Winton out West

Winton is a long way north-west from Brisbane, approximately 1,500 kilometres in fact, and like so many Australian outback communities it is typically a long way from anywhere else. Perhaps it's relative isolation has much to do with the town's strong community spirit and dedication to identity. 

The town has strong links to Waltzing Matilda, Qantas, and dinosaurs. Winton is probably best known as the place where ‘Banjo’ Paterson wrote Australia’s unofficial national anthem “Waltzing Matilda” in 1895. Just as significantly, the first board meeting of Qantas was held at the Winton Club in 1921, marking Winton as the Birthplace of Qantas. However, long before indigenous Australians and the white settlers walked in Winton, the dinosaurs called this land home. But, it was none of these conventional attractions that pulled the Bazflyers to Winton. 

Every two years Winton hosts the Outback Festival, a week of zany sports, entertainment and nostalgia. It's a memorable week where this normally tiny settlement of around one thousand folk swells beyond bursting point from an influx of up to 8,000 visitors. 

Rumour has it that the next Outback Festival in 2019 may also initiate Qantas' centenary. Book us in...!

Outback Extravaganza dinner guests were treated to an amazing spectacle, a centennial reinactment of the WW1 Australian light horse brigade Battle of Besheeba.

Dinner in the Outback

Sporting events included the great Australian Dunny Derby. 

Street parade lead by today's equivalent of yesteryears light horses.

Sunset over Winton

All about me

I did it…a physical journey that was all about me. I rode my bicycle from Goondiwindi to the Gold Coast, eight days with my legs turning the peddles and a rest day at Stanthorpe. Altogether my bike wheels rotated something like 540 kms. Hats-off to Bike Queensland for it's amazing organisation. A big thank you to AllTrails for looking after me with style and the great bunch of like minded people I met. 

Almost a year ago I noted the 40th anniversary of my 30th birthday. I held a board meeting with myself at the time and unanimously agreed not to skirt-around the reality of the number of years I’d spent on the planet, but instead, to face the future head on and call a spade a spade. Without doubt being a septuagenarian these days is nothing like it was for 70 year olds of my parents’ generation. I am so fortunate, for by any measure this time in history offers a whole new journey in life and whatever it is labeled its no longer called “old age.”

My plan is to continue this new life-journey of mine as an adventure into uncharted territory where there is still so much to be discovered. So when and where’s the next bike ride…?

 

Texas in Queensland

Today's 53 km bike ride finished in the Queensland town named Texas. Unlike the USA State of Texas, the Queensland namesake certainly isn't a big place, so how did the town get its name? History holds it that the settlement was named as a result of a territorial dispute. The land in the area was first settled by the McDougall brothers, who found squatters there on returning from the goldfields. Once their legal right to the land was recognised, they named their property in honour of the rather more famous dispute between the United States and Mexico over territory in the southern USA. 

Cycle Queensland tent town at Texas

Downtown Texas

A striking facade on this building

Roadside puncture repair. Caused by little prickly thorns and a lesson to not ride off sealed roads again!

No bike event could be held without the mobile coffee wagon

Yelarbon

The road sign said it was 8 kms to Yelarbon, which was today's destination on Cycle Queensland 2017. However, what it didn't say was that after having already cycled 50 kms this final stretch was head-on into a stiff breeze with the day temperature approaching 30 degrees. Then there was the added discomfort of my very tender bum, but we made it, so far a total of 105 km in two days. 

I am told Cycle Queensland is renowned for its organisation an attribute that is clearly on full-frontal display. Something like 750 cyclists are participating in this year's event, the majority accommodated in a relocatable mini tent-town each night, complete with abolitions, kitchen, entertainment, etc. The whole set-up majically reappears at each successive overnight stop. 

I entered the cycling event with some slight treperadation. Who might be the participants? Well, a quick first glance around and one could easily assume the event was a retirees convention. Wow, I was in like company!

Tent town set-up in Goondiwindi.

The ride into Yelarbon was through Australia's most easterly spinifex desert, the result of a geologically distinct area characterised by a naturally occurring salinity scold.

Where's my bike?

Posing for a photo at the Goondiwindi start line

Another interesting fact about Yelarbon is that in 2016 three quarters of the town was auctioned with a reserve of $1. Seven shops plus a house sold for $156,000.

Goondiwindi

Goondiwindi is not a big place, just some 5,000 residents, located on the New South Wales boarder 350-kilometres south-west of Brisbane. It's a gorgeous Friday morning in the town. There's an aura of prosperity about the place renowned for its wheat, cotton, beef and wool.

After an overnight temperature drop to a near zero low townsfolk are outdoors enjoying an ambient warmth heading into the mid twenties. Perfect conditions for the anticipated influx of about a thousand visitors gathering for the start of this year's Cycle Queensland bike ride.

For the next 10 days travel by air in ZK-BAZ has temporally been set aside in favour of cycling 600 km from Goondiwindi to Coolangatta.

