Bucking bronco at rodeo
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland

Highlights

Barcaldine

This ‘Garden City of the West’ was the first Australian town to tap the waters of the Great Artesian Basin, an event commemorated by the town’s giant windmill. The Australian Workers Heritage Centre, in town, recollects the 1891 Shearers’ Strike that led to the formation of the Australian Workers Party, forerunner of the Australian Labor Party. It also features recreated work precincts
in tribute to all the workers who helped shape early Australia.

Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre

This impressive institution is a lasting tribute to the outback people – Indigenous, European settler, and current day inhabitants alike. The imaginative displays show the development of the outback. Don’t miss the nearby Qantas Founders Outback Heritage Museum, which tells the story of the oldest airline in the English-speaking world.

Min Min light

On certain nights under certain conditions, the town of Boulia is handed over to the realm of the Min Min, a strange ball of white light that hovers above the ground, disappearing, reappearing and moving around at will. The possibility of seeing the phenomenon, whether supernatural or scientific, lures many travellers. For most, long cold nights yield no results, but there’s always Min Min Encounter in town, an impressive centre where you can soak up the stories surrounding this outback legend.

Mount Isa

This is Queensland’s largest outback town. For a quintessential outback experience, visit Outback at Isa, complete with underground mining tunnels and mining machinery. Nearby is the Kalkadoon Tribal Centre and Cultural Keeping Place, with artefacts of the fierce and proud Kalkadoon Aboriginal people.

Channel Country

Monsoon rains in the tropical north flood the hundreds of inland river channels that meander through
Queensland’s south-west. Here cattle graze on huge semi-desert pastoral holdings. Spectacular red sandhills are found in the area, particularly in Simpson Desert National Park, beyond Birdsville.

Waltzing Matilda Centre

The area surrounding Winton is known as Matilda Country, because Australia’s most famous song, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, was written by Banjo Paterson at nearby Dagworth Station in 1895. Created as a tribute to the swagman life, the Waltzing Matilda Centre provides an interesting look at Australian history. Among other things, it incorporates the regional gallery, interactive exhibits and the Matilda Museum, harking back to Winton’s pioneering days and the first days of Qantas (whose first office was registered here in 1920).

Focus On: Ancient animals

Queensland’s outback is a veritable feast of fossils that document its changing ecological history. There is a fossil collection at Flinders Discovery Centre in Hughenden, its main exhibit being the replica skeleton of Muttaburrasaurus langdoni. In 1963 the skeleton of this unknown dinosaur was found in a creek near Muttaburra. Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond is well known for its vertebrate fossils, lovingly collected in hundreds of exhibits, and the Riversleigh Fossil Centre in Mount Isa showcases the tremendous findings, still being unearthed, of the nearby Riversleigh Fossil Site. For a bit of dinosaur drama, visit Lark Quarry Conservation Park south-west of Winton, where the preserved tracks of a dinosaur stampede lie protected under a shelter.