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Destinations > On Your Marks
On Your Marks
Issue: July 2009
Words and Photos by Joanne Lane
If you're planning an Outback trip this year, there's no better time to go than late winter for some of the nation's most outlandish festivals. Although getting there is really part of the adventure.
From racing yabbies to horses, throwing watermelons to opal parties it's on your marks and go for some of the remotest events in Queensland, and none more so than the iconic Birdsville Cup. It's the land that time forgot, the back of beyond. A harsh and relentless environment of shifting sands, perspiration, flies and broken vehicle axles. But for some reason 5000 people make it through these wastes every year in the first week of September, by every form of conceivable transport, for a horserace in the middle of nowhere.
The Birdsville Races are sometimes referred to as the Melbourne Cup of the Outback and are one of those quintessential, quirky, Aussie bush events of the do-before-you-die category. They are held in one of Australia's most isolated towns on the fringes of the Simpson Desert in southwest Queensland.
People come by campervan, 4WD, light plane, bus and coach tour to sample a weekend of frivolity in which the actual races are an addition to the fun. Travelling boxing tents, rodeos, booze, sun, dunes, rough roads, museums, galleries and friendly crowds form the non-stop entertainment that starts well before and ends well after the last horse has left the turf.
The action culminates in the Cup, on a racetrack so dry and dusty the jockeys are almost indiscernible in the dirt and haze churned up. Of course the Birdsville adventure is as much the journey as the destination and starts long before the desert gibbers.
From any major city there is tarmac to be traversed before you get to the final unsealed access roads that include the Birdsville Development Road (from Windorah, Queensland), Birdsville Track (from Maree, South Australia), Diamantina/Eyre Development Road (from Boulia, Queensland) and the French Line (from Dalhousie, Northern Territory). Each can be challenging depending on road conditions.
For me the most direct route from Brisbane was the Warrego Highway to the Birdsville Development Road, a 1600km stretch across the breadth of Queensland from the coast to the Simpson's largest dunes.
The four-day journey was like a warm up for the races, a taste of rural Queensland before I got to the back country, meeting the local characters and skipping from one sun-crazed event to the next.
The first 760km stretch on the Warrego passed through the quiet agricultural centres of the Darling Downs like Chinchilla, famed for its bi-annual Melon Festival in February where you ski, slide and bungy on watermelons. While in Miles (340km) you can wander the fascinating Historical Town and be transported back to early pioneering days with period buildings featuring a school, church, bank and post office.
But it wasn't until I got to the historic Dulacca Hotel (370km), built in 1909, where free camping was offered that I got my first real taste of the bush - a steak so big it hung off the plate. While I ate I chatted to other patrons to glean news from the bush telegraph about getting to Birdsville. However the first conversation had me choking on that steak.
"Oh haven't you heard the races have been cancelled?" a gruff bloke with a tiny dog told me. "The road is under water, you can't get there. Group came through yesterday, they'd turned back."
Cancelled? Ye gods. Was this true or a bad case of Chinese whispers? A caravanning couple at the next table leant over when he left. They too were going to Birdsville.
"He's just yanking your chain 'cause his camper's broken down. They can't cancel the races, people can still fly there."
We agreed another 800km lay ahead before the closed road so we could enjoy the places en route and get road updates closer to Birdsville.
The next morning I headed to Roma (515km) for the southern hemisphere's largest cattle saleyards. These come alive on Tuesdays and Thursdays to explosive auctions, complete with a sea of cowboy hats and boots. You can also visit Roma's Big Rig if you're interested in mining or take the turnoff for gorgeous Carnarvon Gorge (250km north). More importantly for me was a tourist office where they reported the Birdsville road could open later that day. So I trundled off hopefully towards Mitchell (587 km), stopping briefly to relax in the artesian waters at the public pool and forget my worries about closed roads.
Charleville (760km) was a few hours further at the end of the Warrego Highway. It seemed a good spot for the night to enjoy the renowned star gazing at the Cosmos Centre and Observatory and the Tuesday night yabby races at the Bailey Bar Caravan Park.
If you've never seen a yabby in action at full speed, open throttle, then it's definitely a sight to behold even though they only move at 100m an hour... if at all. Park owners Julian and Wendy O'Hern auction these yabbies to raise money for the Royal Flying Doctor's Service and they know how to work the crowd to get them plonking money down. An unlikely yabby called 'Boi Lyng Point' won by a claw length in the general unbridled revelry.
