The Australian Stockman's Hall Of Fame

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Have you ever been recommended to go to a show or museum and really wondered if you would get anything out of it? I was a bit like that with the Stockman's Hall of Fame at Longreach. Not of farming stock, (although my Dad told me of some relatives that migrated to Canada who were cattle rustlers,) I had limited rural exposure. On the other hand, Marg had cousins just out of town on a dairy farm, and spent many hours in the rural environment.

So what do you get to see at this museum?

Most of the year there are live shows around the outback way of life. The show the day we were there was built around breaking in new horses. A bit of comedy, some good music, dogs rounding up sheep, a bit about the merino sheep and the need to cull out any black fibre.

Then there are 5 halls with different aspects of rural life and history and an excellent art gallery. The landscape paintings were just great. There was a photographic exhibition as well, and we really enjoyed that. One picture that took my fancy was a windmill set against the Milky Way.

One of the interesting displays is a map of Australia with the areas various explores trekked across this vast land. There is a long list of familiar names, Mitchell, Burke, Wills etc, each with their missions marked in colour for easy distinction. This area will keep you interested for at least an hour.

Then there is a Royal Flying Doctors display with lots of interesting things to see and read. Marg named off the surgical instruments carried on the aircraft without missing a beat.

Then there is the slab hut that was better class accommodation in the outback. Many families only had solid framed tents as they developed the land.

There are old wagons there. One of the best is a general merchants travelling shop.

Do you know what a 'Furphy' is? We have used that term many times when a suspicious rumour was spread, but here we learned what a 'Furphy' actually was and how the term came to mean something quite different.

We have all seen big wanter tankers delivering water to rural areas, particularly during drought. A Furphy pre dated the road train, and was a tanker that could be pulled by an animal. The term a 'Furphy' originates from the water delivery person spreading interesting social news and/or gossip as they went about their trade. The news couldn't be exactly relied upon. Believe it or not!

We were at the centre just after opening time and were almost last to leave in the late afternoon. Good place to visit and our ticket included lunch at the adjacent pub.

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Photos

How to clean horse feet
The easy way

Walking forward together
A famous sculpture in the grounds.

Microlight
Circling the Thomson River bridge

Comments

[Mum & Dad]

Another interesting effort
Interesting comments and photos great to get a little of the history too.

[Jakii H]

Longreach
so many years since I was there,I was just early teens,12 or 13, so was very interested,as I am in all your blogs.Blessings--Jakii