But it’s hardly idyllic. Many are not on the electricity grid and don’t have running water.

One former resident described it as “dysfunctional Deliverance country’’ and left because he believed it was now poisoned by coal seam gas. “Tara is stuffed,’’ another said.

There is poverty. A lot don’t work because of health issues.

Not everyone is sick and not everyone wants to escape, but as Uniting Church reverend Graham Slaughter says there is enough happening to enough people to make you realise that something is very wrong out there.

He’s not totally convinced it’s caused by gas. It could be the water that causes the burns and rashes, but he thinks more investigation into the issue is needed.

“There’s a lot of unanswered questions,’’ he said.

“It’s the little people, the powerless people that are the ones that are caught in the middle and they are the ones who seem to be bearing the consequences.’’

But bleeding noses are the regular complaints along with headaches and burning eyes.

Resident Jo Jenkyn wears a gas mask at times to avoid losing her breath. She lives across the road from the huge Kenya gas field and says some days there is a metallic taste in the air.

She complains of strong odours and dead vegetation and wildlife as well as a thin layer of gunk across everything that has been explained as “lerps’’, a naturally occurring effect from plant lice.

Not many people in Tara estates are buying that explanation.

They also dismiss the Queensland Health report that could find no link between the health problems at Tara and CSG.

There is a strong distrust of both the CSG companies and the State Government in Tara.

The Jenkyn family have stopped drinking the water from their own tanks because they think it’s toxic after they scraped a layer off the top of the tanks and had it tested.

It found high levels of cadmium, but that is often used in the manufacturing of plastics and metals and could be from the tank itself.

After more than five years of fighting against CSG, the six ringleaders of the protest group were recently bought out by CSG company QGC, gagged from criticising it for two years and moved out of Tara. Despite some survivor guilt they jumped at the chance.

“Good luck to them,’’ resident Steve Ansford says.

Others have walked away and the abandoned houses on the ironically named Happiness and Lucky roads, have been “ratted’’. The doors are gone and looters have moved in.

Those that remain are still fighting and claim to be still suffering the ill-effects of CSG.

Steve and Judy Ansford show photos of their eight-year-old son Dusty with severe rashes on his face and body. He also has dizzy spells.

They are on Origin’s lease and the company only buys property for large infrastructure. It won’t be buying out the Ansfords or any other Tara blockie.

QGC has had a long-running policy of not buying out the blockies and the decision to buy the Tara ringleaders was a shock to most people.

They don’t have much choice but to use dam water. There is no running water here and the drought quickly depletes rainwater in the tanks.

But if the cause is the water they want to know why the problems only started with the start-up of the gas projects.

They also want to know why the six ringleaders were bought out and not them. They think it was an admission of guilt by the company, a claim denied by QGC which said it bought out people to either make way for infrastructure or the minimise the impact on residents.

The conservative but hugely influential Catholic and Uniting churches are now involved and fighting on the side of the residents, although as Reverend Slaughter says, they are also aware of the economic benefits of the CSG industry.

The Uniting Church wants a six-month moratorium on CSG to do more research into its impacts. So far that has been ignored.

“It’s the ones who don’t complain that I’m worried about,’’ he said.

“We have a concern for people who are still there and are not able to speak up for themselves. I’m concerned about their health.

“I’ve seen the physical symptoms.

Sharon Kirk, who heads up the church’s Downs Presbytery said there was a recognition of the benefits of gas development but that had come at a cost to the environment, personal relationships, rural communities and infrastructure.

John Jenkyn’s two children have cerebral palsy. His 21 year old son, Aaron, is severely handicapped. They moved to Tara before the gas came to town to get away from the city.

He complains that even the cane toads are dying around his house and blames the gas.

“The companies don’t care. They fly in and fly out every seven days and leave us.

“I don’t know what to do.’’

He has been offered a lot of money in compensation for the noise from the compressor station down the road but he refuses to take it. He wants out.

So do the Ansfords and Peter McGowan, and a lot of other people.

‘’ The Queensland Health Department has found no link between health complaints and gas production,’’ QGC says

“Research indicates black substances identified on some properties in (Tara) was the natural by-product of insects commonly known as lerps that live in gum trees.”