Minyip: The Flying Doctors keeps tourists flocking to this Wimmera town

Audiences worldwide fell in love with this TV drama in the ’80s, and 40 years later still flock to the Wimmera town where it was filmed.

Maurie Fields and Val Jellay joyfully waltzing across the bar-room floor of the Majestic Hotel.

Rebecca Gibney in oil-stained overalls repairing a ute at the mechanic’s garage opposite.

Hard-bitten cop Eric Bana walking the dusty main street as drought slowly suffocates a country community.

Minyip has lit up television and cinema screens time and time again over the past four decades, wowing audiences from Manchester to Munich.

Actors Rebecca Gibney and Peter O'Brien from the TV program The Flying Doctors in 1987. Picture: Supplied

The Flying Doctors actor Robert Grubb at Minyip.

The Wimmera hamlet first came to national attention in a 1985 miniseries on the Nine Network called The Flying Doctors.

The one-off drama by Crawford Productions stuck a chord with audiences instantly.

Flushed with success, television executives commissioned a full series — sending actors, producers and camera operators back up the Western Highway from Melbourne.

Starring Gibney, Peter O’Brien and real-life couple Jellay and Fields, more than 200 episodes were produced between 1986 and 1993.

“Even though the town was called Coopers Crossing on The Flying Doctors, it really did put Minyip on the map,” Yarriambiack councillor Corinne Heintze said.

“You’ve got to remember, back in the 1980s and ’90s, there weren’t the many, many television channels and other entertainment options we have now.

“So if your town was on one of the main television networks, millions of people knew about it straight away.”

Wimmera Tourism officer Chris Niewand and Yarriambiack councillor Corinne Heintze in Minyip. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Minyip, located about 50km northeast of Horsham, was picked by producers because it was remote enough to look like the back of Bourke but within a reasonable drive of Melbourne.

Local landmarks became film sets overnight. The turn-of-the-century Club Hotel became the Majestic, the local watering hole operated by Vic and Nancy Buckley (Fields and Jellay).

Over the road, the town’s senior citizens centre was transformed into the Coopers Crossing Base of the Flying Doctor Service.

Next door, Emma Plimpton (Gibney) ran a mechanic’s garage. The building now hosts a popular cafe with memorabilia from the television series.

Cr Heinze remembers a number of scenes being filmed in and around town with local schoolkids eager to obtain an autograph from the television stars.

However, replicating the hot and dusty conditions of the outback during a Wimmera winter could prove testing.

“I remember one particular scene where they were trying to film a summer parade through town. The problem was that they were filming in winter — it was about 10 or 11 degrees and there was a hail shower or two that day.

“Rebecca Gibney had to get on the back of a truck for the parade, along with others.

“In between filming, the actors would huddle under blankets then when the cameras started rolling they had to pretend that it was summer again.

“I didn’t think it would work at the time but the magic of television: they pulled it off. The way they filmed it, you could have sworn it was summer.”

Minyip. Picture: Zoe Phillips

So why does a television program, which shared the schedules with Dynasty, Moonlighting, A Country Practice and Family Ties, still have pulling power?

One element is that it has been endlessly repeated on European television since it wrapped up in the early 1990s.

Several social media sites run by fans in Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands enable audiences to reminisce about Coopers Crossing and its many characters.

They’ve also provided a financial lifeline to Minyip, with photos and props from the program showcased in the windows of main street shopfronts.

Chris Niewand, from the Minyip Progress Association, said international visitors were a common sight in Minyip prior to the enforcement of pandemic travel restrictions in March 2020. Fans predominantly hailed from Germany, where The Flying Doctors regularly won the ratings in the early 1990s.

“Germany is the main one, but we get fans from the Netherlands and other European countries,” Ms Niewand said.

“The fan clubs have been great for the town. They’ve even co-ordinated bus trips up from Melbourne after flying in from overseas.

“They absolutely loved The Flying Doctors. It was a show the whole family could watch and had many great names in it over the years.”

Yarriambiack councillor Corinne Heintzeoutside the Majestic Hotel. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Actor Maurie Fields with Val Jellay in scene from The Flying Doctors.

While the small screen cameras stopped filming Minyip in the early 1990s, the silver screen recently embraced the charms of the Wimmera town.

In 2019, Australian comedian turned Hollywood star, Eric Bana, filmed a number of scenes in Minyip for the cinematic adaptation of Jane Harper’s wildly popular novel The Dry.

Bana starred as federal police officer Aaron Falk, returning to his (fictional) hometown of Kiewarra.

The Robert Connolly-directed film also starred Australian acting stalwarts such as Bruce Spence (Dimboola) and Julia Blake (Travelling North).

The film was set to hit cinemas in August 2020 but was delayed from holding an in-person premiere by coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. It later premiered in Melbourne, just prior to Christmas 2020 and went nationwide early last year.

While photos of Bana and other stars from The Dry adorn the shopfronts of Minyip, Ms Niewand said the town was yet to see much tourist spin-off from the film.

“It’s really hard to tell yet because we had lockdowns throughout 2020 and 2021. Maybe the new year will see more people come to Minyip because of The Dry.”

Another factor that has revived interest in The Flying Doctors is that it now features on streaming service Stan, Australia’s main pay television rival to Netflix.

“I think The Flying Doctors will always be a drawcard for Minyip,” Cr Heinze said. “People have the DVD boxsets and it’s always being repeated somewhere on television around the world. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”