Wednesday 30.5.12 Longreach

Just a bit to add to yesterday. Tom Lockie, our tour guide, has his own version of Qld history that won’t necessarily be seen in history books. He credits much of the outback and this area particularly to being opened up by a fellow called Nat Buchanan. The stories Tom told are legendary and we have bought a beautiful book all about the area. Also interesting to hear local opinions about issues we hear nation wide. Their water source since 1888, the Artesian Basin, has been declared fit for human consumption with never anything added. The government has decided that soon the water will need to be tested and treated. This is at the same time when the coal seam industry is coning into being. Also government has given approval for 6 billon dollar coal mines locally. This owned by an Indian company and a connection to Gina Reinhardt. Already talk about where labour force will come from.

We are in a huge caravan park of 45 acres right across from Qantas museum and near Stockman’s hall of fame. This has every kind of accommodation imaginable. We can ride our bikes into town.

Yesterday we left Barcaldine and made our way to Longreach. We went thru Ilfracombe, only tiny but has a mile long exhibition of machinery. We went to a free truck wash, they want to stop seeds from spreading, but it wasn’t working. The fellow working it was a lay minister and we had a lovely chat with him.

Even though this is a very big park people are very friendly. There are brolgas wandering thru the park and kangaroos on the grass land.

Thursday 31st Longreach

It was only a ten minute walk to the QANTAS Founders Museum. You can see the tail of the 747 from about 3 km away. We got there 5 minutes early and had to wait for the place to open – right on time at 9am. We decided that it was cheaper for us to become members of the founder’s museum than it was to just visit and pay the normal fee. We can now go as many times as we like for free in the next 2 years!!!! Not too sure if we’ll get back within 2 years but we did save $25.

One of the Model aircraft that circles the museum.

We did an hour tour beginning at the 747. The sad story is that the concrete base that the front wheels rest on sank 30cm overnight a few months ago and they have had to stop people going inside the plane till they fix it. They were only digging the hole for the new reinforced base today. They had to go down about 4 metres to fine rock for the base.

747 in the pits

We got the story of the 747 and how it was just about ready for scrap when Qantas decided to give it to Longreach. A $5 million dollar donation, as that is what the aircraft would bring on the scrap market.

They also had a Catalina (PB5Y) which saw service during the Second World War doing the “2 Sunrise Flights” to Sri Lanka. They plane would depart Perth in the morning and fly 24 to 32 hours non-stop and arrive in Sri Lanka after the passengers had experienced 2 sunrises. The Japanese and Germans never knew that the aircrafts were flying throughout the war. Mainly military people or politicians made the daunting flights as there were no insulation, sound deadening, in-flight service and minimal food and beverages – for 24 hours.To get the aircraft to Longreach (it was bought from Spain where it was used as a firefighting bomber) they had to swap the engines for 2 DC3 engines. They are now back on the DC3 and the old Catalina engines are being restored but only to show what they looked like as the engines will never fly again.

PB5Y Catalina - 2 Sunrise flight express

The next was the 707. This was the first jet aircraft that Qantas ever bought back in the late fifties. It is an unusual 707 in that it is 10 metres shorter than the normal 707s because Qantas wanted to operate it out of Nandi to Honolulu then on to the States. The only problem was that Nandi runway wasn’t all that long and there was a hump in the middle of the runway. This meant that it didn’t matter which direction the aircraft took off in, it was always trying to accelerate UP HILL. The engines were always the draw back in the early 707s. Needless to say the aircraft on the whole was a complete success.

707 cockpit -"enough room for a dance"

The aircraft concerned had been through 8 different owners over the forty or so years it was in operation. In its last life it had been set up as a corporate luxury barge. The funny thing about the initial set up was that the company that converted it from commercial to corporate, made all their very plush armchairs and lounges and leather furniture from pig skin (it WAS done in Texas). All very plush and beautiful looking. The only problem was they were showing the aircraft at air shows and they were targeting the Arab princes, Moslems all and they would never touch a pig, alive or dead. Eventually it sat weathering and rusting away in the south of England, until a newspaper reported about it to the Australian people. Someone saw it and they rushed to buy it the aircraft for a pound (plus tax).

After quite a long period refurbishing it, all by volunteer labour from Australia, the aircraft was flown home through Dublin, Iceland, Miami, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Fiji then Sydney and eventually to here in Longreach. Its identical sister met the 707 at Miami. The sister aircraft is owned and flown by John Travolta. The Qantas one was number 1 to be purchased and Travolta’s aircraft was number 13.

The set up inside was quite luxurious with leather and solid wood everywhere.

Fancy bathroom in the 707

When the tour was finished we went back to the Museum itself and we wandered through that for about 2 hours and that included a walk through a DC3 they had just outside the building. We even had lunch there, and then walked back to the caravan park. We were forced to buy quite a few souvenirs.

the DC3

After lunch we rode our bikes into Longreach to buy something for tea then we rode back and up the road another km or so for a bit of exercise before we went back to Fanda.

We will probably move to the other caravan park closer to town tomorrow and do some riding around the river.

That’s it!