From Charleville the Channel Country Byway begins, a one lane, sand-riddled, 450km to Windorah with wandering emus, cattle and scraggly bush. I stopped in quaint Quilpie (980km) where the first thing I noticed, apart from the queue at the petrol pump, was the 45m historic mural by local artist Cheryl Pratt.
read on below advertisement
I met Cheryl working in the tourist office and she told me Quilpie was full of artists. At her recommendation I visited Lyn Barnes's vibrant gallery at the Opal House and St Finbarr church's opal altar.
Quilpie is renowned for opals and shops display colourful finds. To learn more visit the stone mad Opal Hunter, aka Ed Lunney. He'll whisk you in for a cuppa, documentary, opal talk or even take you to a fossicking site. You can also enjoy the opals and show events at the annual Quilpie Opal Festival that finished the previous night while I was cheering on yabbies.
Black clouds built despite my supplications as I drove towards Windorah (1200km), the end of the sealed road. As rain set in I despaired the Birdsville Development Road would be closed.
Windorah is located in dry Channel Country which floods when it rains. However the tourist office confirmed the road was now open and conditions wouldn't change despite the rain, so I stayed put to enjoy the evening's entertainment.
Windorah is a quiet, one pub, one shop town of 80 people but the week before the races it swells with caravans, 4WDs and utes passing through for fuel, food or accommodation. To take advantage of the crowds the Windorah International Yabby Races were started. And if I get no further, it will have been worth driving this far to see them.
These are a far more competitive affair than Charleville where anything goes. The stakes are higher - some yabbies are auctioned for $1000 - and so beer is thrown to rile the yabbies, there's fist shaking, hollering and serious attempts for a taste of glory.
Amongst the crowd are station hands from nearby properties and local residents including the publican and his wife who come out to bid, local roo shooter Geoff Seawright who parades the yabbies, Merv and Bub who run the servo and the Geiger's who once ran the caravan park. You won't miss the Geiger's place thanks to the enormous Priscilla-like bus being done up outside to take them around Australia.
There are retired Aussie couples also on a trip to Birdsville, including my Dulacca pals, and a few foreigners who look shocked at what goes on in the Outback.
Rain set in and did little to dampen the festivities but I'm first down at the tourist office the next morning to get a road update.
"We wouldn't call what fell last night rain love," they told me and I needed no further encouragement to get started on the 400km to Birdsville.
The road is no longer underwater but there are several soft patches and the usual gibbers, straying cattle and dusty road trains. All goes well and by early afternoon I'm passing mud spattered cars at the Birdsville servo - some had a far worse time than me - and pulling in beside the iconic Birdsville Hotel.
It's the eve of Race Day 1 and there's a crowd bidding for last year's memorabilia. I have sand in my mouth and dust up my nostrils but I've made it. This shared experience of crossing the desert helps form the friendly camaraderie amongst race goers over the next two days.
Normie Rowe is performing this evening, there's a film crew from Top Gear who drove an Audi up the Birdsville Track, the original Birdsville mailman Tom Kruse is in town, Peter who sells chips from a mobile van and a man whose been selling badges at the races for 20 years.
I step over the beer cans piled ankle high in the gutter and go in for a pint. Who should be standing at the bar already with beers in hand but my Dulacca mates. We toast our epic adventure getting here even though the races and the real fun are yet to begin...
THINGS TO DO
When the horses aren't thundering up the turf check out Birdsville's local attractions. Go to the Birdsville Working Museum to marvel at John Menzies's amazing collection of stirrups, coaches, signs, telephones and potions. The Blue Poles Gallery is a good way to get acquainted with resident artist Wolfgang John's fabulous works highlighting the local environment. Two good gastronomic stops are at the bakery for pizza, coffee or camel pies and the hotel for a pint. Wander down to the Burke and Wills tree at the river where the famous Australian explorers carved their names or enjoy sunset atop the Simpson Desert's largest sand dune Big Red (40km west).
GETTING THERE
A 4WD is recommended for the final access roads to Birdsville. Most routes are remote and require bush camping so you should be self-sufficient and have reasonable mechanical knowledge. Ring RACQ (1300 130 595) for road updates.
WHERE TO STAY
Hotel/motel and caravan park accommodation is available along the Warrego Highway and Channel Country Byway. There is free camping behind some pubs/roadhouses.
Dulacca Hotel: Cnr Bell St & Glynn Ave, Dulacca
07 4627 6101
Bailey Bar Caravan Park: King St, Charleville
07 4654 1744
www.charlevillebaileybar.com.au
Windorah Caravan Park: 1 Albert St
07 4656 3163
Cooper Cabins: 11 Edward St, Windorah
07 4656 3101
Birdsville Caravan Park, Florence St
07 4656 3214
Birdsville Hotel
07 4656 3244
Camping is permitted on paddocks outside the town common.
