Western Reflections
Almost five months ago, I moved to Longreach, a small town in outback Queensland. I didn’t move there because I wanted a ‘tree change’, or because I felt a special affinity for the country; I simply received a job offer, and wasn’t in a situation where I could be too choosy.
Recently, upon visiting my friends back in Brisbane, I received lots of questions about what Longreach is like. This was asked in the same sort of urbane inquisitiveness as one imagines Victorian-era elites asking an explorer about a recent trip to the Heart of Africa. Much as that explorer might have found it impossible to really capture the intense danger and otherworldly majesty of the wilderness within the confines of a London drawing room, so too I found it difficult to describe what the West is really like.
Not to be deterred, however, I will attempt to illustrate my impressions here.
The Land of Longreach
The first thing that will strike you about this area is the openness, the vast apparent emptiness of it. There are essentially no mountains or hills, only gentle undulations that might charitably be called ‘rises’. There are no great rivers or forests, only the occasional creek bed (usually dry), which will also be the only places where proper trees will try and eke out a living. The rest is flat plains, where tough little shrubs, dry grasses, and some of the most fearsomely defensive weeds you’ve ever seen, valiantly cling to the grey silty soil.
Once, this area was completely underwater, part of a great inland sea. The region has found some recent fame for dinosaur fossils, but it’s also commonplace to find fossils of shells, squid beaks, and ammonites in the sandstone rocks that litter the plains. Although I’ve been fortunate to arrive in Longreach in the midst of a surprisingly wet year (after a decade-long drought), it’s still a dry and decidedly non-aquatic environment, making the fossilised sea creatures appear in stark contrast, like a prank pulled by a mischievous god (or perhaps a grim warning from a vengeful one).
Despite it being a harsh environment, it is not without beauty, especially in seasons like this when long-awaited rain finally softens the edges and brightens the colours of the landscape. Recently, I was lucky enough to visit Starlight’s Lookout, a hill about an hour’s drive from Longreach. Although I’ve seen driveways in Brisbane with larger changes in altitude, this hill is well-known to be the highest promontory in the district. Importantly, it is virtually the ONLY promontory, but the benefit of this is that the views are uninterrupted. In a season like this, it allows a person to see a beautiful green and gold carpet across the landscape, reaching up to a vast, flat, horizon, where spectacular sunsets give way to a starscape untarnished by the pollution of the city.
The Life of Longreach
I’m told that Americans have a perception of Australians as riding to work on kangaroos, and fending off dropbears on a daily basis. To give fair credit to our Yankee cousins, this could at least be plausible in a place like Longreach.
Of course they are not ridden, but it isn’t uncommon to see kangaroos and brolgas walking up and down the quieter streets of Longreach. Likewise, highway driving at night can be quite dangerous, due to the number of animals on the road. Snakes and spiders, of course, are as much of a risk here as they are everywhere else Down Under.
However, the more noticeable animals you’ll find in Longreach are birds and bugs. Longreach is home to a great number and range of birds, especially native species like fairywrens, honeyeaters, budgerigars, willie wagtails, galahs, eagles, kites, and even the occasional pelican. In fact, this must have made an impression on Longreach’s founders, because every street in town is named for a bird species (Eagle Street, Parrot Lane, Kookaburra Court, etc).
Presumably supporting this avian population, Longreach also has a tremendous amount of insects, sometimes in plague proportions. When I first arrived, grasshoppers were in such numbers that it was impossible to prevent them from getting inside the house — which I thought was very unpleasant at the time, but has since been put in perspective by the recent onset of stinkbeetle season. Likewise, the number of mosquitos and sand-flies in April made Aeroguard and Rid the perfumes of choice in Longreach.
As one might imagine from my earlier descriptions, this region is not very suitable for growing crops. It’s economic raison d’être has always been sheep and cattle, and seems likely to remain so. Although you won’t often see these animals in town (although, yes, there is someone who rides a bull down the main street on Saturdays), you will often see the shadow they cast — countless kilometres of barbed wire fencing, leather boots, and a dearth of vegetarianism.
Of course, a town is much more than just its geography and average rainfall — it is a society of people, bonded by circumstance, affection, and occasionally, shared prejudice. In my next piece, I’ll try and describe the vibrant community that calls this land home.
For Part 2, please follow this link.
