View allAll Photos Tagged longreach
(Explore in/out, 5/12/2012) drovers keeping an eye on a stray and the herd while droving in 42C between Barcaldine and Longreach near Ilfracombe, Queensland, Australia. It was BLOODY HOT this day believe me!!! It reminded me of old Malrboro tobacco adds - this might be interesting in the light of what we now know www.youtube.com/watch?v=26OG4F7D4gY
This is not lens aberration. Smash repair shops are the mundane equivalent of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
I naively (some might say foolishly) thought the custom settings function on this camera was the same as on my 6D, but alas no. Everything I shot during my final visit to Longreach was anything except my preferred f/8 ISO 100 (mostly f/4 ISO 200), but I'll post some of them anyway. A photo is a photo.
My accommodation isn't always swanky. But a great firm bed here (remember the left side is usually the firmest)
One for you Kirky, outside the caravan park. It still goes - I saw it round town over the next couple of days.
Qantas Boeing B787-9 VH-ZNJ 'Longreach' taxiing for departure operating flight QF6109/QFA6109 to Perth.
11/1/2021
This reminds me of Canada. The front part where all the scruffy grass grows up out of your lawns despite watering, cutting and feeding them every week. If you zoom in on every part of those dunes you will probably find at least 4 snakes waiting under the brushes to pounce at your bare feet and kill you. That's why they have walkways down to the beach. Not so paradisey now is it Australia? At least we can walk on our dunes - if we had any. And at least we don't have any sharks - even the sharks don't want to swim in our freezing waters but that's beside the point, we don't have any sharks.
Sony ILCE-9
E 20mm F2.8 F050
ฦ/8.0 20.0 mm 1/400 ISO 125
On our sixth day, we left Longreach for Hughenden, a rather long journey via Winton where we didn't stop until the return trip days later. This view shows the big sky country of large parts of the Outback in these parts. Covered by Mitchell grass which makes them ideal beef cattle raising and grazing country you can see to the horizon which is a long, long way off. You just never know what you will see along these roads, sometimes monotonous but never boring.
2906 and 2902 begin their 1,325km journey from Longreach to Brisbane with the twice-weekly Spirit of the Outback service as 3985.
2906 was formerly PRA001 under Progress Rail ownership and was rebuilt from a QR 2400 class in 2022 at the Progress Rail workshops in Redbank. It was sold to Queensland Rail in 2024 and is yet to receive any formal QR livery.
2902 was formerly 2152 and was rebuilt in 2022 at the Progress Rail workshops in Redbank.
Thursday 23rd May 2024
My companion into Longreach this time was a genial American from "near Buffalo" New York who looked frighteningly like Dick Cheney, here to photograph all the Rolling Stones concerts on their Australia-New Zealand tour. His tip for rock concerts is Manual, f/4, ISO 400 and 1/125 second. Someone told him to go to Longreach if he wanted to experience the Outback. We flew out together again this morning, and he said he'd spent the night in the pub with some rodeo guys who gave him too many beers. It was 42 C in the shade but he said it was better than being in Buffalo in five feet of wet snow.
Longreach, Queensland, is 620km west of Rockhampton, at the junction of the Capricorn and Landsborough Highways. The Aramac Creek flows southwards, joining the Thomson River which runs generally south-west through the Longreach district.
The Longreach district was explored by the New South Wales Surveyor-General, Thomas Mitchell (1846) and by Edmund Kennedy (1847). The pastoralist-explorer William Landsborough reported favourably on the district's pastoral prospects, and in 1863 the first pastoral lease was taken up by the vast Bowen Downs station. Several others followed soon afterwards. The district's centre was Aramac (1869), and it was governed by the Aramac local-government division (1879).
Railway Boom:
Considerable optimism surrounded the new settlement: town lots were auctioned and sold briskly, and by 1890 there were three hotels, several stores and tradespeople, a progress association, and a police station. The opening of the railway line in 1892 spurred further development, and thrust Longreach into the industrial upheaval of the age; whereas the 1891 shearer's strike had been based at Barcaldine, the 1894 strike was called at the new railway terminus, Longreach.
The town grew with astounding rapidity. By 1896 there were fourteen hotels, a hospital (1893), Catholic, Methodist, and Anglican churches, a school of the arts, a pastoral and agricultural society, and several clubs and friendly societies. From a population of about 150 in 1891, Longreach was approaching 2000 in 1903.
