Queensland Outback Tour - Bourke Bus Tour

"Dance of the Echidnas"

A long morning at camp doing bugger all was followed by a revisit to Back O Bourke Exhibition Centre so Sue could listen to all of the sound bites she missed yesterday. Having been assured by staff that a chair with a back could be found for her if she returned, a new staff member revived the great art of indifference and simply assured her that she was the first person to complain about backless chairs. He would, however, make an entry in the “diary”.

Big whoop.

So while she made the best of things by manoeuvring against walls an posts, I made a human exhibit of myself in the final gallery as I sat and read “Wednesday With Bob” from my iPad.

A final coffee followed at Little Birdys and it was equally as good as the outstanding predecessors.

The afternoon was occupied by a much anticipated Back O Bourke Mateship Country Tour. Our host, Stu Johnson, we were assured, was “quite a character”.

Hmmm.

Look, the tour was informative. It was three hours and covered some territory. The small coach was comfortable and air conditioned but in future, I’ll have a better understanding of what “quite a character” means. It wasn’t that he was a non stop talker and it certainly wasn’t that he was proud of his town. It was the racism, which wasn’t restricted to aboriginals, as Muslims, the Dutch, New Zealanders among others, all coped his racial slurs. It was the extreme right, Australia First viewpoints, masquerading as National Party. I know lots of Nats and none of them think like Stu Johnson. It was the heavily political bias in his viewpoint about water usage on the Darling River system. It was his warped views on the media, politicians and anyone who attempted to criticise his “mates” in the cotton industry.

Above all, it was the three hour tour which was a thinly disguised advertisement for the cotton industry. Sure, it was interesting to visit a water storage facility. It was interesting to visit a paddock and pick some cotton and have the growing process explained. It was interesting to visit a working cotton gin and be taken through the processing of cotton from the paddock. Interesting but not enough to take up so much of the tour that we felt like we had just be put through a brainwashing exercise to show how the world is wrong – particularly those greenies and media types – and cotton farmers are poor, hard done by blokes who are struggling to make a buck because too much water is being fed to Menindee Lakes. It became almost farcical when we were told that the cotton gin we visited was owned by Peter Harris - the very farmer placed under such doubt by the Four Corners program "Pumped" for allegedly breaching his water licences and pumping water from rivers when they were too low.

We heard two hard luck stories where farmers was screwed by everyone on the planet who didn't think Genghis Khan was a pussy, but we spent hardly anytime on the history of Bourke or looking at the town itself. We did, however, manage to stop outside Mr Johnson’s new business venture, where he described the accommodation and facilities that would be offered when it opened.

At one stage, Mr Johnson explained how much he admired the policies of US President Trump.

From a comfort angle, it was a long time before the first toilet break and that was provided by the staff toilet at the cotton gin where facilities were far from acceptable.

Having started the tour with a spiel about how negative people are in society, during the next three hours he single handedly proved it, with a constant diatribe of what’s wrong with the world, always followed by “am I right” or “you know what I’m talking about, right” or “I know you agree”.

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Well no, I don't agree Mr Johnson’s - not with your politics and almost all of your myopic conclusions and not with you structuring a tour whose major purpose is to be an advertising activity for the cotton industry and an opportunity for him to express your far right political opinions. This was a dreadful experience and I would caution others who are considering it.

Apart from that, it was nice day.