Blackall, Central Queensland
It seems that every pub we visit in a country town, they are searving Chinese food for dinner. Blackall was no exception.
The first time we visited Blackall was actually on a work trip. We flew into the small Longreach airport then hired a car and drove back through Barcaldine, then arrived in Blackall. We stayed at one of the motels there, which was quite nice. As we checked in, the lady warned us about the water. It didn’t bother me that much, but Jazz couldn’t cope with it. The water smells like rotten eggs. It was explained to us that there are enormous bores bringing up water from under the town from the Great Artisian Basin. Aparently this water is millions of years old. I guess that explains the smell.
The purpose of our work trip was to film an Organic Beef Farm for a client. That morning we met the farmer “Butch” and his wife Peta on their 55 thousand acre property just out of town named Gillespie. The country hospitality is almost overwealming, within minutes of our arrival, tea and freshly baked scones are presented.
Gillespie is 40km long and 7km wide. Butch runs a few thousand head of organic cattle on the property quite successfully. The land appears dry and barren, but the cattle are so fat and healthy. As Butch shows us around the property he points out the different plants and crops he has planted over the past 30 years that the cattle eat and get high nutrition from. He explains that his biggest problems on the property is not lack of water, but the Kangaroos. It is estimated that he is feeding and watering over 20 thousand Roos on his property! Thats obviously not good for business. Using his laid back country personality, he takes it all in his stride and gets on with business.
After a big day filming on the land, we come back to the farmhouse for a cold beer and a BBQ dinner. When he pulled the steaks out of the fridge for the BBQ, he almost needed a forklift. They were the biggest Rump Steaks I have ever seen. Now Jazz isn’t the biggest meat eater. I can remember how hard we all laughed when he pointed out all the steaks on the BBQ and explained who each of them were for. He started pointing out all of the monster steaks “Well that one there is mine, that one if for you, the real big one is for Mikey, and that one,” as he points to the smallest steak, tiny compared to the others “that vegatarian steak is for Jazz.”
Butch’s wife Peta keeps an amazing garden. Because of the plentyful Artesian water supply, amongst the outback / desert scenery in every directions, the house block is a green and colourful, lush oasis that has actually won awards.
The other times since our stay at Gillespie we have travelled to Blackall were when we have been driving through. We have stayed at a caravan park in town on two occasions. It was fairly basic, but had all the essentials. Power, water and reasonabally priced.
We walked over to one of the 2 pubs in town. We had to have a laugh when the “boy” that served us beer was 16, still in school uniform (it might have been 4pm) and bare feet. His family runs the pub and it turns out that there is a special law that a minor can get their RSA in special circumstances. It was still funny. This pub was going through some remodeling, so they didn’t have any food available. We walked up the road to the other pub and had a beer there and had a look to see what was on the menu for dinner. You guessed it, CHINESE. In the end we walked back towards the caravan park and got some take away from the fish and chip shop.
Because we were only staying the one night in Blackall, we did a bit of a lazy setup of the camper trailer. It didn’t look pretty. On the way back from the fish and chip shop, a large group of grey nomads let us know what they thought of our poor attempt of setting up for the night. They found it quite amusing and all laughed at us. We ended up having a few drinks with them that night, then retired to sleep for the next days big drive ahead.
