Mutchilba gets its groove back

THE town they wiped off the map has got its name back -- so it's party time for the people of Mutchilba, north Queensland.

THE town they wiped off the map has at last got its name back -- so it's party time for the people of Mutchilba, north Queensland.

Never mind that the mail is still going to nearby Dimbulah.

Or that sat-nav systems draw a blank when the locality of Mutchilba is tapped in.

"We are Mutchilba again and that's all that matters," delighted resident Ann Adams said last night, as locals prepared to celebrate a hard-fought win over the bureaucrats who had decreed that their town no longer existed.

Queensland Minister for Natural Resources and Mines, Andrew Cripps will do the honours tonight and hand over a plaque affirming that Mutchilba is back on the map.

The 1000-odd people who live in and around the town on the Atherton Tableland, 100km west of Cairns, have been invited to a community barbecue and fair to mark the occasion, complete with a jumping castle for the kids.

Their campaign to reclaim the town's name began last July when it became apparent that, officially at least, Mutchilba had been folded into Dimbulah 20km away.

Unbeknown to locals, a federal review of localities had set in train a process that resulted in Mutchilba losing its place name.

What seemed like a minor inconvenience with mail being directed to and then redirected from the post office at Dimbulah became deadly serious when Mrs Adams's husband, Harry, suffered a heart attack and called for help. As he told the The Australian, precious minutes ticked by while he tried to explain to the triple-0 operator that their house was where it had always been in Mutchilba Road, Mutchilba, not in Dimbulah, despite what the computer was saying.

"The safety thing became the issue with Harry," Mrs Adams said. "It showed we had to get the name back."

Fortunately, Mr Adams got the message across, the ambulance arrived and he was choppered to Townsville for heart surgery. He has gone on to make a full recovery.

Too good, his wife complains. "He's overdoing it," she said. "But you can't tell Harry anything."

Mr Cripps said he was glad Mutchilba's identity crisis

had been resolved. "We've fixed that," he said, referring to the confusion Mr Adams's health scare had exposed.