Downtown Goondiwindi

Locals enjoying the sunshine

Macintyre River flows alongside the town and is the boarder between Queensland and New South Wales

Transport mode for the next couple of weeks

What's Next

Some while ago New Zealand television aired a programme titled, ‘What’s Next’ which superficially explored what society might look like in 20-years time. I say superficially because the fact is, no one knows, but this simple limitation is never an impediment to our imagining the future and articulating transformative ideas that will give it shape.

So what’s next for the Bazflyers? We’re nearing the end of three weeks back home at our ‘Bazbase’ on Taupo Airport. Piper Comanche BAZ was left hangared at Brisbane’s general aviation airport, Archerfield, ready for us to continue on our outback adventures. So, do we know what these adventures are? Well, if we did then they wouldn’t be adventures….but whatever is next for us gets underway next week so, to find out what it is stay tuned to the Bazflyer Blog.

A map of our recent 5,000 km Queensland outback safari commencing from Gold Coast Airport and ending at Archerfield Airport.

What’s next?

 

Noosa Beach

Outback Queensland one day, Noosa Beach the next…made possible with the trusty Piper Comanche. Its difficult to imagine a more significant contrast both in landscape and social environment. Noosa is one of Australia’s most fashionable resort towns. 

Noosa boasts Hastings Street, one of Australia’s most elegant shopping strips; a relaxed, pedestrian-friendly, beachside thoroughfare where designer boutiques, cool cafes and low-rise resort accommodation intermingles among a landscape of subtropical trees and greenery. 

While ZK-BAZ occupied a small area of realestate at Sunshine Coast Airport, the  Bazflyers relaxed for a few days on Hastings Street and enjoyed quality family time.

Emundi Markets is a nearby artisan market renowned for locally made treasures, food and entertainment.

Castle in the sand at Noosa Beach.

Walking out on Hastings Street.

Days end on the beach.

 

 

Emerald

Fire is an integral part of Australia’s natural environment, and its cultural and social fabric. The first people on the continent learned to live in a fire-prone environment and manage fire as part of everyday life. To put this in perspective, in a typical year some ten percent of the continent (80 million hectares) might be burnt. Major fire years usually occur following the rare periods of significant interior rainfall and consequent abundant grass growth.

Whilst the risk of fire has fearsome connotations for many outback communities, its potential for devastation is fortunately minimised through systematic evaluation and strategic management. However, this is not so for floods. In many of the outback towns visited by the Bazflyer’s during their travels in Central Queensland, property damage caused by flooding is plainly evident. The small town of Emerald was one such example.  

Coming into land at Emerald’s modern airport the flight path took us over a dry looking expansive landscape. Some inventive imagination was required to envisage the land covered in flood waters, but covered it has been. Just six months prior to our visit the town was inundated with flood waters resulting from Cyclone Debbie and back in 2010 it suffered the worst flooding in generations. On that occasion water from the Nogoa River washed through more than 1,000 houses and damaged 95 percent of the town’s businesses. 

During our time in Emerald the town was buoyant and the floods were hardly mentioned, such is the characteristic resilience of outback folk. If you’re not the resilient type, you probably aren’t living out there. Fire and flood have forever been an integral part of the great Australian Outback environment and an accepted element of living in the outback.

Flying into Emerald - cotton is one of the main crops grown in the area

A giant Van Gogh in Morton Park celebrates local sunflower crops

  

Mining is a significant industry surrounding Emerald   

Interesting sculpture

 

 

Cobbold Gorge

Visit almost any place, large, small or remote, across Central Queensland during the winter months and one could easily be mistaken to assume the region is significantly populated by senior citizens. However, on a closer look these folk are in the main BYOH Grey Nomad travellers from the Southern States. In case you don’t know, BYOH means Bring Your Own Home…!
The number of Grey Nomad travellers have doubled in the last few years with combined caravan and camper van registrations now exceeding 620,000. Every year more and more Australian’s move into retirement and want to see their country and enjoy the camaraderie of life on the road. Just a few years ago many small outback communities were looking down the barrel of extinction. 
Today, just like rain on the land, a visibly evident down-pour of Grey Nomads is rejuvenating local economies and creating new employment opportunities. Cobbold Gorge is a great example of how a family owned cattle station in the Queensland Savannah country has successfully leveraged its natural resources and embraced nomadic tourism. 
The Bazflyers paid Cobbold Gorge a visit, flying 600 km east from Mount Isa and landing on Forsayth airfield. As the story goes this still developing attraction was born out of the discovery in recent times of a previously unknown sandstone formation on the vast Terry family cattle station. cobboldgorge.com.au 
While the Bazflyers travel in BYOP ( Bring Your Own Plane) mode, we also enjoy the camaraderie of Grey Nomads we meet along the way and our couple of nights at Cobbold Gorge was no exception. How many mutual friends can you share with a random acquaintance around a campfire in the outback?
Grey Nomads camped at Longreach

Camaraderie in practice

BAZ settled in on Forsayth airfield

Stunning Cobbold Gorge

Mount Isa

A rather long time ago in my younger life I spent some 30 months of my formative years on the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base at Wagga Wagga. During this time I was serving in the Royal New Zealand Air Force while undertaking training with the Australian Air Force as an aircraft electrician. 