Words and Photos by Joanne Lane
If you're planning an Outback trip this year, there's no better time to go than late winter for some of the nation's most outlandish festivals. Although getting there is really part of the adventure.
From racing yabbies to horses, throwing watermelons to opal parties it's on your marks and go for some of the remotest events in Queensland, and none more so than the iconic Birdsville Cup. It's the land that time forgot, the back of beyond. A harsh and relentless environment of shifting sands, perspiration, flies and broken vehicle axles. But for some reason 5000 people make it through these wastes every year in the first week of September, by every form of conceivable transport, for a horserace in the middle of nowhere.
The Birdsville Races are sometimes referred to as the Melbourne Cup of the Outback and are one of those quintessential, quirky, Aussie bush events of the do-before-you-die category. They are held in one of Australia's most isolated towns on the fringes of the Simpson Desert in southwest Queensland.
People come by campervan, 4WD, light plane, bus and coach tour to sample a weekend of frivolity in which the actual races are an addition to the fun. Travelling boxing tents, rodeos, booze, sun, dunes, rough roads, museums, galleries and friendly crowds form the non-stop entertainment that starts well before and ends well after the last horse has left the turf.
The action culminates in the Cup, on a racetrack so dry and dusty the jockeys are almost indiscernible in the dirt and haze churned up. Of course the Birdsville adventure is as much the journey as the destination and starts long before the desert gibbers.
From any major city there is tarmac to be traversed before you get to the final unsealed access roads that include the Birdsville Development Road (from Windorah, Queensland), Birdsville Track (from Maree, South Australia), Diamantina/Eyre Development Road (from Boulia, Queensland) and the French Line (from Dalhousie, Northern Territory). Each can be challenging depending on road conditions.
For me the most direct route from Brisbane was the Warrego Highway to the Birdsville Development Road, a 1600km stretch across the breadth of Queensland from the coast to the Simpson's largest dunes.
The four-day journey was like a warm up for the races, a taste of rural Queensland before I got to the back country, meeting the local characters and skipping from one sun-crazed event to the next.
The first 760km stretch on the Warrego passed through the quiet agricultural centres of the Darling Downs like Chinchilla, famed for its bi-annual Melon Festival in February where you ski, slide and bungy on watermelons. While in Miles (340km) you can wander the fascinating Historical Town and be transported back to early pioneering days with period buildings featuring a school, church, bank and post office.
But it wasn't until I got to the historic Dulacca Hotel (370km), built in 1909, where free camping was offered that I got my first real taste of the bush - a steak so big it hung off the plate. While I ate I chatted to other patrons to glean news from the bush telegraph about getting to Birdsville. However the first conversation had me choking on that steak.
"Oh haven't you heard the races have been cancelled?" a gruff bloke with a tiny dog told me. "The road is under water, you can't get there. Group came through yesterday, they'd turned back."
Cancelled? Ye gods. Was this true or a bad case of Chinese whispers? A caravanning couple at the next table leant over when he left. They too were going to Birdsville.
"He's just yanking your chain 'cause his camper's broken down. They can't cancel the races, people can still fly there."
We agreed another 800km lay ahead before the closed road so we could enjoy the places en route and get road updates closer to Birdsville.
The next morning I headed to Roma (515km) for the southern hemisphere's largest cattle saleyards. These come alive on Tuesdays and Thursdays to explosive auctions, complete with a sea of cowboy hats and boots. You can also visit Roma's Big Rig if you're interested in mining or take the turnoff for gorgeous Carnarvon Gorge (250km north). More importantly for me was a tourist office where they reported the Birdsville road could open later that day. So I trundled off hopefully towards Mitchell (587 km), stopping briefly to relax in the artesian waters at the public pool and forget my worries about closed roads.
Charleville (760km) was a few hours further at the end of the Warrego Highway. It seemed a good spot for the night to enjoy the renowned star gazing at the Cosmos Centre and Observatory and the Tuesday night yabby races at the Bailey Bar Caravan Park.
If you've never seen a yabby in action at full speed, open throttle, then it's definitely a sight to behold even though they only move at 100m an hour... if at all. Park owners Julian and Wendy O'Hern auction these yabbies to raise money for the Royal Flying Doctor's Service and they know how to work the crowd to get them plonking money down. An unlikely yabby called 'Boi Lyng Point' won by a claw length in the general unbridled revelry.
