adavale

Simple and modest beginnings for the great cause.

Adavale District Hospital, Queensland, ca. 1921. This hospital, established in 1902 had accommodation from five patients. It finally closed around 1968. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StateLibQld_2_52032_Adava...

Cobb & Co stagecoaches ran in Queensland for almost 60 years between 1865 and 1924. The Outback Pioneers Cobb & Co Stagecoach Experience lets you experience what it was like to travel by this pioneer transport on an old bush route, complete with a gallop to ‘outrun the storm’. Here are some fascinating facts on the stagecoach service that opened up the outback. 1. 1. Cobb & Co was founded by Freeman Cobb with partners John Peck, James Swanton and John Lamber. Cobb only stayed in Australia for three years before returning to his home in America but the stagecoach service continued to bear his name. 2. The first Cobb & Co route was from Melbourne to Port Melbourne in 1853. The first Queensland service, in 1865, was between Brisbane and Ipswich. 3. Stagecoach travel was very expensive – about $2 for a one-day journey in 1860. Today this would be about $400. 4. In the heyday of the business, Cobb & Co would harness up to 6,000 horses every day with 40,000 on call for work at any one time. 5. Feeding these horses required approximately 33 ton (30 tonne) of corn and oats each day. During the drought of 1902, Cobb & Co nearly went broke because of the cost of buying and transporting fodder. 6. Cobb & Co coaches travelled at an average speed of 7 miles (12 km) per hour and covered about 50 miles (80 km) in a day. 7. If a coach could not get up a steep hill, passengers were expected to get out and walk, or even push. If it got bogged, which it often did in the wet season, they had to help dig it out. 8. Passengers were allowed only 14 pounds (6 kilograms) of luggage – less than the cabin bag allowance on flights today. 9. Mail was the most important part of the coaches’ cargo. People in the bush relied on the mail not only for letters but for hundreds of items that could be bought from mail-order catalogues. Their parcels of pots and pans, tools, clothing, lamps and more were wrapped in brown paper and brought by the stagecoach. 10. The last Longreach-Jundah stagecoach ran in January 1922. By then, motor vehicles were starting to take over and the railway was already connecting Longreach to the wider world. Later that year, Qantas ran its first scheduled passenger flight, which was from Longreach to Cloncurry. Source: www.outbackpioneers.com.au/blog/10-fascinating-facts-of-c...

Adavale is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Quilpie, Queensland, Australia. The town is only accessible along a gravel road from Charleville in the east, Quilpie in the south and Blackall in the north. The town is named after Ada Constance Stevens (wife of Ernest James Stevens). The Stevens family had the Tintinchilla (later Milo) pastoral run in the area. There is a story that the origin of the name is that Ada lost her hat veil (Ada-veil) where the Milo road crosses Blackwater Creek. Town and suburban lots in the town of Adavale were sold on 9 February 1881 at Charleville. Adavale Post Office opened on 1 January 1881 and closed in 1991. Source: www.wikiwand.com/en/Adavale

The killing of kangaroos by Europeans began at exactly the same time that the species was first identified. Shooting, naming, describing, scientifically classifying, sketching, dissecting, eating: these things all played out simultaneously as soon as Cook’s Endeavour got stranded on a reef in far north Queensland in June and July 1770. Many notable visitors participated in organized kangaroo hunts: Charles Darwin in 1836 (“my usual ill-fortune in sporting followed us”), Britain’s Admiral of the Fleet Henry Keppel in 1850, and the novelist Anthony Trollope in 1871. The Duke of Edinburgh came to the colonies in 1867 – the first royal visit – hunting kangaroo in South Australia and then traveling out to Victoria’s western district for more sport. Organized hunts could kill any number of kangaroos; alongside hunting meets that pursued individual roos as game, squatters also organized large-scale drives or battues, which could see thousands of kangaroos rounded up, slaughtered, and left to rot. Source: theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-art-of-the-colonial-...