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Quilpie is located 953 km west of Brisbane via Toowoomba, Roma and Charleville. It is 210 km west of Charleville. The town's name is taken from a Margany Aboriginal word for the largely nocturnal bird, the "stone curlew". Beyond the town and the tiny settlements of Toompine and Eromanga lie the deserts and marginal lands of western Queensland with their endless sand dunes, scrubby mulga and gidgee vegetation, dirt roads heavy with bulldust, annual rainfall of less than 350 mm and summer temperatures which have been known to reach 47°C (116.8°F). The Quilpie district is known for its opals and is one of the world's leading providers of boulder opals. Boulder opals are recognised as being particularly beautiful as they are backed by ironstone. The Bulloo River is an ideal spot to birdwatch and enjoy the natural sounds of the bush. Source: www.aussietowns.com.au/town/quilpie-qld

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 School of Arts Building was erected in 1888 and is situated in the main street of the Bundaberg CBD. This State heritage-listed two stoery building has a curved internal staircase, offering unique photo opportunities for groups and formals. Close to local government offices, post office, cafés and shops, the first floor veranda offers picturesque views of the CBD. The building’s striking pink façade and decorative arches make this venue a distinctive feature of Bundaberg’s main street. There are two rooms, a meeting room with a kitchenette and an exhibition gallery. Source: formstmp.bundaberg.qld.gov.au/MD-7-702.pdf

Bundaberg School of Arts is a heritage-listed former school of arts and now a community center at 184 Bourbong Street, Bundaberg Central, Bundaberg, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Anton Hettrich and built from 1888 to 1889. From 1889 the School of Arts offered technical classes in a variety of practical subjects including drawing, shorthand, bookkeeping, typing, dressmaking, millinery, chemistry, dairy work, manual training, and carpentry. These were so successful that in 1898 a timber hall designed by Frederick Faircloth was built behind the School of Arts to accommodate them. This had a stage and piano and was hired out when not in use, thus expanding the activities of the institution, and was enlarged soon after it was built. However, in 1908 the Technical Education Act shifted responsibility for the provision of such classes to the government, a factor in the demise of Schools of Arts generally. The interior of the building is intact and well detailed. The ground floor walls are plastered brick and there is a central hall from which the former library and offices are reached. The main staircase at the rear of the hall is semicircular in plan and has two niches and a window in the stairwell and a turned timber balustrade leading to a first-floor landing. This is joined to the former reading room by a short hall which has smaller rooms to the left and right. The partition walls are of narrow tongue and groove vertical boarding and there are timber ceilings and cornices. The doors have fretted transoms with a lyre and acanthus design, a classical reference appropriate to a center dedicated to education and the arts. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundaberg_School_of_Arts