Day 19 Outback

19 October: Outback Queensland

After we celebrated my birthday in Noumea, we had another week away – this time in Northern Queensland. I wrote a feature in September on Northern Queensland, so today go outback in this huge state.

Dayman Steptoe has captured time lapse stunning landscapes that I love:
Time Lapse Photography and I'm sure you will too. they give a unique perspective to the amazing tapestry that is Outback.

Did you know:
The Outback covers an area the size of several small European countries.
Trivago tells me there are 3240 hotels in Queensland, so you ought to be able to find somewhere to stay!


Imperial Hotel Ravenswood - a fine example of Outback hospitality
The official site Queensland Holidays is probably your first stop when researching where to go and what to do.

Friendly characters, a proud history and a landscape which seems endless - this is Queensland’s Outback. An amazing country of red hills, plains that stretch to eternity, spectacular sunsets and star-studded night skies. It’s a place where the pace of life slows down and you can really connect with the locals who will be happy to tell you a story or two.



Try a day or two at Winton in the centre of Matilda Country, considered to be the home of Australian bush poetry and the iconic ballad by Banjo Paterson, ‘Waltzing Matilda’.

There is even an entire museum (the Matilda Centre) dedicated to the poem. Winton is famous for its (hot water) supply which emerges from three artesian bores from the Great Artesian Basin, each more than a kilometre deep. The water comes out at 83 degrees Celsius!



Visitors to the region will be amazed by the vastness of the plains and the undulating nature of the landscape. There is a wide variety of animal and bird life in the area, generally best seen around dusk and dawn on minor roads and tracks.

Day trips from Winton take visitors to Opalton, one of the oldest opal fields in Queensland; Combo Waterhole, where the swaggie of 'Waltzing Matilda' fame reputedly met his fate; the vintage sandstone homestead of Old Cork Station; and Lark Quarry, where 93 million year-old fossils capture a dinosaur stampede. There are a number of opal fossicking sites throughout Queensland's Outback, particularly Opalton, Quilpie, Yowah, Cloncurry and north of Hughenden. You can fossick in a tour or by obtaining a fossicking permit. If your luck is in, you might find some boulder opal, amethystine quartz, amethyst, alluvial gold or one of the famous Yowah Nuts.



Join the Queensland Museum teams on a dig as a volunteer and learn more about the area's prehistoric roots.



Stay on an Outback Station. Its a unique Outback experience and true country hospitality at its best, where you can join in the everyday activities of a working sheep or cattle property. Your activities can include: mustering, shearing, drafting, taking property tours, fencing, fishing and discovering the unique flora and fauna.

Once part of a 'Great Inland Sea' that left the region rich in fossils, Hughenden, Richmond and Winton are part of the Australia's Dinosaur Trail Here are prehistoric creatures that roamed the land around 100 million years ago. Visit the world’s best-preserved dinosaur stampede at Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways near Winton.


World Heritage-listed Riversleigh in Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, contains unique fossil finds consisting of previously unknown mammals, birds and reptiles, some dating back 25 million years.

The Far West is where the Simpson Desert starts. This is frontier country, dominated by the Iron red soil and sand dunes.

Big Red, the largest of the dunes at 40 metres high, offers the rare spectacle of sunset toward a blood-coloured horizon. Or see the scenery of Eyre Creek before it spills into the Lake Eyre basin with its braided channels, looking like an Amazonian estuary when in flood.

The closest town to this wild country is Birdsville, population 120, home to the iconic Birdsville Hotel, Birdsville Airstrip and Birdsville Races.



Every September during the Birdsville Races and annual Carnival the airstrip becomes a ‘highway’ allowing people from all over the country to converge on the tiny township, swelling to around 6,000! People camp under aircraft wings, or just roll their swags out under the stars. The horses gallop down the track, the dust flies and the party goes for days. Outside of the carnival, the airstrip hosts the Flying Doctors when required.

Bladensburg National Park, is a large park home to a wonderful variety of wildlife, including tiny mammals called dunnarts; flat-topped mesas and sandstone ranges; and the park's grassland plains and river flats. The park is important to Traditional Owners, the Koa people, and also contains reminders of the area's pastoral history.

The Gulf Savannah is all about wetlands, grasslands and wildlife.  Take the Savannahlander - a railway originally built by a wealthy mining magnate to service a gold mine - from Cairns across the Gulf, or go fishing in the gulf towns of Karumba and Normanton where the Outback meets the sea and marine wetlands wind their way inland. Summer’s monsoon rains bring in a flurry of birdlife and barramundi practically jump in your boat.



If you can’t make it to Outback Queensland, maybe join in the latest craze for fitness- Kangoo Jumps!