Birdsville.Birdsville is Australia's 'must visit' Outback town. Always noted for its wild country and isolation, Birdsville also offers today's traveller a modern community with good accommodation, a sporting complex, gymnasium, two galleries, a bakery, air services, motel, caravan park and cabins, coffee shops and restaurants, general store, post office, medical clinic, fuel and auto services, a police station, and, of course, the famous Birdsville Pub….. All this in a town with a population of about 120 that’s “out bloody woop woop” as we say in Oz, 1600 Kms from nowhere in the middle of some of Australia’s harshest and driest country. Perhaps here is a good place to mention a word of warning about the Australian outback. 
In 1963 the Page family, who were locals and knew the country, were in their car, which broke down only 100km along the Birdsville Track. Mum, Dad and the three kids bravely embarked on the journey in the blistering heat. No water. No shade. Hand in hand. Their bodies were found, one by one, along the road. Shockingly dehydrated. A monument to their memory has been erected on the track and serves as a reminder to others who travel this way that it can be a very unforgiving environment. If your car breaks down on the Birdsville track, or anywhere else in the outback, don’t be foolish and try to walk out, stay beside it and wait for someone else to find you. Birdsville, it’s hard to imagine any place in Australia which evokes quite the sense of loneliness and isolation as that of Birdsville, this tiny settlement that sits at the northern end of the notorious and dangerous Birdsville track. The poet Douglas Stewart seemed to sum it up when he wrote that it 'has shrunk / Between two deserts / On a ridge in the sun'. Located over 1600 km west of Brisbane in the vast Diamantina Shire, Birdsville, between the sands of the Simpson Desert and the gibber plains of Sturt's Stony Desert, is the starting point of the famous Birdsville Track, which stretches to the south with the Simpson Desert to the west, operates like some kind of mysterious magnet to people who want to go to the most isolated place on the continent. The town's original reason for being was as a tariff collection point between Queensland and South Australia. Tolls which had provided the town's income, stopped in 1901 with the formation of the Federation and the town declined. The town is now a starting point for many people travelling into South Australia along the Birdsville Track which was first developed in the 1880s as one of Australia's first major cattle routes. The area is steeped in history; from aboriginal meeting places to European settlement in the late 1870s and beyond and stories of stockmen who passed through Birdsville on this famous track are part of town legend.
Birdsville today is best known for its famous pub and the annual race meeting when the population grows from 120 to 6,000 in two days. There is not an Australian alive that has not heard of Birdsville, and the famous Birdsville races and Birdsville pub. The Diamantina River, which intermittently runs to the east of the town, was named in 1866 by the explorer William Landsborough who was honouring the wife of Queensland's first governor, the unusually-named Diamantina Roma Bowen. The town, originally named Diamantina Crossing, was renamed Birdsville by the owner of Pandie Pandie Station who was amazed by the diversity of birdlife which inhabited the area. The first European explorer to venture into this lonely area, Charles Sturt, after whom Sturt Stony Desert to the south-east of the town is named, was unambiguous in his response to the terrain describing it as a 'desperate region having no parallel on earth'. He was right! Sturt’s description of the region didn't stop the intrepid, and foolhardy, Burke and Wills who, with King and Gray, passed only a few kilometres from the present town site on their 1860 journey to the Gulf. Wills noted the large number of birds in the region, it’s not unusual to find seagulls 1600 Kms from the sea in the salt lakes which exist in the area. 'Road trains', prime movers with any number of trailers, supply the town with fresh produce and general supplies from both Adelaide to the south and Quilpie to the east on a fortnightly basis. Discount flights are provided by Macair who operate from Brisbane to Birdsville and then on to Mt Isa and back the following day twice a week carrying both passengers and mail. 
From the South, Westwing Aviation operate the world's longest mail run from Port Augusta to Birdsville every Wednesday, stopping overnight in Birdsville on Wednesday night and then flying back to Pt Augusta on Thursdays, stopping at isolated outback stations along the way. (For those who don't know, in Australia a "station" is what the Americans call a ranch, unless it has a train running through it, then it's called a railway station, does that make sense?) Located in a temperate zone with a generally arid climate, rainfall in Birdsville averages about 160mm each year occurring mostly in summer with September being the driest month of the year. Daytime temperatures in the region reach an extreme mid 40C in the summer (November - February) down to typical desert nights of 4C in the winter. Milder daytime temperatures reach somewhere between 15-35C during the winter months. Summer rains produce an abundance of native grasses whilst winter rainfall results in a variety of lush herbage and attractive displays of wildflowers particularly in the Simpson Desert to the west of Birdsville. Approximately every three to five years Birdsville will experience a flood in the Diamantina River. The flood, a result of extensive rains in the river catchment further to the North, results in the Diamantina bursting its banks and the river stretching out to many kilometres in width and at times flooding all access roads into Birdsville.
It is not uncommon during a flood period for Birdsville to be inaccessible by road for up to three weeks, (it pays to check the weather before you go). When you visit Birdsville be sure to stop and see The old Australian Inland Mission Hospital, a wonderful rough stone building that was constructed in 1882 as the Royal Hotel, one of the town's first two pubs. It was bought by the AIM in 1923 and used as a hospital base for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. It was from this building that Birdsville's first pedal wireless broadcast occurred in 1929. Birdsville's second pub, the Birdsville Hotel, was built in 1884-5. A simple, stone, single-storey building it is now listed by the National Trust and has become something of a mandatory stopover point in the town. During September, when the Birdsville races are held and people fly and drive in from all over Australia, the pub does a roaring trade. Another “must see” while you’re in the area is the vast Simpson Desert National Park. 65 km to the west of Birdsville and covering approximately 505 000 hectares the Simpson Desert National Park is characterised by huge sand dunes which run parallel to each other at distances of anything from 200 to 600 metres. The average height of the dunes is 30 metres. Significantly there is no major river system in the park, this is classic arid desert terrain and vegetation, this is the dead heart of Australia………..enjoy, John. Discount Car Hire | Discount Cruises | Discount Flights | Discount Hostels | Discount Hotels | Discount Shopping Discount Travel | Special Travel Deals | Attractions Our RSS feed will be updated periodically with all the latest travel deals and special offers. Please subscribe by clicking the button to the left (XML/RSS) to receive notice of these updates without any risk or obligation. PLEASE NOTE: If you don't know what an RSS feed is just click this link. Click here to return from Birdsville to The Discount Travel Guide home page. |
