Happy Birthday Kingfisher Bay Resort: 20 years!

We are back on Fraser Island! One of my favourite places on Earth and to Kingfisher Bay Resort, this year celebrating 20 years on the heritage-listed island.

This world recognised eco-island resort, designed by Queensland architects, constructed from local materials and built by local builders and artisans, was first conceived at a time when ecotourism wasn't even a word.

Kingfisher Bay Resort's main pool designed to mimic Lake McKenzie
Image courtesy Kingfisher Bay Resort.

The first part constructed was the jetty, still a favourite location of ours for photographing sunset. At 250 metres long it is built from mixed eucalypt piles, mainly spotted gum, with satinay planks and beams.

Kingfisher Bay Resort's jetty stretches 250metres into the channel.
Image courtesy Danielle Lancaster

During construction of the resort two tropical cyclones hit in 1991 causing major water damage, however they rallied on. More than 600 workers were employed on the site at the peak of construction which was completed on time with the resort welcoming its first guests on the 16th July 1992.

Much research went into the design of the resort, and the dedication shows. All buildings are below the tree line and hidden in the natural bush land. You don’t even see the resort until you actually arrive at the front door. Even the curving tin roofs of the buildings mimic the rolling sand dunes of the island.

So to celebrate they have been busy upgrading. One innovative item we are keen to try out is the new trendy menu by Chef Kenneth Clapham and his team in the kitchen. Tonight for us it’s the seafood buffet!

For us, as photographers,  one of the biggest assets of the resort is its affiliation with nature. Almost around every corner is a wonderful glimpse into the natural environment of Fraser Island: the largest sand island on the planet Earth. Birds are abundant, frogs croak filling the night air, wildflowers bloom alongside tall eucalypt trees and dragon flies busily buzz over the lagoons. Yes, we do love Fraser and Kingfisher Bay Resort. Well done and happy birthday to all those that have made this available for all of us to enjoy.

Check out the birthday specials on offer:

* Available from 23/07/2012 to 31/10/2012. Conditions apply. Subject to availability.

HOTEL STAY

Stay in the Awinya and Boomanjin hotel wings, bordering natural bushland and mirror lakes on

stunning Fraser, for just $200 per person (twin share).

Inclusions:

• 2 nights' hotel accommodation (with complimentary upgrade)

• passenger ferry transfers

• daily buffet breakfast

• spa room upgrade

• bottle of wine.

Plus a $20 room credit (per room, per night) to spend on food and beverage, touring or pop towards

a treatment at our natural therapies salon during your stay. It's their present to you!

VILLA STAY

Relax in self contained villas set in natural bushland with all the creature comforts of home as well

as being close enough to all of the resort's amenities. The perfect retreat for family and friends plus

prices are cut for the birthday celebrations to just $200 per person (quad share) in a two - bedroom

Villa.

Inclusions:

• 2 nights' villa accommodation

• walk-on ferry transfers

• daily breakfast

• bottle of wine

• spa room upgrade and

• $20 villa credit (per villa, per night) to spend on food and beverage, touring or at the

Kingfisher Natural Therapies salon during your stay.

Enjoy Fraser and Kingfisher Bay Resort!

Checking out the wild life around the resort during a night walk.
Image courtesy Danielle Lancaster

Who is the Cunnamulla Fella?

Stan Coster was ‘ringing’ (working as a sheep-shearing “ringer”) around Cunnamulla in the 1950’s when he wrote the words of the ‘Cunnamulla Fella’.  Slim Dusty later recorded the words as a song.

So who is he? Well locals in Cunnamulla say he is the larrikin in all Australian’s. When Stan was in the region working on stations during the 1950’s and 1960’s Cunnamulla was enjoying steady prosperity due to high wool prices and increased demand for the fine merino clip produced from the Mulga country. It was the days, they claimed, when Australia was riding on the sheep’s back. Wool was fetching a pound for a pound and cattle were worth their weight in gold.

Friday and Saturday nights saw the young ringers and shearers hit Cunnamulla for a weekend of ‘drinkin, lovin and fightin’. After a week of working hard – 15 or 16 hour days were not unheard of - they also played hard. 

Mike Nicholas, an artist, was based in Cunnamulla as a policeman in the 1960’s and these young men inspired his drawing of the ‘Cunnamulla Fella’. A young man with pannikin in one hand, sitting on his rolled up swag having a yarn at the end of the day. He later recalled seeing boys as young as 14 sitting on their swag waiting for the grazier or mail truck to pick them up for another jaunt on one of the huge stations.

Since then the character The Cunnamulla Fella has grown into the legend it is today. So when you next venture west into the mulga country with its orange tinted soils and friendly outback folk check out the huge bronze statue sculptured by Archie St. Claire. He sits on the green lawn in front of the Paroo Shire Council gazing down the main street. 

There may not be as many ringers, shearers or even pubs for that matter that once overflowed with these men cashing in the weekly cheques as back when Stan was amongst them but one thing is for sure, there are still the larrikins, the yarns and the colourful characters out there.

