Outback Legends: Stories from Queensland's Past

Meet your guide at St George Airport at approximately 10am. Board the ‘Balonne Baroo Andoo’ for a nature cruise on the Balonne River, taking in the river’s wildlife, flora and cultural history with commentary. Visit the ‘Unique Egg’ sculpture before checking into your accommodation. In the evening, the group travels to Riversands Winery for a vineyard tour, wine tastings and dinner. Overnight: St George. Meals: D.

After breakfast, drive to Bollon for a Guwamu/Kooma guided tour of the Nullawokka Gallery (covering the cultural history of this part of southwest Queensland) with a bush tucker lunch. Continue to Cunnamulla for the Cunnamulla Fella Visitor Centre, with exhibits on the region’s cultural and pastoral history and the life-size statue of the larrikin stockman. Finish the afternoon at the Cunnamulla Hot Springs with drinks and canapés. Overnight: Cunnamulla. Meals: B/L/D.

Call into the Eulo Queen Hotel to hear the story of Isabel Gray (the ‘Eulo Queen’), one of frontier Queensland’s most resourceful outback figures. Lunch at the Toompine Hotel, which serves a district the size of Belgium from a pub with no surrounding town. Arrive at Toogunna Plains Farmstay in the afternoon for a sunset tour to the red Kyra Sandhills before a paddock-to-plate dinner at the homestead. Overnight: Toogunna Plains Farmstay, near Quilpie. Meals: B/L/D.

A full station tour of Toogunna Plains: a fourth-generation family-owned sheep and cattle property, with the history of the land and the family explained by those who run it. In the evening, drive to Eromanga (the furthest town from the coast in Australia) for the Australian Dinosaur Giants Tour at the Eromanga Natural History Museum. Get up close to a 95-million-year-old bone of Cooper (Australotitan cooperensis), the largest dinosaur discovered in Australia, before dinner at the museum. Overnight: Toogunna Plains Farmstay. Meals: B/L/D.

A guided tour of Quilpie township, including St Finbarr’s Church where the altar, lectern and font are inlaid with locally mined opal. Head to Lake Houdraman for a guided station tour of the property, then lunch at the Brick Hotel. In the early evening, the Cosmos Centre’s Outback Stargazing Tour uses powerful Meade telescopes to bring the night sky into focus with experienced sky guides. Overnight: Charleville. Meals: B/L/D.

Morning tour of the Charleville Date Farm, where reclaimed water is used to grow dates in the outback. Visit the United States Army Air Force site – Charleville’s inland position made it strategically valuable as a WWII base, and the tour covers the reasoning behind that choice. Learn about the history of the classified computerised bomb aimer developed there. A guided tour of Hotel Corones follows, with exclusive access to normally restricted areas and the story of Harry Corones, who built the hotel during the wool boom. Lunch in the hotel dining room. After lunch, the Charleville Bilby Experience runs guided tours of the nocturnal house at the historic railway station. Overnight: Charleville. Meals: B/L/D.

En route from Charleville to Blackall, stop in Tambo to see Tambo Teddies – handcrafted from natural woollen sheepskin; the town bills itself as the outback teddy capital of Australia. A picnic lunch with teddies. Continue to Blackall, where artesian water was first drilled in the 1890s and where Jackie Howe set his blade-shearing record of 321 sheep in 7 hours 40 minutes in 1892. A late afternoon tour of the Blackall Woolscour (Australia’s only remaining steam-driven wool washing plant, opened 1908). Overnight: Blackall. Meals: B/L/D.

Visit the Australian Workers Heritage Centre in Barcaldine, then the Tree of Knowledge, a living descendant of the ghost gum under which shearers gathered during the 1891 strike that helped form the Australian Labor Party. Drive through Ilfracombe, with a stop at the Machinery Mile and lunch at the Wellshot Hotel. In Longreach, a self-guided tour of the Qantas Founders Museum covers the airline’s origins in western Queensland in 1920. Late afternoon, the Drover’s Sunset Cruise on the Thomson River. Dinner and live entertainment under the stars at Smithy’s Outback Dinner & Show. Overnight: Longreach. Meals: B/L/D.

Morning visit to the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, with themed galleries covering the lives of the drovers, station hands and pastoral families who opened the outback. Farewell lunch in Longreach, then drop-off at Longreach Airport by 1:30pm for the QantasLink service to Brisbane departing 2:50pm. Meals: B/L.