From Charleville the Channel Country Byway begins, a one lane, sand-riddled, 450km to Windorah with wandering emus, cattle and scraggly bush. I stopped in quaint Quilpie (980km) where the first thing I noticed, apart from the queue at the petrol pump, was the 45m historic mural by local artist Cheryl Pratt.
read on below advertisement
I met Cheryl working in the tourist office and she told me Quilpie was full of artists. At her recommendation I visited Lyn Barnes's vibrant gallery at the Opal House and St Finbarr church's opal altar.
Quilpie is renowned for opals and shops display colourful finds. To learn more visit the stone mad Opal Hunter, aka Ed Lunney. He'll whisk you in for a cuppa, documentary, opal talk or even take you to a fossicking site. You can also enjoy the opals and show events at the annual Quilpie Opal Festival that finished the previous night while I was cheering on yabbies.
Black clouds built despite my supplications as I drove towards Windorah (1200km), the end of the sealed road. As rain set in I despaired the Birdsville Development Road would be closed.
Windorah is located in dry Channel Country which floods when it rains. However the tourist office confirmed the road was now open and conditions wouldn't change despite the rain, so I stayed put to enjoy the evening's entertainment.
Windorah is a quiet, one pub, one shop town of 80 people but the week before the races it swells with caravans, 4WDs and utes passing through for fuel, food or accommodation. To take advantage of the crowds the Windorah International Yabby Races were started. And if I get no further, it will have been worth driving this far to see them.
These are a far more competitive affair than Charleville where anything goes. The stakes are higher - some yabbies are auctioned for $1000 - and so beer is thrown to rile the yabbies, there's fist shaking, hollering and serious attempts for a taste of glory.
Amongst the crowd are station hands from nearby properties and local residents including the publican and his wife who come out to bid, local roo shooter Geoff Seawright who parades the yabbies, Merv and Bub who run the servo and the Geiger's who once ran the caravan park. You won't miss the Geiger's place thanks to the enormous Priscilla-like bus being done up outside to take them around Australia.
There are retired Aussie couples also on a trip to Birdsville, including my Dulacca pals, and a few foreigners who look shocked at what goes on in the Outback.
Rain set in and did little to dampen the festivities but I'm first down at the tourist office the next morning to get a road update.
"We wouldn't call what fell last night rain love," they told me and I needed no further encouragement to get started on the 400km to Birdsville.
The road is no longer underwater but there are several soft patches and the usual gibbers, straying cattle and dusty road trains. All goes well and by early afternoon I'm passing mud spattered cars at the Birdsville servo - some had a far worse time than me - and pulling in beside the iconic Birdsville Hotel.
It's the eve of Race Day 1 and there's a crowd bidding for last year's memorabilia. I have sand in my mouth and dust up my nostrils but I've made it. This shared experience of crossing the desert helps form the friendly camaraderie amongst race goers over the next two days.
Normie Rowe is performing this evening, there's a film crew from Top Gear who drove an Audi up the Birdsville Track, the original Birdsville mailman Tom Kruse is in town, Peter who sells chips from a mobile van and a man whose been selling badges at the races for 20 years.
I step over the beer cans piled ankle high in the gutter and go in for a pint. Who should be standing at the bar already with beers in hand but my Dulacca mates. We toast our epic adventure getting here even though the races and the real fun are yet to begin...
THINGS TO DO
When the horses aren't thundering up the turf check out Birdsville's local attractions. Go to the Birdsville Working Museum to marvel at John Menzies's amazing collection of stirrups, coaches, signs, telephones and potions. The Blue Poles Gallery is a good way to get acquainted with resident artist Wolfgang John's fabulous works highlighting the local environment. Two good gastronomic stops are at the bakery for pizza, coffee or camel pies and the hotel for a pint. Wander down to the Burke and Wills tree at the river where the famous Australian explorers carved their names or enjoy sunset atop the Simpson Desert's largest sand dune Big Red (40km west).
GETTING THERE
A 4WD is recommended for the final access roads to Birdsville. Most routes are remote and require bush camping so you should be self-sufficient and have reasonable mechanical knowledge. Ring RACQ (1300 130 595) for road updates.
WHERE TO STAY
Hotel/motel and caravan park accommodation is available along the Warrego Highway and Channel Country Byway. There is free camping behind some pubs/roadhouses.
Dulacca Hotel: Cnr Bell St & Glynn Ave, Dulacca
07 4627 6101
Bailey Bar Caravan Park: King St, Charleville
07 4654 1744
www.charlevillebaileybar.com.au
Windorah Caravan Park: 1 Albert St
07 4656 3163
Cooper Cabins: 11 Edward St, Windorah
07 4656 3101
Birdsville Caravan Park, Florence St
07 4656 3214
Birdsville Hotel
07 4656 3244
Camping is permitted on paddocks outside the town common.