‘Well I’m a scrubber, runner and a breaker too,

I live on damper and wallaby stew,

I’ve got a big cattle dog with a staghound’s cross,

I never saw the scrubber we couldn’t toss,

Cause I’m the Fella from Cunnamulla

Yes I’m the Cunnamulla Fella”

It's vintage time in the Granite Belt

It's vintage time in the Granite Belt and Sam has a grin across his browned Italian face. 'The grapes are looking good this year,' he tells us as we load the camera bags and jump in the back of his 4WD for a tour of the vineyard.

We're at Golden Grove Estate Wines, south of Stanthorpe and just west of Ballandean, at the home of the Costanzo family. Growing grapes in this region is nothing new, it's been going now since for quite some time. The Granite Belt is dotted with wineries, enough to take up more than a day for a serious wine connoisseur. Luckily we found the time to pop in on one or two while there for some work recently. 

The cool summers and the high altitude of around 820 metres provides ideal growing conditions for many of the classic wine grape varieties Sam explains, as his voice is almost lost in the wind and the 4WD clunks into another gear as it climbs the first ridge. Sam is a keen photographer and also a Nikon use and being tempted, on the odd occasion, to a fermented grape juice, I think I may like Sam a lot.

Proud grape grower Sam shows off this years prime crop
near Ballandean in the Granite Belt

 

 The ripening grapes set to make a fine drop of red wine.

Across the road is a long time favourite of mine, Ballandean Estate Wines, Queensland's largest and oldest family owned and operated winery. The Puglisi family are seeing in their sixth generation soon and have much to be proud of.

It's good to catch up with Angelo's and Mary's daughter Leanne again after many years, though I initially think I have timed my visit too early as I suspect a slightly sore head from entertaining in the cellar the night before. As usual though Leanne is her bubbly self and we venture out to where the wine is being bottled, casks emptied and readied for the crop coming in.

In an unfortunate accident last year Ballandeans' storing cellar burnt to the ground taking with it 180,0000 bottles of wine and some of the best vintages seen from the property. As we chat i-phone photography (yes Anita that's right) Leanne is not so quick to show me the images of the smouldering, devastated mess the family were faced with in the early hours of that shocking morning. In true Puglisi style, the smile returns to her face and the attitude of 'things could have been worse' takes over. 'On and up as they say, at least no lives were lost, and this vintage is looking pretty good,' she says.

I spot a bottle of the 2007 vintage, another acclaimed year of which all but a few bottles were lost to the flames and purchase it. With this and along with my couple of bottles from Sam and his crew, I'll toast the Granite Belt, its wineries, fun loving families and high trap rock country.

If you have never been out this way do yourself a favour: there's loads more to do such as great bush walking, wildlife, National Parks, four wheel driving and heritage and history.

We'll bring you more over the next few months from this truly unique part of Queensland.

 Tasting at Ballandean Estate with Leanne.

Want more info

Ballandean Estate

Tel: (07) 4684 1226
www.ballandeanestate.com

Golden Grove Estate
Tel: (07) 4684 1291
www.goldengroveestate.com.au

Southern Downs Tourism
www.southerndownsholidays.com.au

Granite Belt Wine and Tourism Inc.
www.granitebeltwinecountry.com.au

Check out these events they hold:
Ballandean Estate: Opera at the Vineyard

Golden Grove Estate: Sicilian Vintage Lunch

View these giant historic casks at Ballandean Estate.

The day I met a living Legend…..

Guest blog by Anita Bromley
Images by Anita Bromley and Danielle Lancaster

I noticed him immediately, sitting in a vinyl lounge chair on casters, legs covered with a multi coloured crocheted rug, staring up at the flat screen TV. I wondered if he actually knew what was currently showing and if he even was taking in the information or it was simply a way to pass time, a different view from his room with pale walls and a few token framed photographs reminding him of times gone past. 

Times where he was yes, younger, but back when his daily view was of wide open spaces in outback Queensland. Views of sunsets you have only ever seen in print and wonder to yourself – was that photo enhanced? Could there actually be sunsets that stunning in colour? Views of dust storms rolling in over the local Pub, sweeping the red dirt and the many stories each speck holds down the wide streets of a very, very small town. When you have worked all your life on the land being self sufficient and self-funded until the ripe old age of 92. How does that change the workings of your mind when you retire to a small nursing home and your legs just aint what they used to be.

Frank Purser is a character that everyone it seems in the greater western Qld knows or knows about. Just the day before when I was speaking to a group of photography students I came to an image in our presentation, one that has become quite iconic to me personally, I heard from someone in the group  “That’s Frank! Frank Purcell! He’s just over the road here in the nursing home….”  

I can only imagine how shocked I would have looked. I first saw this image back in 2009 on my first visit to Bluedog and have since lost count of the times I have viewed this image of Frank. Frank, standing in front of the iconic Birdsville Hotel, beer in hand, grin on his weathered face, black headphones (his hearing aid) on his head with a large and looming dust storm encroaching over the roof of the Pub. Never did I imagine back then that I would actually have the chance to meet him in person.

