The Steamtug Blog

Coming back out here to the land of the Maranoa drover, things are looking different. 2 weeks ago it was still green from the summer rains (wet season), but now all looks dry and is desperate for rain! But don’t bother looking on google maps where I have gone, it’s so far up a black fellas bum, they don’t even have the tracks drawn in for the city folk living in the modern world! Where exactly is it? Well, about 7 hours drive along the Warrego Hwy from Brisbane into the Darling Downs region, through Toowoomba, Dalby and Chinchilla to our main office in Miles. Just out of town on the Leichhardt Highway, just before Condamine, home of the famous Condamine bell invented there by an old bush cocky (farmer) who sold it to the Swiss alps cow “Milkers and grazers association” for a wheel barrow full of Swiss milk chocolate (Not sure if this is true or I just dreamed it one night) is our training centre in the Condabri camp. I often have to go here for a session of stand up comedy they call training where I explain the thermodynamic principle of iso-dynamic compression for people who don’t understand or care. Oh, did I mention that it’s right next to the Miles aerodrome which I use to fly from Brisbane, taking just 1 hour instead of the long drive. But back to Miles, then further west, but you don’t continue on the Leichhardt like I did first time I went there. My brand new Toyota Prado that they gave me as a sweetener to convince me that life out here was going to be fabulous, just went zoom zoom, all the way to Taroom. About 140 kms off course!! Lol… No, you go towards Roma, passing great metropolis cities, some so small they don’t even have a pub, and the cows in the road side paddocks are counted into the local population. Towns like,

Drillham- population 272. Established as a town around the camp built for the railway workers who built the railway bridge over Drillham creek to put the rail line through to Roma in the 1878, and remembered for a huge typhoid outbreak

Dullacca- Population 88, Where I recently found a horse roaming around on Eastern boundary of the highway at the start of town. I thought I would do the good citizen thing, and went back to the local police station to report it. The local copper was washing his shiny highway patrol car and without a care in the world said he would ring the owner later to let him know. The horse will probably end up as a Christmas decoration on the front of the next road train that goes through there…

Yuleba- This is my nearest local town and just a casual 40 mins drive from camp. It is famous for being the last place in Australia to be serviced by the famous Cobb & Co stagecoach service. “Fred (Tommy) Thompson was man to drive the Cobb & Co coach from Surat to its final destination at Yuleba in 1924. On Thursday morning, the 14th August 1924 with the ground quite muddy, Fred took the reins of Coach No. 141 for the last time and drove the 75 kms between Surat and Yuleba. The following Saturday, Fred did the return run in a brand new 7 seater International petrol truck. It was the end of an era.”

I have to drive from Miles 2 hours out to my work office, but at least they gave me a brand new Toyota Prado which is really nice to drive. Sometimes I stop on the way back to break my journey, and call in to Judd’s lagoon, just off the main road. It’s a really beautiful spot where the wallaby play by the billabong. Mean while at home, you can sometimes find kangaroos too!

Seeeeeeeya!!