20120821 Qld Quilpie to Toompine

20120821 On to Quilpie, a few more shops and an interesting Museum in the information center.  Time to try a Quilpie pie, they looked alright only I didn't enjoy mine as much as Des did.

In 1871 the first Opal lease in Australia was registered south of Quilpie only very little work was carried out on the 360 acre lease other than sinking a couple of shallow shafts, the lease was abandoned after several seasons.  Twenty years later the discovery of Duck Creek further south brought renewed interest in the area, the lease was re-pegged and named Pride of the Hills.  Duck Creek was discovered in 1871 and was renowned for seam Opal of the highest quality, possessed of a brilliance surpassing that of almost all other crystal Opal on the Queensland fields.

Quilpie Town

Bulls Gully 1951:

Adavale-Quilpie firefighters after a bush fire at Bulls Gully, now that's how you do it Ken.

Malcom Brown's horse covered in cobwebs accumulated in mulga, about 1946.  Now thats what I call a top photo.

Amy Johnson: Pioneer Airwoman
Whilst in Australia Amy Johnson made a schedule flight to Charleville, however upon landing at what she thought was Charleville; she discovered that she was actually in Quilpie.  On the map that she was using to navigate, Charleville was at the end of the railway line, however Quilpie was the end of the railway line & accordingly, she had mistakenly landed at Quilpie, much to the excitement of the locals.

Adaval to Windora Mail Car 1921, You can do a tour of the outback mail run which takes you to the land of the original 'King in the Grass Castles' delivering mail to 10 remote properties on a 400km round trip for a mere $149, no thanks.

Telaphone Exchange

My Aunty use to work on one of these ancient exchanges when she was young and ended up having to were a hearing aid for the rest of her life and the certificate in the frame is an Accident Prevention Merit Award, what a joke.

This is a nest the Swallows make and they are all over all the buildings, what a mess they make, I know what I’d be doing and that’s certainly not feeding them.

After leaving Quilpie Des found a camp spot in the camp 6 book at the Toompine Hotel in Toompine with free camping so we thought we would check it out.  When we arrived we found it wasn't just free parking but power and hot showers so we stayed for a couple of days.

The scene on the way to Toompine is quite pretty with the wild yellow shrubs in bloom and the occasionally purple ground cover.

Toompine, the pub with no town, is another town the Cobb & Co use to service with its regular coach schedule, and the Toompine hotel is all that remains from those early pioneering days.

Every afternoon the many goats, a couple of donkeys, miniture horses and Llamas are rounded up and locked in for the night, Ooo and heaps of dogs.

 Des went to the pub and meet a couple of guys and laid on a big one coming home at 10.00pm quite pissy, but he had a good night.

22-08-2012  I blogged trying to finish Lara Station before leaving, power soo has it's advantages but by late in the afternoon I had had enough and went for a walk.  No cooking tonight so we got dressed and went to the pub $15 for crumbed steak and vegies only I wasn't hungry.  Des brought the special and it was huge so I ended up eating part of his and the steak was very tender.  Des went to bed and I went back to the pub for a few more and a chat with the locals.

23-08-2012  The wind was picking up so we decided to leave, to much dust here, Eulo next.