 About the area: the people, places and wide-open spaces of Outback Queensland offer a holiday or travelling experience like few other regions in Australia can. From down-to-earth stockmen, to quiet fishing spots, to desert sand dunes, and even the odd dinosaur - there's nowhere quite like it.
Diversity is a key factor in the region having such a magnetic pull on the people who go there, so strong is that pull, many can't wait to go back and explore more of its vast landscape. The magnificent natural diversity of the Channel Country in the south west, the heritage-rich Matilda Country of the central west, and the ancient lands of the Dinosaur, Fossil and Mining Country in the north west has to be seen and experienced to understand the attraction of this remote corner of Outback Australia. The rocky terrain is harsh but beautiful, and the colours stark but striking. The outback sunsets are spectacular, hidden lakes and dams make for excellent freshwater fishing, and breathtaking gorges give up their treasures to fossickers.
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Thargomindah |
Talbot rock hole |
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Natural Wonders
Natural Attractions
Caves
Historic Places
- Cloncurry: Post office (1885): Courthouse (1898); Chinese and Afghan cemeteries (with the headstone pointing towards Mecca); The Great Australian Mine; Mary Kathleen Memorial Park and Museum
- Julia Creek: Macintyre Museum;
- Gilliat: Eddington Arms Hotel (1908)
- Mt. Isa: The Frank Aston Rotary Underground Museum; The John Middlen Museum; National Trust Tent Museum
- Longreach: Bimbah homestead (22 km north-east)
- Adaville: memorial to Sir Ross and Keith Smith
- Barcaldine: Beta Farm Slab Hut (reconstruction of an 1880s structure); Glengyle Station; Australian Workers' Heritage Museum; The Shearers' Strike Camp; Barcaldine and District Folk Museum; Masonic Lodge Hall (1908); St Peter's Church (1899)
- Winton: North Gregory Hotel (the current pub is on the site of a former pub where 'Waltzing Matilda' was written and first performed); The Waltzing Matilda Centre; Qantilda Pioneer Place; Royal Theatre; Memorial Cairn to the famous shearer's strike of 1891 involving over 500 shearers who camped south of the town for four months during the dispute
- Blackall: statue of 'World Champion Blade Shearer Jackie Howe (John Robert Howe) 1861-1920
- Isisford: Clancy's Overflow Hotel; Isisford Museum; Isis Downs Station (1911; 20 km south)
- Jundah: Historical Museum
- Birdsville: former Australian Inland Mission Hospital (c.1882); Birdsville Hotel (1884-5); 'Cacory' homestead ruins (100 km north)
- Boulia: Min Min Hotel; The Old Stone House; Fossil Museum
- Quilpie: Brick Hotel; Ray Station (now a museum)
- Charleville: Queensland National Bank building (now Historical House, 1881)
- Cunnamulla: The Robber Tree where bank robber Joseph Wells tried to hide; Cunnamulla Historical Museum
- Thargomindah: The Dig Tree near the South Australian border where William Brahe, left in command of Camp LXV by Burke and Wills, buried supplies and carved 'Dig' on 21st April 1861. Brahe, after waiting for months for Burke and Wills to return from their expedition to the Gulf, left the camp the day the starving and exhausted explorers returned)
- Nockatunga: Noccundra Hotel (one of the oldest buildings standing in south west Queensland)
Misc. Attractions
- Mt. Isa: City Lookout; Mount Isa Mines Ltd. mines; Riversleigh Fossil Centre (a collection of fossils from Riversleigh Station, located 250 km north of Mount Isa); Royal Flying Doctor Service and Distance Education; Lake Moondarra reservoir (10 km)
- Kajabbi: mining relics
- McKinley: Walkabout Creek Hotel (featured in the original Crocodile Dundee movie as Dundee's regular drinking spot)
- Longreach: Stockman's Hall of Fame; Qantas Founders Museum; Jacksons Weapons Museum; Qantas hangar, Longreach Airport (1923); Starlight's Lookout (recalls cattle duffer Harry Redford, aka Captain Starlight)
- Adaville: Listowel Downs opal mining site
- Barcaldine: Wanpa-rda Matilda Outback Education Centre; the Tree of Knowledge - it was under this 150-year-old ghost gum they sang Henry Lawson's great poem 'Freedom on the Wallaby')
- Winton: The Jolly Swagman statue; Corfield & Fitzmaurice store (1916); Winton Club, where Qantas Airways was formulated; Opalton Fields (ghost town with some ruins and the remains of mullock heaps); Carisbrooke Station (Aboriginal bora rings and rock paintings); 'Elderslie Station' homestead (c.1882)
- Blackall: The Black Stump (originated in rural Australian mythology as a place beyond which was no man's land. Hence the impossible location of 'beyond the black stump'); The Blackall Woolscour (4.2 km north, 1906); Black's Palace (the largest complex of Aboriginal drawings known to exist in Central Queensland. The paintings are set on the sandstone cliff faces of a gorge. There are some 9,471 figures in the area ranging from stencils of hands, feet, boomerangs and axes to drawings of spears, clubs, shields, snakes and lizards.)
- Tambo: new Post Offices (1904); old Post Office (1876)
- Quilpie: Opal Fossicking (Creek and Sheep Creek Station; Dueces Wild Opal Mine; Greek Mine); The Church Altar (Roman Catholic Church) made out of opals
- Charleville: Royal Flying Doctor Service base; School of Distance Education (previously known as the School of the Air); Steiger Vortex Rainmaker Gun
- Nockatunga: Cooper/Eromanga Basin oil fields; Jackson-Moonie pipeline
- Moonee: oil wells and oil pipeline from Moonie to Brisbane (1969)
Journeys
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