This was early in the ’60’s. A time when society’s backdrop was an escalating Vietnam conflict and an emerging young culture that was challenging post war social norms. However, among all this I recall the period being a significantly positive and beneficial time for me. On my course at Wagga Wagga there were two lads from Mount Isa. Both of them were inseparably good mates and for whatever reason I was afforded ‘good mate’ status early on and we remained close friends right through to graduation. We often socialised together and through them I formed a visualisation of life in Mount Isa. Dads who worked dangerously hard underground in the mine. Mothers who toiled to raise families and maintain social cohesion in a fast growing company town and family fun at the beach without an ocean. 
I can still recall our musings about the Mount Isa miners strike which occurred during our first year in Wagga Wagga. We were improbably naive young men back then but without doubt the topic was notably among my earliest political discussions. As the passage of time goes it took another 53 years and a Bazflyer trip to outback Queensland before my feet stood on Mount Isa soil for the first time.
The history on Mount Isa is synonymous with Australian life and values. A modern town literally built on top of the world’s largest copper, zinc and lead mine. Mining today is highly mechanised but 50 years ago the activity required men to descended kilometres underground and work shifts in small contract teams. The work place was invariably hot, dark and wet. Death was as close as a work-mates mistake or error. Safety down in the mine was intergral with ultimate trust in your mates. 
These days Mount Isa hosts an informative underground experience appropriately sanitised for visitors like the Bazflyers. As we emerged from this not-so-deep underground simulation into the stark light of an outback sun, I thought about my ex air force buddies with a strengthened perspective on what their emphasis on the term ‘mate’ really meant. Without doubt I was hugely privileged back in the sixties to have those two Mount Isa lads adopt me as their mate.  
So where are those two Aussie mates nowadays? Tragically, one of them never made it home alive to Mount Isa after graduation. As for the other one, we remain in contact but by his own admission he still misses his lost mate.
On approach to land YBMA (Mount Isa) runway 16

A modern town dominated by a huge mine and infrastructure

Mount Isa is situated a long way from everywhere

     

Sweers Island

Mention Sweers Island and the response might well be; where the bloody hell is that? Certainly as places go this place is not exactly on the beaten track to anywhere. In fact, it is a rather small island in Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria located some 30 km off the coast, directly north of Burketown. So just what was it that attracted the Bazflyers to spend a few days here?
If any judgement of the island was to be made on first encounters it had to be good. After a smooth touchdown on the dusty dirt airstrip the Comanche’s propellor had hardly stopped before we were being welcomed by Tex and Lyn the island’s only two permanent locals. Oh, and I almost forgot to include their two Boarder Collie dogs. 
Sweers is quintessentially a ‘blokes’ paradise, deservedly famous for it’s fishing. However, with golden beaches, forests, mangroves and rocky cliffs to explore, which provide homes to a myriad of wildlife including Dolphins, Turtles, Dugongs and over one hundred bird species, there’s also lots here for the non-fisher people to do. 
Almost in a primeval way, time while on Sweers Island, is regulated by the coming up and going down of the sun. There’s no television, internet or mobile phone reception as such. Apart from the simply constructed accommodation buildings on the island, this is a place that has remained relatively unchanged since it was first visited by Matthew Flinders during his 1801-03 circumnavigation of Australia. It could be said that getting to Sweers Island is a journey off the beaten track but leaving it becomes harder by the day. Perhaps that explains why it has been home for Tex and Lyn for more than 30 years.
Tex and Lyn with Sarah (left)

For blokes its all about the fishing

Supplies arrive on the island by barge

Golden sands

 Oh, what is there to not like about life here

Stockmans Challenge

It could be said that the Australian Outback was tamed by tough men, resourceful women and great horses. No question, horses and the great outback have been synonymous with this vast land since man first ventured beyond the continent's ocean perimeter. Before the motorised age, horses, hundreds of thousands of horses, linked outback communities and in so many ways were central to the nation's economic development.  

The lean sun-tanned stockman on horse back accompanied by his faithful dog is an iconic image imortilised in Australian art and culture. However, venture outback today and you'll find this scene is still everyday rural life and enthusiastically celebrated with gatherings like the Cloncurry Stockman's Challenge. 

Under a cloudless outback sky hundreds of horse transporters accompanied by nearly two thousand stockmen and stockwomen gathered at Cloncurry for the 2017 Stockmans Challenge; and among the spectators this year were the Bazflyers. The Cloncurry Stockman’s Challenge is an elite and prestigious event that is regarded as one of the greatest horse events in Australia. It celebrates the talent and passion of horsemen and women drawing competitors from all states in to a fierce and thrilling competition.