Back Roads: Jan 23

This week on Back Roads, Heather Ewart visits the Quilpie shire, in outback Queensland.

With an average age of under 40, residents have transformed into a vibrant community, with a little help from Australia’s biggest dinosaur.

Heather Ewart takes the backroad to the Quilpie shire to try and discover what locals know that we don’t. What she learns is the western Queensland town is full of surprises. Since the discovery of opals, Quilpie’s heart has never stopped beating. Plenty of water, oil and gas means there are plenty of jobs for those willing to take a
gamble on life out here, 1000 km from the coast. And there’s no shortage of takers. The average age is now under 40 and they’re creating a way of life that’s rivalling much larger communities. At the local Quilpie golf course you might be playing on red dirt, but last year the prize for a ‘hole in one’ was an incredible one million dollars! Next door in the tiny town of Eromanga, a grazier’s son found an unusual looking rock, and now they have Australia’s largest dinosaur and a museum to house it. And in the former shire capital of Adavale, a town now almost deserted, one woman bought a house on her very first visit, pursuing her childhood dream of opening a French patisserie in the middle of nowhere.

8pm tonight on ABC.