Longreach QLD

Blue skies, warm winter sunshine and an easy travel day – perfect 👌

After a relatively short (200 km) drive from Winton, we rolled into Longreach Tourist Park by mid morning under yet another picture-perfect Queensland winter sky.

Along the way, we passed a sign announcing that we'd entered the Lake Eyre Basin. Who even knew it extends this far north and east?!

After a quick dash into town for essential supplies we headed to the QANTAS Founders Museum for a guided tour. Longreach has such an important place in Australia's aviation history and the museum does a fantastic job of bringing that story to life. Walking through the exhibits and hearing the stories behind the people, aircraft and pioneering spirit that helped create our national airline was both fascinating and inspiring.

Our guide Ryan’s mix of knowledge, storytelling, humour and quirky aviation trivia made the whole tour thoroughly engaging from start to finish. Easily one of the highlights of the trip and well worth a visit.

We also discovered a friendly rivalry over the true home of QANTAS: Winton claims the idea, Cloncurry the first registered address and Longreach the place where the airline really took flight, with the original hangar and workshop established here. I give Longreach the win 😊

We returned to the museum after dark for the Luminescent Longreach Light Show - a spectacular retelling of the history of QANTAS projected onto the side of a retired Boeing 747. Watching Australia’s aviation story unfold across the nose and fuselage of an actual Jumbo Jet was a pretty unique way to end the day. Again, highly recommend.Read more