Thursday 26th July - Winton to Longreach

Home of the Flying Kangaroo

Just a short drive to Longreach this morning and we had the caravan all set up and ready by 11:00am, so off to the Qantas Founders Museum.

Original Qantas booking office, Longreach QLD

Original Qantas hangar, Longreach QLD

Very interesting and excellent presentation.  To most of us Qantas is just our national airline but to the people of western Queensland it has a special importance hence the Founders museum to tell the story and preserve memorabilia.  Qantas helps the museum by donating old equipment and artifacts, but the museum is self funding.  The founders had tremendous vision and sheer determination to get the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service up and running in 1921 against incredible odds.  They realised that an air service to cover the vast distances in the outback was far more useful than a road service [when most roads were muddy tracks].  Even the train was limited in the destinations it could go to.  The initial contract was to deliver mail but this soon developed into a passenger service.  Once the overseas route to Singapore was won in about 1935 they went from strength to strength.

Boeing 707 circa 1959, Longreach QLD

We went on a tour of 2 planes which have been flown to Longreach as their final resting place.  The first is a Boeing 707 which went through restoration in England where it had been rotting on a runway in Southend.  This plane was the first of the series to be built in 1959.  Only 13 short bodied 707 jets were ever built and all of them were sold to Qantas for the Pacific routes.  Only 3 remain now and one of them belongs to John Travalta.

The other plane was a Boeing 747 which was built in 1979 and was in service for 20 years or so.  This one was a trip down memory lane!  To land the plane at Longreach was an exciting challenge for the pilot as the runway is only about one third the length and width of an international runway.  Some of the internal coverings have been stripped away so the innards can be viewed.  We also had a turn in the cockpit.

Replica of a DH61 circa 1929, Longreach QLD