Longreach, A Big Town in The Outback

Our time at Oma Waterholes came to an end and we hit the road for the 125km drive to Longreach.  

We had driven to Longreach a few days earlier on Friday, just to check it out and had the misfortune to have a tyre blow out, probably caused by a kangaroo bone on the road.  Nothing happens quickly in the bush and a week later we are still waiting for our replacement tyre.  It was expected last Monday but there were none in Queensland so was coming from Sydney and expected mid-week.  Now we find that that tyre was re-routed to someone else and we have had to accept a different tyre which will arrive on Monday, 10 days after our original order, just so we can get back on the road with a spare tyre.  The Dunlop tyre we want will take another 10 days or so to arrive and we can't wait that long.  We'll get another tyre when we have more time in Townsville.  Thanks Dunlop, you've just cost us $400 extra!!

Enough of the griping and back to our adventure.

Longreach, pop. about 4500, is a great place.  We can't believe the number of people who only stay here for a couple of days because there's so much to see.  We are doing it leisurely over 10 days.  We had planned to stay a week and booked into the Longreach Tourist Park, with a powered site so we can use the air-con in the caravan.  A good move since it's been over 40C every day.

We visited the Longreach School of Distance Education (LSODE or School of the Air) and did a tour where we saw some the teaching studios, classrooms, the playgrounds and examples of schoolwork by students. We also saw The Quarters, where students and families stay when they come to Longreach for classwork and activities.  LSODE has about 170 students ranging from Prep (Kindy) to Year 10.
It's just like any other state school except that the students are usually at remote locations and they communicate by computer, radio and phone.  There were no classes running, they finished last week, so we couldn't see live lessons.  We did see a video lesson where there was a camera with the teacher and another camera at a homestead.  It was very interesting to see the Year 3 lesson in progress.  There are children all over Longreach at the moment because the LSODE has its Presentation Night tonight.  At only $8 each it was good value for the 1 1/2 hours we were there.

Then it was off to the Stockman's Hall of Fame, another key attraction here.  This was also very interesting and the $20 each we paid for entry to the museum gave us a 2 day pass.  At the entry to the Stockmans Hall of Fame is a large bronze statue titled "The Ringer" which really says it all about this place.  The Museum has a great range of exhibits about life in the Outback.  There are a lot of audio and video presentations.  We returned the next day to see the short film which was worth seeing.  We spent a couple of hours in the museum and also visited the  Art Gallery where we spent time chatting to David, the curator.

The next day we visited the other main attraction on our list, the Qantas Founders Museum.  We had booked to do the Jet Tour of a 747 and 707 which are on display.  The $45 each we paid for the Jet Tour and 2 day museum pass was good value.  The 1 1/2 hour tour of the jets certainly had us "up close and personal" with these huge planes.  Because we were in a small group (a benefit of travelling at this time of year) we were able to go into the 747 cockpit and sit in the driving seats.

Our tour of the 707 was an eye-opener.  This plane was the first 707 delivered to Qantas and it was restored by volunteers a few years ago.  It was kitted out as the private jet to an oil sheik.  It was interesting to see how the rich travel with wood panelling, solid gold tapware, dining tables, lounge chairs and full sized beds - no cattle-class here.

After our tour we spent a couple of hours in the Founders Museum.  This museum is about the people who conceived and worked towards getting Q.A.N.T.A.S. (a precursor to Qantas) into the air and keeping it there.  There were a lot of videos and a good film about the discovery and restoration of the 707.  We had a good value lunch at the cafe.

The next day we went back to visit the Original Q.A.N.T.A.S. Hangar which was opened in 1922. Inside the hangar are some replica planes and dioramas of the activities which would have been going on in the 1920s and 1930s.  We also saw the early "airport shuttle" used in Longreach.

Longreach has a lovely paved Botanical Walk through the trees and Robert has been riding his bicycle there most mornings.  The streets and gardens have plenty of colour as the rain trees and poincianas are in full bloom.  It's a great place to spend a week, especially as we are able to have a cooling swim in the pool each afternoon.