easier to spell than say – fled along a muddy shore some 95 million years ago to get away from a hungry carnosaur, their terror frozen forever in the rock. But it’s a 220km round trip from Winton and the bulk of that is unsealed, a bit too much given our need to meet deadlines in Darwin.

That’s just one of the fascinating things to see and do around this part of the Channel Country but, in keeping with the distances and the isolation, it’s not something to be done without adequate supplies of fuel, water and food just in case! Once again though, Winton is one of the many towns along this route where you could stay for a day or a month and still find things to do. And that’s after you’ve taken out the coveted Bronze Swagman Award for bush poetry at the Outback Festival held here for a week (usually in the middle) every September!

Not us though, not this time. After a look around we sat down for a delicious burger and chips at the Twilight Cafe. As always it’s the simple delights of little things like finding ‘real’ fast food in an atmosphere plucked straight from the middle of last century that tend to colour the travelling experience. Anyway, this crew were really getting sick of Rooth style ‘cook everything in beer’ catering by now! We had trouble prising Roy out of the fruit and vegetable shop.

An hour and a half later we pulled off the road and in to the Blue Heeler Hotel at Kynuna. Little more than a pub, a shop, the museum and a garage, Kynuna is possibly one of the most famous watering holes the outback’s got to offer. It was Gil – a bit of an expert in watering holes, even the ones that don’t stock fish – who’d first suggested the name ‘Blue Heeler’ to Roy for his prototype off-roader, the one we’d well and truly tested by now!

Which meant it was time for a simple naming ceremony, a christening of the van so to speak which Roy handled with the pride you’d expect from a father and mother combined. Let’s face it, the 17ft off-road prototype is Sunland all the way, offering both the look and the capability in a package that’s pure comfort. I know, I bagged a bed in the Heeler right from day one! Naturally the christening involved a toast or two (among the non-drivers of course - amid some good humoured roastings from the staff and ‘live ins’ around the pub.

How do you describe the characters that inhabit the bush? It seems to me that the further you are from civilisation, the more people are inclined to let their true selves show through. Having spent a half dozen or so nights at the Blue Heeler over the years I also know that despite the isolation, people somehow materialise from all around after sundown for a beer or three and a bit of good company. And there’s always plenty of wild and woolly characters to be met!

Not this time though, not with Editor Gil cracking the whip. We punched on for another two and a half hours until the rolling hills broke the monotony of the flat country and announced that Cloncurry was ‘just over the hill’. As old miners know, it’s these breaks in the terrain – the change from flat to hill or the sudden ridges pushed up from the crust – that often herald formation of mineral deposits underneath. Cloncurry, and the Isa just up the road, must have stuck out like the proverbial err, Blue Heeler’s balls to the horse mounted copper prospectors of two centuries ago.

As the sun set Gil pulled his Troopy and the Heeler through the gates of the Cloncurry Oasis Caravan Park and we quickly set up camp for the night, a job made easier by practice as usual. Not that the Sunlands needed much set up but you try finding your soap when eight people are racing for the showers and only one knows the door lock’s combination!

Next morning saw another early start to take advantage of the light for our photographic and film crew but we took time out to have a big – and excellent – breakfast at the ‘Outback at Isa’ tourist centre on the left as you come in to town. Having worked here many years ago I was fascinated to catch up on the mining gossip and learn that the mine’s new owners, the Xstrata Partnership, had worked hard to ensure the Isa was booming again. It certainly seemed that way from the shelves crammed with activity brochures but from experience, can I suggest no visit – except our all too brief one – would be complete without a night at the Irish Club?

Possibly followed by a cool day spent visiting the famous Underground Hospital which lay hidden beneath the surface for over fifty years. It is indeed a trip back in time and once again I regretted that we couldn’t spend more time exploring this fascinating town. A word to travellers, the Isa is your last chance for any serious shopping this side of Darwin itself as our ad man Allan soon noticed. While Al and I raided the supermarket shelves, his wife Lisa prowled the fashion shops and stocked up on souvenirs for their kids!

So it was lunch by the roadside before we got to the old border town of Camooweal for a fuel up to take us across the Barkly Tablelands. Oh, and ice creams all around thanks Gil, to help right the balance of Territory style hot and dry!

We drove on into the afternoon sun until somewhere over the border the motorhome popped its inner rear tyre. The fault was easily detected, the valve extension had ripped clean out! While the KEA had done nothing but impress with its ease of operation so far, getting that spare from its centrally mounted bracket behind the rear axle was more a job for a bunch of Lilliputian weight lifters than a slightly fat bush mechanic!

And with the spare out at last it took two of us swinging off the handle to get the inner wheel nuts loose. This is not good design, a compromise at best and we bent the handle before the job was done. Given the heat of the road surface and the day itself, it’s no wonder mirage-like cans of frosted XXXX seemed to dominate my vision. But I must add that while the dual wheel design had instigated that flat, it also meant it wasn’t dangerous. The KEA hadn’t handled much differently with one flat tyre as the other wheel kept the plot true. In fact we could have forced the issue and kept on driving if we’d had too but, given the distances involved between tyre repair places up here, that certainly wasn’t the best option.

As night fell we opted to pull over and camp some fifty kilometres east of the Barkly Homestead, the only roadhouse between the border and the Stuart Highway. The place we chose, near a windmill with plenty of free space tarred from the leftovers of road construction, was obviously a popular choice because there were a couple of vans stopped already, no doubt to avoid the wild life hazards of the night.

Now you should never underestimate the potential adventures encountered on even the loneliest stretches of Australia’s roads. Here we were, nicely camped and with some lovely chilli, banana, bacon and chicken kebabs (see my new book, Poisoning Your Mates with Weird Creations) grilling on the barbecue plate when a tourist coach pulled up some 50m away. Fifty or so exchange students from all over the world and a handful of more senior (only just) accomplices began unloading tables and setting up tents in a manner suggesting they’d been on the road for a while.

Then the dark was tickled by a generator and suddenly we were immersed in one of the weirdest sights I’ve seen in a lifetime of travelling the bush. Twenty or so teenage blokes donned wigs and dresses and put on a ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ cross-dressing show complete with singing and dancing. Strange? You bet, and enough to get Editor Gil checking the percentage of alcohol on the side of his umpteenth cold VB just in case. A couple of young organisers – one a broad shouldered bloke in a long blonde wig and fishnet stockings – came over and invited us to join them. Boy, talk about letting their hair down! This lot were having the time of their lives!

So were we, come to think of it, as the sheer magic of free camping under the outback stars took its hold. It looks like I’ve run out of space so it’ll be next month when we wrap up this show. Same time, same channel – see you here! But not in fishnets OK?

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