SO MUCH FUN IN LONGREACH

THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO IN LONGREACH!

Quite surprising really considering the size of the town. They really seem to have the tourism thing switched on and welcome us all wholeheartedly. I would imagine tourists make quite a contribution to this outback town economically. One company in particular, Kinnon & Co, do it really well and have embraced the whole outback theme and turned it into a real entertainment and information experience. They offer packages or individual experiences. We chose the Pioneer Package and had an absolute ball ! It cost us $204.00 each but we think it was so very worth it.  There is just so much I could write about what we did, and the fun we had in Longreach but I will summarise or it would take up pages and pages, as it has in my written journal.

Caravan Park – Longreach Caravan Park

The smallest van park in longreach, a bit daggy, but the most friendly.  Lovely casual atmosphere and the people who stay at this park are friendly, casual and down to earth. Good hot showers, old fashioned shower heads, so you get a nice soak.  The owners ring the cowbell at 10am and 4pm for free smoko and perhaps bush poetry or live music. Great place to stay.

Qantas Museum.

Now I am not really into planes but the tour of the 747 was really quite interesting, as was our guide. I really don’t know how she remembers everything but she is chocka block full of information, and quite entertaining as well.  We were informed of all the ins and outs and ups and downs of a 747 and the history of that particular plane. The museum itself is very nice and if you are into planes and history you would be there all day reading and looking. My father loves this sort of thing and would be there for a week. The tour guide would have a nervous breakdown if he ever visited. Nice coffee there too – priorities!!

Starlights Spectacular.

Held at the Kinnon & Co Station Store. Bloody hilarious and well worth it. Richard Kinnon and his two young boys put on a show of a fictional day in the life of Harry Readford (famous cattle duffer). The show involves a magnificent cremello stallion, an equally gorgeous buckskin, a red heeler dog and a very well feathered rooster. Very entertaining and comical Goes for approximately an hour. Not allowed to take photos of the show though. Bugger!

Cobb & Co Stagecoach Ride.

Once again put on by Kinnon & Co and leaves from the Station Store. What a highlight of our trip so far! I was lucky enough to sit up top next to Richard while we toured Longreach and then went for a gallop through the scrub – well…. along a track. You don’t gallop in the scrub in case a roo jumps out and gets tangled up in 16 legs! It has happened.  Four beautiful grey Percheron horses pulled our coach.   Joe and his mum and dad sat inside the stagecoach and loved it as well. Richard provides an interesting and entertaining commentary on the history of Longreach and of Cobb & Co via the headsets that are provided. It’s not for the faint of heart and apparently insurance wise is up there with bungee jumping.  The Stagecoach ride goes for approximately an hour, its actually quite hard on the horses. Its bloody awesome though!!! After that its tea and scones (OMG it was so yum! The best ever!) and then an old movie called Smiley about a mischievous young boy growing up in the fifties or sixties.  Cool!

Sunset Paddle Boat Cruise and Bushmans campfire dinner. 

Once again run by Kinnon & Co. Richard picked us up in the large bus (is there anything that man doesn’t do!) and drove us out to the Paddle Boat on the Thompson River. Its powered by diesel, not steam.  There we cruised up the river for about an hour, enjoying nibblies, the beautiful reflections on the water and the gorgeous sunset. 

After the cruise we all had a bushmans dinner of stew, apple dessert, tea and damper around the campfire while listening to Scotty recite bush poetry and tell jokes which was brilliant and at times bloody hilarious.It was a great night. Richard then dropped us back at the van park.

Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame.

Very big and very well done. It’s a beautiful big building with lovely architecture and full of
information and history.

The highlight was the stockmans show out the back. Luke (who puts it on) is a former horse breaker turned entertainer and larrikin.  A very skilled horseman he puts on a brilliant and hilarious show.  He is very good a telling tall bullshit stories and you laugh and laugh at his antics. This show involves 3 brilliantly trained paint horses, a gorgeous camel called Alice, 3 very intelligent sheep dogs and 6 huge bullocks. Had a ball!

The only thing that we got in the package that we didn’t do was the hour long tour of The School of the Air. We got the tour time wrong and missed it by half an hour! Oh well…shit happens!

Well, these were the main things we did at Longreach and we can highly recommend them all. There was so much more we could have done there but we can’t do everything! Full credit to Richard Kinnon and his family for entertaining us  “terrorists” and for what he has done for the town of Longreach. They love what they do, they work hard, they love the area and it’s very obvious.