Longreach

We had a full day in Longreach and as we weren't going to visit the Stockmans Hall of Fame or Qantas Founders Museum had to decide what we wanted to do.

The School of the Air sounded interesting, so off we went.  The tour was fascinating.  The technology of today has come so far since the start of the school using radios.  Now it is all telephone and satellite internet connections. The facility is set up like a school in some ways, to provide for groups of students to visit for get togethers, but very different in that there are lots of studios where the teachers have their sessions with the students.  Primary school students have a one hour on air session with their teacher each day and the rest of their work is done on their own, supervised by their parent or in some cases a paid governess.

It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but the school covers the area surrounded by the black texta line.  They are mainly isolated families, but also include some families travelling for various reasons.  For their final two years of high school students either go to a major centre to a boarding school, or use the Brisbane School of Distance Education.

Although we didn't visit the Qantas Museum, we took a photo of the Boing 747 parked there. 

We then had the rest of the day to just wander.

A few interesting things about Longreach.

All the streets are named after birds.

There are no traffic lights.

There are next to no roundabouts.

There are next to no give way or stop signs, which is a bit disconcerting.  The old "Give way to your right" rule applies.

The power poles are down the middle of the wide streets.  Mostly you turn in front of them (like the light standards in Bathurst), but sometimes you go around.  Just look at the road surface to see what is the norm.

The population has shrunk in the last few years from about 5,000 to about 3,000.  The drought, which has been going for several years here, has contributed significantly to the decline. 

"The Drovers" sculpture in the middle of the main street.

This nice and shady car park was rather impressive.

The railway came to Longreach in 1892 and remained the terminus of the line until 1926, when it finally was extended, reaching to Winton in 1928.  Hence the town became the commercial centre of the Central West of Queensland.  This railway station building was completed in 1916.

A passenger train comes twice a week.

It is the "Spirit of the Outback" and was in town when we were there.  We were surprised at how many carriages it has.  It runs from Brisbane.

Longreach sits on the Tropic of Capricorn.  We've missed seeing it on the east coast  Hopefully we will on our way home this time.

The council chambers are rather an impressive building sitting in front of the water tower.  No mural on this one..........yet.....

There weren't all that many other impressive old buildings.  The town is much more modern and commercial.  Having said that, there is still only one main supermarket, an IGA, a Target Country and no other chain stores or fast food chain outlets, which we found a little surprising.

Having had a good look around, we adjourned to the shady verandah at Mick's cousin's house and spent a lazy afternoon, which we were ready for.