John Anderson begins his journey through North Queensland’s quietest towns, first stop the Burdekin

John Andersen has made his first stop on his journey through the forgotten fringes of North Queensland. Read the forgotten tales of these hardy towns as he makes his first stop in the Burdekin.

Aerial pictures on Burdekin Falls Dam and Burdekin River, this stretch of water flowing through the wild Leichhardt Ranges downstream from the dam wall to the community of Dalbeg is the Burdekin River's best kept secret.

SOMETIMES you just have to up, up and away to somewhere where life is so slow people get excited when a dog walks across the street. We’re not talking about one-horse towns where life happens at the pace of a speeding snail; in the towns we’re talking about the horse has long up and died. All you’ve got left now are a few hardy human survivors and bucket-head dogs with names like Diesel and Magnum that could chew their way out of a galvanised iron tank … and chew you too if you look at them cross-eyed.

These no-horse towns are where the only sounds you’ll hear are crows from dawn to dusk and then maybe the howl of dingoes as the moon rises and then they’ll start again in the morning just before the sun takes its first peek over the eastern horizon. If you’re extra lucky you might hear a cheer coming from the inside of the pub - that’s if there is a pub – when someone falls off their stool or the barmaid has called out the winner for the meat tray. Otherwise its crows and dingoes and birds like lousy jacks and cockatoos.

Soooo, you want to find one of these quiet towns in North Queensland, follow this for the next couple of weeks because I’m starting a list. First stop, the Burdekin.

Clare, Millaroo, Dalbeg all share the postcode 4807. You can get to these towns by turning right on the Upper Haughton Road after you cross the Haughton River from Townsville, and turning left at the old Burdekin Agricultural College which is now the Mio family’s cane farm. First town you will hit will be Clare where there’s a store, a social club that only opens Friday night and sugar cane everywhere you look. Highly recommended thing to do at Clare is to have a pie and a sandwich at the store. Pretty-damn-good.

Queensland sugar cane growing at Burdekin. Aaron Linton and Ryan Matthews. Pictures: Murray Spence

There was a flood here years ago and a policeman told me that at a house out on the flats dozens of snakes, browns, taipans and whatever were literally banging against the glass doors trying to escape the rising water. The people inside could only look on and hope they didn’t find a way in. It’s one of those stories that sticks in your head and every time I’ve driven that road since I’ve wondered at the number of snakes living there in that dry grass.

Okay, you’ve sampled the delights of Clare and didn’t get snake-bit. Now time to head to Millaroo. Switch on the GPS and point your car in the direction of the Ayr-Dalbeg Road that follows the Burdekin River. Tobacco was grow on soldier settlement blocks at Millaroo after WWII but then with water development schemes, the ‘baccy’ was forced out and sugarcane became the mainstay along with the beef cattle that had been there since settlement.

Let’s be honest, there’s not much for the traveller to do at Planet Millaroo except look around and take in the vibe. The social club is a hive of activity on Friday nights, but in the days and nights in between those few hours of opening time, you better have your own provisions on hand for sustenance. The good news is that a camping ground is on the way. That means Friday night will be party night and afterwards you’ll be able to roll out under the stars. Book it in now. I don‘t know if they make them, but if you could buy a ‘I’ve Been to Millaroo’ T-shirt, I’d buy one.

Keep following the river until you reach Dalbeg. Once again there’s not much here except bush, bush and more bush. There are sandalwood plantations here, but mostly these are in a state of neglect, leaving hundreds of hectares of prime agricultural land going to waste. The licensed store that used to be here has closed, so once again its case of bring your own cheese and beetroot sandwiches. Apart from the abandoned sandalwood there’s cane, but mostly it’s cattle. It used to be good barra fishing up here in the river between Millaroo and the Burdekin Dam wall, but locals tell me that for some reason it’s quietened down ever since the new fish ladder was built at the Clare Weir. Hang about, aren’t fish ladders supposed to make the fishing better?

One interesting fact about Dalbeg is that it’s the business birthplace of the late Steve ‘Crikey, mate’ Irwin. This is where his wildlife career was born. It was here in the Burdekin River and up to where the Bowen River junctions with the Burdekin that Steve caught his first estuarine crocs that became the star attractions at his Australia Zoo north of Brisbane. Locals remember him fondly as the same enthusiastic bloke we remember seeing on the TV.

Things don’t stay the same. The Burdekin veggie farms have largely been turned over to sugarcane and now what we have here is a growing corporatised farming community. It’s the same going all the way down to Bowen where family veggie farms are being consolidated into larger holdings by corporate farmers.

The picture most of us carry in our minds is of hardworking families operating their own farms, kids going to the local schools, mums going into town to do the shopping while dad and the oldest sons work the farm. It’s a mind picture from a bygone era that is becoming more and more fantastical as change starts to wrap its wings around the Burdekin.

The picture now starting to come into focus is of a big city boardroom table ringed by a bunch of blokes in suits, backdropped by a skeleton crew of staff in khaki uniforms with a company name stitched over the left pocket, ploughing, planting, spraying and harvesting on what was once a patchwork of those family farms. It’s the future and it’s happening now.

We are not quite done yet in terms of these super-quiet outposts in the Burdekin. It is here at Clare-Millaroo-Dalbeg that we head back towards Clare, take the Woodhouse Road turn-off and stay on it until it reaches the mostly dirt road to Ravenswood, 60 minutes away through the rugged Leichhardt Range. The old mining town of Ravenswood is where time stands as still as the boulders and slabs of rock that have looked out at the world from the spurs and ridges of the ranges since time immemorial.

Owners Diane and John Schluter, Imperial Hotel - Ravenswood, Queensland, Airbnb Country Pub Project. Picture: Airbnb

There’s two pubs in Ravenswood – The Railway and The Imperial - where you can find good food and accommodation and as well there are camping facilities at the showgrounds. Both pubs are said to be haunted. I’ve stayed in both over the years and have never had a ghostly encounter, but let’s not spoil a good story. Take a walk through the cemetery and discover how hard life was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Babies died from disease. Mothers died in childbirth. Young men died in rock falls down in the mines. Others died in the lonely gullies from snake bite and thirst, their bones picked clean by the hawks and crows. The epitaphs carved into the tombstones tell their stories …“a good man and true,” reads one of a miner killed in an accident.

From Ravenswood its Mingela and northwards. More on that next week.

Originally published as John Anderson begins his journey through North Queensland’s quietest towns, first stop the Burdekin