QI Tour - Bourke to Cunnamulla (Day 24)

After three nights in Bourke, we left with a greatly enhanced opinion. Our previous visit had been mired by a bad tour experience, trapped in a minibus with a racist, misogynist buffoon … and he was the tour guide! 

Bourke has moved on and we were really impressed. Of course, as tourists, we get a carefully manufactured impression but in the end, what’s so wrong with that. You wouldn’t have guests and not clean the toilet or serve the tea in cracks mugs. We enjoyed our digs at Kidmans Camp, just a few kms north of the main town and close to the Darling River, at the point where the Jandra launches. 

The QI Tour finally got to Queensland, with a 280 km run up the Mitchell Highway to Cunnamulla. Long flat roads in the outback make for low fuel consumption: 10.4 L/100. On the way, we dropped in at the Bush Tucker Inn, a roadhouse at Barringun, on the border and one of only two buildings in the micro village. We just love these little places. Dogs everywhere. Rough as guts and proud of it. “Cuppa tea? Yeah, sure. Kettle’s over there. Help yourself.” Funny signs on the walls. Morning TV blaring in the corner. Their kids hanging around their feet … but they are real and unapologetically originals. The humour is great and the yarns are better. As we were leaving, a little four year old girl sweetly said to me, “do you have a lady?” “Yes,” I replied, “she’s just inside.” “Well don’t leave her here mate. We have enough of ‘em”.

Sue drove the next 100 km, something which is happening more regularly than on previous trips. Good thing.

We arrived in Cunnamulla just after midday and got set up. Our site backed onto the bush, facing the sunset. During the afternoon we went to All Aboard, a forty minute show featuring a holographic station master who tells the tale of the importance the railway line played in Cunnamulla’s development. Held in a specially designed theatre and created by a production company in Melbourne, the whole thing cost $2 million to develop. The local progress association raised a third of the funds themselves (that’s a whole lot of meat tray raffles!) and grants from folks like QLD Rail made up the rest. Steven Tandy (famous as Tom Sullivan) plays the station master. Lots of corny jokes and a surfeit of local folklore. You are seated in plush, reclining leather lounge chairs and have the option of enjoying a wine while you watch: an option we took up.

Cunnamulla was a rich wool growing area from the late 1870’s and was connected to rail, as the end of the western line from Brisbane, in 1898. It’s station is one of only three covered stations in QLD. The original station was an ornate building. The train used to arrive in town on Wednesday and Saturday and return to Brisbane the next day. From the earliest days, it would always be met by the Cunnamulla Town Band, a brass band which played at every significant event for more than 100 years. When soldiers left for war service or returned, during both world wars, the band played them off or onto the platform.

In 1934, a fire broke out in the ladies toilet and the station was destroyed. It’s replacement, far less imposing, still stands. The ladies toilet after that  had at least four large “No Smoking” signs.

In 1954, the old steam loco, with its open air coaches and running on a narrow gauge line, was replaced. No more arriving hot and bothered in summer or frozen in winter or covered in soot. The new diesel loco, with its air conditioned coaches and silver service was the ducks guts - still on the narrow gauge - but with an average speed of 30km/hr, you left Brisbane at 9:30am on Tuesday, for a lunchtime arrival at the end of the line on Wednesday! Over time, improved, sealed roads and the rise of road freight killed off rail and the last passenger train left Cunnamulla in 1994. Subsequent floods in the late 1990's destroyed the line between Charleville and Cunnamulla so trains will never return. The band plays no more.

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today's photos

The local Council now runs the show, to no less success, with more than thirty attending our session.

Back at the campsite, as the day left us, a couple of nesting kookaburras sang down the sunset.