birdsville

Australian Inland Mission Hospital is a heritage-listed former hospital at Adelaide Street, Birdsville, Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1952 to 1953 by Ben Hargreaves. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 17 July 2008.[1] Located at the eastern end of the main street of Birdsville, Adelaide Street, the former Australian Inland Mission Hospital site comprises the hospital building, former Aboriginal ward, "billiard room", water tanks, shed and new padre cottage. Of these, the hospital building, former Aboriginal ward and above ground corrugated iron tank and the in-ground concrete water tank are significant.[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history. The former AIM Hospital, Birdsville has a special association with the Presbyterian Church's Australian Inland Mission founded by the Rev. Dr John Flynn, which has made an important contribution to the development of medical and community services to inland Queensland since 1923. For 52 years this hospital provided medical services to remote Queensland communities in conjunction with the Royal Flying Doctor Service.[1] Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Inland_Mission_Hospital,...

Today, Central Australia is home to the world’s largest herd of wild camels. This population is a legacy of the challenges of transporting goods across Australia’s arid inland during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In 1860, three cameleers and approximately twenty camels sailed from Karachi to Melbourne to accompany the Burke and Wills expedition. Between 1870 – 1920, entrepreneurs, realising that camels could cope with conditions inhospitable to horses and bullocks, imported approximately 20,000 camels, accompanied by 2000 – 4000 cameleers. These camels were swiftly put to work and, from the 1870s to the 1940s, camel trains carried goods between towns, homesteads, mining camps, and railheads. Sources: queenslandhistory.org/2020/01/camel-trains-in-queensland/...

In the beginning… Way back in the Spring of 1882, a group of 150 owners, managers and stockmen came together on the South Australian and Queensland border for the first – and unofficial – Birdsville Races event. They managed to raise nearly 200 pounds by public subscription, enough to draw a significant crowd at the time – but a far cry from the $200,000 in prize money on offer today. Instead of bookies standing trackside, bets were settled at ‘Tucker’s Hotel’ – a dignified affair after the last race was called. What happened next reads like a movie script, and the first iteration of the Birdsville Race Club was born. The community gathered at Burt and Co.’s large iron store and the ‘Border Jockey Club’ was formed, being 42 members strong. Stewards were appointed, a working committee elected, and the next race meeting was fixed for July, 1883. Now, well over a century later, the race continues to grow as an iconic Australian event – and something that is high on many people’s ‘bucket list’. Source: www.birdsvilleraces.com/about-the-races/birdsville-races-...