The image of Frank outside the iconic Birdsville Hotel as a dust storm rolls in
as seen by Anita so many times in the Bluedog Photography Beginner Workshop - composition session. Image by Danielle Lancaster

So how does the mind weather over time when it makes that big change from being active along with your body, to still and seemly confined when you compare it to the bulk of your life? Well it seems, for some, for Frank at least the mind stays pretty well sharp. Within minutes of Danielle and I arriving at the Nursing Home, Frank recalled the day Danielle took that image and the next half hour the two of them relived old times, stories and the people they both knew. Maybe an active life in your younger and adult years keeps the mind sharp in old age? Maybe that is the secret? Time will only tell. All I can say is that when I shook Franks hand as we left to catch our flight back home my thoughts were already anticipating my next visit to Charleville where I certainly hope Frank is still in residence.

Danielle and Frank catch up.
Images by Anita Bromley

I can only image the pride Danielle must feel to know that the image that has become so iconic to myself and many others associated with Bluedog, stands framed along with the article written about Frank, pride of place on his mantel in his room.

Note from Danielle:

I won't say I did not have a tear in my eye when I farewelled Frank this day Anita speaks of above recently in Charleville . I remember well as we were entering the nursing home saying to Anita, 'He'll most probably not remember me." And he did immediately. I felt such a privileged person when his face lit up with that smile I had come to know and love so much on my visits west. To have worked till nearly 93 and now just about to enter his second year on the pension is a story that needs to be told.

We did laugh about all sorts of things: snakes in swags, the bonus of a nip or rum nightly that his doctor says won't hurt him a bit, our mates and what's happening in Birdsville, how Don and Cooper are fairing up taking over in Frank's shoes keeping the beer cold at the Birdsville Hotel and how the old red girl is still going (she was Frank's truck).

Frank was awarded the 'Legend of Birdsville' this year - that's another image taken by me hanging in the framed print given to him for a story I did a few years ago now for 4x4 Australia, RM Williams Publishing and News Limited and some others. 

Thank you Anita for writing this, it is a blog I will cherish as one of those special ones in my life.

Good on you Frank, you are truly a legend.

You'll find them hanging in galleries, at Outback Spectacular, printed in books and magazines, on pub walls, and there's too many more in her archives to make a list, however Danielle's compassion and dedication to photograph most she meets has produced an amazing collection of portraits of the people of western Queensland at their home, in play and at work.

 Image by Anita Bromley

Fast Facts about Charleville

Today we leave Charleville and head home. We’ve had an awesome few days here so we thought we’d share a few fast facts about this generous outback town.

Fast Facts about Charleville

The wide streets of Charleville allowed for a full turning circle of a bullock team. Imagine 12 bullocks and one long dray doing a ‘uey’.

There were between 500 and 600 bullock teams registered with the Charleville Carrying Association in 1903.

From Dalby to Charleville, goods went by bullock wagon, taking six months if the roads were dry or twelve if wet. Sometimes graziers were shearing again before their previous wool clip had reached the market.

The first school in Charleville was a private school and the pupils were charged one shilling a week, a lot of money in the 1800’s. The school closed when the state school opened in 1884. The School of the Air commenced in Charleville in 1966.

Charleville water comes from the Great Artesian Basin. Five bores pump more than three mega litres per day. The first bore was completed in 1890. This bore was drilled to a depth of 1,371 feet, with a flow of three million gallons a day at a temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit at the bore head.

Charleville was named in 1868 by surveyor W.A. Tully after his hometown in Ireland.

Charleville is 298m above sea level and the Murweh Shire covers 43,905 square kilometres.

Charleville once had 10 hotels. Many were grand timber structures and sadly many burnt down due to the drying out of the timber on the hot dry climate. Many publicans in the early days were women.

 The Corones Hotel

In 1896 Garry Owen was prosecuted for selling ice-creams on Sunday!

Warrego is an Aboriginal word for ‘River of Sand’. The Warrego River runs for 900km from its source in the Carnarvon Range and is the most northerly point of the Murray-Darling Basin. The catchment covers a total area of some 78,400 square kilometres of which 84% lies in Queensland.

Native yabbies are known as ‘blue claw’ and introduced yabbies as ‘red claw’....both are delicious.

Did you know there are 88 official constellations in the sky?

Rain comes across the Mulga.

Snippets from the local newspapers over the years:

1874: BABY BOOM – Nearly every married woman, including Mrs. Parry Okeden was expecting a baby.

1870: A maid in a railway pub was given a room without a bedroom door.

A wife sale at Adavale was alleged.

A squatter dismissed a parlour maid who wanted to practice the piano.

 

Around the camp fire at Evening Star

Country hospitality overflows in Charleville. We have been fed the best homemade goodies, taking home a beanie for our fire burning activities and made some wonderful new friends. Thank you Charleville!

 Miss Anita checks out the wide roads. What is that in her hands?

More:

www.murweh.qld.gov.au

The Bilby fund

www.savetheblilbyfund.org

Cosmos Centre

www.cosmoscentre.com

We stay at either:
Evening Star Tourist Park

www.eveningstar.com.au

Mulga Country Motor Inn

Tel: 07 4654 3255