Queensland Outback in Australia Many travellers spend all their time on the coast of Queensland, enjoying cities, beaches and coral reef, and miss out the most unique place - the outback in Australia.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
It’s harsh and empty, too hot during the summer and too cold during the winter, but it's so much fun to travel in inland Australia. People are friendly, pubs have character, soils are red and outback national parks are great with all the Australian outback animals.
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Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Queensland Outback in Australia While every state in Australia has at least a bit of the Outback that always offers great experiences, Queensland outback has probably got most history, and the outback attractions in Queensland are easily accessible.
While in the outback Northern Territory and Western Australia there are virtually no sealed roads except the major highways, in Queensland you can criss-cross the outback without having to drive a 4WD. Some of the most popular Queensland outback attractions are the Qantas Museum and Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, Opalton and Lark Quarry outside Winton, Min Min Lights in Boulia, and Mount Isa Copper Mine and Lake Moondarra in Mount Isa. Julia Creek is known for the rare Julia Creek Dunnart, and Kynuna for its classic Blue Heeler Pub. Here is information about outback Queensland attractions, and in the end of the page is an Australian outback map, showing you a map of Queensland Australia.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Emerald Queensland - Queensland Outback in Australia A classic Queensland outback journey can for example start in Mackay region or Rockhampton from where you can drive inland towards Emerald - a centre of surrounding mining industry and cotton and sunflower farms. Around Emerald are the world’s richest sapphire deposits in gemfields around Anakie, Rubyvale and Sapphire, where gemstone fanatics go fossicking. If you want to try, you have to buy a permit (cheap) either in Emerald’s courthouse, or in the general stores in the towns of gemfields. In Rubyvale, you can attend tours to the Miners Heritage Walk-in Mine or Bobby Dazzler Mine. Rubyvale Gem Gallery and Miners Cottage sell the precious stones, and Fascination takes you fossicking. In Sapphire, you can ‘do a bucket’ with Pat’s Gems, and the Forever Mine has gems on sale.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Barcaldine - Queensland Outback in Australia Inland from Emerald is Barcaldine, known as “garden city of the west” thanks to the good supplies of the bore water which comes from the Great Artesian Basin, a huge underground water supply that extends to Gulf Savannah in north Queensland. Another claim of fame of Barcaldine is its workers heritage history – it became the centre of the historic Shearers’ Strike in 1891 which lead to the formation of Australian Workers’ Party (today’s Australian Labour Party). The organisers’ meeting place, a ghost gum near the train station, was called the Tree of Knowledge and became the symbol for workers’ rights. It was a healthy and green 200-years-old tree until in April 2006, someone poured poison on its roots and killed the tree, but it’s still standing there, probably more famous than ever before. You can learn more about the history of Australian workers’ at the Australian Workers Heritage Centre, a large complex which includes a Workers Wall with old photos, Old Hospital Ward, replicas of an old courthouse, police centre, powerhouse and an Old Hospital Ward; an old schoolhouse and Australian Bicentennial Theatre which toured Australia in 1988 during the Australian Bicentennial celebrations. If you stay over the night, Barcaldine accommodation include Shakespeare Hotel, Landsborough Lodge Motel, Blacksmith’s Cottage B&B, and Homestead Caravan Park, a friendly place with evening entertainment and free damper and billy tea. Grey Nomads love it, but I enjoyed it too.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Longreach Queensland - Queensland Outback in Australia West from Barcaldine is Longreach – the original home town for Qantas Airlines and the home for the famous Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame & Outback Heritage Centre - probably the biggest tourist attraction in outback Queensland. About 2km east of town, it has excellent displays about the people and the history of Australian outback, including pioneer women and European and Aboriginal stockmen. The Qantas Museum is equally impressive, with old workshops and Qantas planes in the original hangar, and displays of the whole history of the airline since 1920s. Outside there is a modern Qantas plane that you can visit on a tour that takes you inside the plane, to the engine rooms and even for a walk on its wing, and if you pay a little extra which I did, you can sit on the pilot’s seat and they teach you how to drive it. And this is not any Qantas plane – it was taken here forever and turned into part of Qantas Museum since its last flight home from Bali in October 2002 – with the Australian victims of Bali bombings.