Central and Western Queensland

Queensland's interior has little of the charm of South Australia's and Northern Territory's outback, but it is in many ways more authentic. The land is unforgiving, water is scarce, and constant threats such as rabbit overpopulation and locusts have hardened farmers. There are no "cowboys" here: the correct title for a greenhorn is "jack-eroo" (or "jilleroo," as the case may be). From the third year, workers are called stationhands, and the name "jackeroo" becomes a hard strike against pride. While outback towns can be unkind to outsiders, the people living here maintain an ethic of trust. Folks look you in the eye, and if they don't like what they see, you'll know it.

Like so much of this continent, Queensland's seemingly barren dust was found to hide lodes of all kinds of sweet stuff beneath the surface, and thus began the region's heyday. The gold rush has lost its luster, for the most part, but gem fossicking is still the backbone of towns with names like Emerald, while rich stocks of metal ore keep Mt. Isa's smelters puffing. Up by the Gulf of Carpenteria the fishing is excellent, the roads are treacherous, and a single train engine shuttles between isolated Normanton and more isolated Croydon once a week, more out of habit than demand.

Queensland's vast interior is traversed by a few highways, unsealed in patches. There are several east-west routes connecting to the coast: the Warrego Hwy (54) from Brisbane to Charleville; the Capricorn and Landsborough Highways (66), from Rockhampton through the Gemfields and Longreach to Mt. Isa; the Flinders Hwy (78), from Townsville through Charters Towers and Hughenden to Mt. Isa; and the Gulf Development Rd (1), from the Atherton Tablelands outside Cairns through the Gulf Savannah to Normanton. let's Go has outlined the rest of this chapter to match the progression of towns, from east to west, along each of these highways, starting with the southernmost. Connecting them all, the so-called Matilda Hwy actually encompasses fragments of the Mitchell, Landsborough, and Capricorn Highways and the Burke Development Rd. It is the major north-south route, running from the NSW border up to Normanton.

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