Ilfracombe

Monday morning the 14th we left Julia Creek and went on to Winton. As we had made good time we decided to travel on to Longreach. We arrived there just before 3.30pm and stayed at the Apex Park (freecamp) where we had stayed before when we came through.

Tuesday morning, after some shopping at Longreach we went to Ilfracombe which is only 25km down the road. We had been told about Ilfracombe Caravan Park by Greg, the QLD copper who we met at the Bush Camp at Charleville. The people at Lara Wetlands also gave it a plug.

The owners, Jessie and Cathy, put on a happy hour every afternoon where Jessie does a bit of a comedy show, and sometimes his wife does the show. The alternate days they have a meet and greet night where they get everyone, ie one person from every couple to get up and introduce themselves and say where they are travelling and tell a joke or whatever they want. The Tuesday night was the meet and greet night.

It was very entertaining listening to everyone. It came to my turn to get up. I introduced ourselves. A couple of days earlier at Julia Creek I had walked into our bedroom window and got a very solid whack to the eye drawing blood. So by this time I had a very colourful eye. So after introducing ourselves I told everyone that I had this black eye and that the cause was Linda who gets violent when she drinks. I also mentioned that now that I had told everyone I was likely to have a second black eye by the morning. That went down pretty well and I got a lot of laughs.

Earlier that day we went and checked out the Wellshot Hotel which is right next door to the caravan park. We had a few cold drinks and a great counter lunch. The pub was built, or rather transferred from Barcaldine in 1891. Back in the old days you did not go and leave somewhere and build again. You dismantled the building and re-erected it in the new place. Materials were expensive to come by back then. It is a great old iconic pub.

 It's always five o clock at the Wellshot Hotel. I the next shot it is a bit hard to tell but patrons, especially the older one that arrive on the buses, are invited to push a drawing pin through a folded five or ten (or whatever they wish) dollar bill and throw it to the roof to see if it sticks. That is what you can see in the photo apart from all the hats. After a time the notes are collected and sent as a donation to the Flying Doctor Service.

A photo of the pub from long ago.

Wednesday morning we went on a guided tour of an old house in the town. The house belonged to Harry and Mary Ann Langenbaker when they moved to Ilfracombe in the 1890s. Harry was a teamster, which was the name given to the men who carted supplies from the railhead out to the sheep stations and returned to with bales of wool. They had teams of horse they used to pull their big drays.

As the railway line was being built gradually over a period of time the location of the railhead continued to progress further along to the west. Harry wound up dismantling his home three times before he settled it in Ilfracombe. He and Mary Ann had 15 children. As the kids grew they would move out so they did not have that many living in the house at one time. All the boys would sleep on the verahdah. It was a real pioneer story.

Bernie was the last remaining family member living at the house when he died in at 76 years of age. The house has not been touched since, except for fixing a leaking roof.

 Harry and Mary Ann.

 Mary Ann's room. Harry always slept out on his dray with his horses.

 Mary Anne wrote on the inside of her cupboard door the names of her children and who they married so as to keep track of grandchildren.

 She wrote just after 1920 that she now had a kitchen. She would have cooked outside for all those years earlier and whilst having all her children. She wrote under that how the last child she bore had made her tired.

 After the tour we walked down the main street of the town and saw all the machinery that forms an outdoor museum. There was also a Ilfracombe Lighthorse Brigade memorial. It was very interesting. At the information centre there was a interesting display about Wellshot Station which was the largest sheep station in Australia in its day. It was also very successful and would account for 400,000 sheep shorn a year. The name Wellshot came, no doubt, from the dams that were referred to as over shots, ie they were dug out at a bend in a creek and during the wet season they would fill.

That afternoon we went for a swim at the town pool and bore bath. Not a very hot bore, but nice. It was a hot day so the cold pool was more appreciated.

That night we had dinner in the camp kitchen/dining room where Jessie also does his comedy routine. He told a lot of funny yarns and it was a good night.

We have really enjoyed Ilfracombe. The people of the town are very proud of the heritage of the place and they should be.