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Longreach Accommodation - Queensland Outback in Australia Other things to do while in Longreach are to visit the Powerhouse Museum, Longreach School of Distance Education, and quite a unique outback show in Banjo’s Outback Theatre. There is a dinner in the Pioneer’s shed and the funny show after the dinner in Banjo’s Outback Theatre. Longreach accommodation include Commercial Hotel, Old Time Cottage, Town Lodge, Aussie Betta Cabins, Longreach Caravan Park and Albert Park Motel.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Winton Australia - Queensland Outback in Australia The next town on your road towards inland is Winton – a cattle-and sheep-farming centre, mostly famous for Australian unofficial anthem Waltzing Matilda. Banjo Patterson, one of the most famous Australian poets, wrote Waltzing Matilda after visiting Winton in 1890s and supposedly the song was first performed in North Gregory Hotel on the main street. Today on the same street, you can visit the Waltzing Matilda Centre, with both visual and audio displays about the song and its history, complete with a statue of Banjo Paterson in front of it, and a statue of Jolly Swagman across the street. There is also an old canvas theatre in the town, lots of nice pubs, and Arno’s Wall – a collection of all sorts of old items you can imagine, many built into a wall. Pubs (Winton Pub, Tatterstalls, Australian Hotel and North Gregory) have accommodation, but they can be noisy – there are also Pelicans Water Motel, and Matilda Country Tourist Park, where during the night there is entertainment. In the back yard of North Gregory Hotel, you can camp for free, and use all of their facilities.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Opalton - Queensland Outback in Australia Winton is surrounded by red soils and opal country, if you have time, drive south to Opalton. It’s a dirt road but not too rough, and you’ll enter a different world altogether. The town consists of nothing but a few opal fossickers living in campervans (permanently), and an abandoned shop and caravan park called the Outpost. (It may be taken over by someone now, but in 2006 when I went there, it was for sale for $65,000). On the way back to Winton, don’t miss the fossilised dinosaur stampede in Lark Quarry, it’s quite amazing. While the earth would have been covered in such tracks between 200,000 and 65,000 million years ago, the Lark Quarry tracks are some of the few preserved dinosaur tracks in the world (tracks, and animals themselves, only fossilise in quite special conditions - if they are covered by water before oxygen destroys them, and then quickly covered by sediment layers so the erosion doesn’t get to them). There are no accommodation or caravan parks along the Opalton road loop, but you can camp anywhere in the bush.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Kynuna - Queensland Outback in Australia West of Winton are the one-pub-towns Kynuna and McKinlay, both with unique pubs. The Walkabout Creek Hotel in McKinlay is famous for having featured in Paul Hogan’s classic Australian movie Crocodile Dundee. Named after Australia’s most popular pet, the Blue Heeler Pub in Kynuna is known for its walls covered in “I was here’s” and the surf life saver’s watch tower, used on the annual Surf Life Savings Carnivals (yes, I know the ocean is miles away but Australian outback people are known to put it on against all the odds – there is another one, Henley on Todd in Alice Springs in Northern Territory, where locals run inside the bottomless boats while carrying their boat in a race along the dry Todd river! In Kynuna, they carry a surf boat along the main street, compete in surfboard races and have an evening "beach party". In both Kynuna and McKinlay you can stay on the camp ground behind the pub.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Birdsville Australia - Queensland Outback in Australia Another classic outback spot is Birdsville. It is the remotest town in Queensland Outback, and it used to be a busy spot when it laid on the cattle transport road to South Australia, but today it’s almost a ghost town, except in September each year when Birdsville Races bring over 6000 people to the town. There is also the Birdsville Working Museum with lots of old tools and memorabilia. And as most of tiny and remote outback towns, Birdsville is famous for its pub in the edge of the town where behind it there is nothing but the endless Simpson Desert. You can stay at the pub, or in Birdsville Caravan Park.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Boulia Accommodation - Queensland Outback in Australia Boulia, north of Birdsville, is also a pretty remote stump. It is known for the Min Min Lights – an unsolved phenomenon of bolls of light that people have seen for hundreds of years during the summer and there are some scary stories about the lights following you – check them out at the Min Min Encounter. There is also the interesting Boulia Stone House Museum, in a building built in 1888. There is a caravan park in town, or you can use other Boulia accommodation like Australian Hotel (the town’s only pub), or the Desert Sands Motel. We camped in the bush and it was just as good as anything, except that we hoped to see the Min Min lights around our campfire – they didn’t turn up.