The progress association soon expressed criticism about the Aramac local-government division's neglect of the Longreach district. Aramac agreed, and the Longreach division was severed in 1900.
Apart from Longreach's role as a railhead and district centre, it also became the centre of an area subdivided for closer-settlement farms during the 1890s. Many blocks were too small, however, and the 1902 drought proved a substantial setback. Amalgamation of blocks and the successful drilling for bore water after the drought aided recovery.
Industrial Progress:
Longreach was usually quick to embrace new technology. Motor car hire and repair businesses were opened โ the Longreach Motor Co (1910) and Edwards, Martin Ltd (1910) were major businesses in both repair and body-building for vehicles. In 1919 two young airmen, P. J. McGinness and Hudson Fysh visited Longreach while surveying the Darwin to Longreach section of a proposed England-Australia air route. The men later began Qantas outback airlines at Longreach and established a large plane assembly factory. With both a railway terminus and a pioneer air service, Longreach had some claim to being a 'Chicago of the West'. The railway advantage, however, subsided when the line was extended to Winton in 1927.
In 1921 an electricity powerhouse began operation and a rudimentary swimming pool opened. Reticulated water supply was laid on from the river in 1938, replacing the mineralised bore water and enabling trees to grace the city's parks. Despite the progress, Longreach remained a goat town for another two decades, with local herds essential as a reliable fresh milk supply. Fresh vegetables were also a problem, with grasshoppers damaging local crops and the railways sometimes failing to keep up supplies.
Postwar Tribulations:
The 1920s were relatively prosperous, as were the 1950s (apart from some dry years and a shearers' strike). Much of the commercial building stock was replaced, including the shire hall (the previous two, along with local hotels and the Catholic church had burnt down). A State high school and an Olympic pool were opened in 1966 and 1967. Within a few years wool prices declined, and an investment in beef cattle was met with a decline in meat prices. The town's population, which had stayed steady during 1933 - 1947 when other outback towns had fallen by a quarter, faltered badly during the 20 years from 1961 - 1981 falling from 3800 to fewer than 3000. Fortunately, improved roads and transport, which had solved the milk and vegetable supply problem, brought outback tourism. Sensing the tourist opportunity, Sir James Walker, Shire Chair (1957 - 1990), chair of regional electricity supply authorities and of the Longreach Pastoral College garnered national support for the Stockman's Hall of Fame, which opened in 1988 on land provided by the Pastoral College. The Qantas Founders Museum, abutting the original heritage-listed Qantas hanger at the Longreach aerodrome, and a museum based in the old powerhouse (also heritage-listed) are other attractions, particularly popular with 'grey nomads'.
In addition to the aforementioned attractions and facilities, Longreach has a racecourse, showground, a Catholic primary school (1985), a school of distance education, a base hospital (1944), aerodrome, a visitor information centre, an Olympic swimming pool, five churches, several hotels and motels, and an aged persons' accommodation. The elaborate railway station (1916, similar to the Emerald station) and the goods shed (1892) are listed on the Queensland Heritage Register.
Source: Queensland Places (www.queenslandplaces.com.au/longreach).
โLongreachโ - VH-ZNJ, celebrating Qantas Centenary special livery, as QF128 from Hong Kong (HKG/VHHH) for 16L Sydney Airport (SYD/YSSY) in less than ideal conditions of smoke from nearby bushfires, dust from drought ravaged western plains and rain, my car is filthy as well!! ๐๐
KLAX (Los Angeles International Airport) - 18 DEC 2021
"Qantas 11 Heavy" from Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD/YSSY) on short final to RWY 25L.
Production Site: Everett (PAE)
First Flight: 29 OCT 2019
Delivery to Qantas: 07 NOV 2019 as VH-ZNJ
Ferried PAE-LAX on 07 NOV 2019 on delivery
Hex Code: 7C806D
Aircraft Name: Longreach
Painted in "100th Anniversary" special colors
Configuration: C42W28Y166
Engines: 2x GEnx-1B
The plaque commemorates the relocation of "The Drovers" sculptures to Longreach in November 2018.
"The Drovers" were part of "The Human Factor" sculptures by John Underwood, which were created for the Brisbane World Expo โ88. The sculptures were fully repaired and relocated to Longreach from Brisbane in 2018.