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Back Roads: Feb 14

Guest presenter Kristy O’Brien heads to the outback town of Charleville, Queensland.

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This week on Back Roads guest presenter Kristy O’Brien heads to the outback town of Charleville in south-west Queensland, where she discovers a place that offers second chances.

Charleville is the birthplace of the ‘Save the Bilby Fund’ and our much-loved ‘Easter Bilby’. The founders of the program, the late Peter McCrae and Frank Manthey, are fondly known as the Bilby Brothers. They set up one of the largest bilby breeding programs in the country right here in Charleville and Kristy meets the program’s
newest babies including one still in mum’s pouch!

Everyone pitches in to help in Charleville, including people from some unexpected quarters. Prisoners help care for the bilbies as part of a state program where low-risk inmates can apply to join a work camp in a country town before they leave jail. It’s a two-way street, where the prisoners get help to find their feet again and remote and rural places get much-needed help too. Kristy meets three prisoners who have learned more than they thought they’d ever know about bilbies!

Kristy discovers the highly successful program began in Charleville after the town was ravaged by floods in 2019.

As the waters rose, people scrambled for their lives, climbing into ceilings and kicking out tin roofs to get to safety. Locals got in their boats and helicopters and lifted people to safety. Hundreds were airlifted and thousands were evacuated.

8pm Monday on ABC.

One Response

  1. The thought occurred that there’s an opportunity for a Back Roads spin-off titled Front Roads. Instead of the country and outback, they could go to places like Collins Street in Melbourne, Pitt Street in Sydney, Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall, Adelaide’s Rundle Mall, or the businesses along the old major arterials leading out of the big cities. You get the idea.

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