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Mount Isa Mine City - Queensland Outback in Australia North of Boulia is Mount Isa, a large mining town dominated by the silhouette of the world’s largest underground mine. You can visit both the underground and surface mine on tours, it is very interesting to see what’s happening in Mount Isa Copper Mine. There is a new Tourist Centre at Outback at Isa, where you can see scientists at work in the Riversleigh Fossil Centre and watch the displays about Mount Isa’ history. The city Lookout is excellent with nice views over the mine and the town; and there is an interesting Underground Museum, and an Underground Hospital, now turned into a museum – it was a working hospital during the WWII. North of the town is Lake Moondarra where you can go fishing but you cannot camp here – Moondarra Caravan Park is close-by. Caravan parks and hotels in Mt Isa include Hotel Boyd, Travellers Haven, Mount Isa Caravan and Tourist Village, Sunset Top Tourist Park, and I recommend the Copper City Caravan Park – very friendly service. Riverside Tourist Park that is often listed in tourist brochures is crap unless things have changed.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Cloncurry Australia - Queensland Outback in Australia East of Mount Isa is Cloncurry – the birthplace of Royal Flying Doctor Service. It was a large copper mining town in the early 1900s, today it is a small pastoral centre with Mary Kathleen Museum, John Flynn Place with displays about the history of Royal Flying Doctors Service, and a few nice pubs (when in the outback, always visit pubs, they have a lot of character both in and outside). Mary Kathleen is an interesting ghost town along the road between Cloncurry and Mount Isa, abandoned after the WWII, with nothing but sealed streets with street names like “1st Street” and “14th Ave” written on the tarseal – there is not a building in the town. Places to stay in Cloncurry are Central Hotel, Wagon Wheel Motel, Gidgee Inn and Gilbert Park Tourist Park.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Julia Creek - Queensland Outback in Australia East of Cloncurry is the small town Julia Creek, known for the rare Julia Creek Dunnart, and the pub - Julia Creek Hotel. Richmond with a large dinosaur statue – the area between Richmond, Hughenden in west and Winton in south is called the Dinosaur Triangle because of a lot of fossilised dinosaur bones found here, and each of the towns has a dinosaur statue to take photos with. In Julia Creek you can stay at Julia Creek Hotel and a basic caravan park. In Richmond, you can discover the dinosaur history in the Kronosaurus Korner. In Hughenden, you can do the same at the Dinosaur Display and Museum.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Hughenden Accommodation - Queensland Outback in Australia North of Hughenden there is the beautiful Porcupine Gorge, where you can camp at the Pyramid Lookout. Hughenden accommodation includes the Grand Hotel, Royal Hotel-motel, or Allan Terry Caravan Park. In Richmond, there are the Richmond Caravan Park, Aminite Inn and Federal Palace Hotel.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Charters Towers Australia - Queensland Outback in Australia East of Hughenden is Charters Towers, a historical and modern mining town. It was once the second largest city in Queensland (after Brisbane) with 25 pubs only on the main street and nearly 100 mines around it. The buildings along Mossman Street – the World Theatre, the Civic Club and the ABC Bank Building, all shine the town's former wealth. Also on Mossman Street is the old international Stock Exchange Arcade, built in 1888 – one of Australia’s oldest. Zara Clark Museum contains a collection of old memorabilia and the Miners Cottage gives an insight to the life of the miners of the last century.
Courtesy of Tourism Queensland
Accommodation in Charters Towers Australia - Queensland Outback in Australia Venus Gold Battery has an excellent tour where you can see how the process of purification worked in the old days and the Lookout has a display with lots of interesting stories about gold, ghosts and what the greed sometimes lead to. Places to stay are Royal Private Hotel, Park Motel (excellent restaurant, locals go to dine there), Charters Towers Motel (free breakfast), the Best Western Country Road Motel and Charters Towers Tourist Park. I don’t recommend the central Mexican Tourist Park unless you like crap accommodation and unfriendly service.
Here's an Australian outback map, showing you the map of Queensland Australia. I have tagged the places that I mentioned on this web page. You can click on the tags to see what places they are, and double-click anywhere on the map to zoom it in and see the places closer. Drag the map to move around, and if you want to see the satellite image with Google Earth, click on "Sat" in the top right hand corner.
NOTE: This website is written in British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all correct in the language used in Australia.
