Just add water: the Outback community saved by a yacht club
After the drought almost destroyed their community, some Longreach locals came up with an ingenious idea to bring life back to their town: a yacht club. And, as Susan Chenery discovers, a lack of water isn’t going to stop them.
Tumbleweeds roll across the vast flat plain, flying into the air in the hot wind. The bleached blue sky and pale rolling downs meet in an endless shimmering horizon. Red earth and spiky vegetation spread out as far as the eye can see. A small herd of cattle huddle in the sparse shade of infrequent gum trees.
And yet here in the dusty outback, a boat is being unsteadily lowered into the water at the Outback Yacht Club, beside a corrugated iron club house. On the 7300-odd hectares of Camden Park Station, it is definitely the world’s largest yacht club. And at 700 kilometres inland, it is possibly the furthest from the sea. It is also probably on the smallest stretch of water – your basic pond. Well, okay, your artesian bore, drilled to 3000 metres under the ground. Until today, it hadn’t had an actual yacht either. Details, details.
In the outback, resourcefulness and ingenuity can overcome many obstacles. Like, for instance, the glaring lack of sea that a normal yacht club might think necessary. The sailboat, well, technically an OK-class dinghy, has been driven on a trailer from the coast, may have been seen parked outside the odd outback pub on the way and is ready for its maiden voyage. The problem is that the only person who seems to know what to do with a yacht is The Weekly’s photographer Scott Hawkins. Enthusiasm can only go so far when it comes to boating, it turns out, and there is not a big call for nautical skills around here.
“This is an opportunity for kids to learn water sports,” says Daniel Walker, 34, of Camden Park station, somewhat hopefully. And, anyway, out here you have to make your own fun.
In the soft evening light, in the cooling down from the flattening heat of the December day, great thunderhead clouds are forming, a magnificent sight not seen in almost four years of drought. The sun is lowering over the ruggedly iconic Queensland town of Longreach, 10 kilometres down the road. The idea for a yacht club came after a friend had camped out here beside the bore.
In the years of the most devastating drought in Australian history, Camden Park had to completely destock its 6000 cattle, leaving Daniel and so many other farmers living on reserves, without income and in caretaker mode for four long years. It was something close to a humanitarian crisis in the rural heartland of this country. “The house dam had never been dry before until March last year. There has been a $4 million downturn in the community. Outlying towns have been decimated,” says Daniel.
It was the third time they have had to destock since 2003. Daniel’s older brother, James, says that every week during the drought a family was forced to leave the region. He petitioned to the former Abbott government to do more to help farmers, to no avail. And the next generation is not coming back, says Daniel. It is too hard, too uncertain. Classes have halved at the primary school his son, Harley, five, goes to. “Just due to the stock leaving the country. A lot of guys have had to leave town to find work. We used to have three football teams in town and now we can’t even get one together.”
While Daniel “can’t wait” to have stock back on the property, it takes years to raise a herd. Yet they still have Camden Park station and its spectacular stark beauty. They still have the homestead built in 1917, with its wide veranda, with its roof low to the ground, and the oldest private ballroom in Queensland.
So Daniel is diversifying into tourism, fighting back against what the elements have done to his family and their community, and shifting the focus from livestock to people.
“It is the most volatile rainfall in Australia, which means running a business is a bit out of your control. The rainfall is out of our hands,” he says. “We have seen the agricultural industry struggle. We can’t rely on it. We need some certainties in life.”
His grandfather, Sir James Walker, was a Longreach pioneer, arriving with nothing but a swag at the age of 16,
working hard, purchasing Camden Park in 1962, being Shire Chairman for 35 years, going on to become one of the founding members of the Stockman’s Hall of Fame, built on land he donated. “He loved this area. He was so passionate about it, the location, the people, the community,” says Daniel. “It is untouched, that is what we all love about it. The rawness of it. It is just how it is.”
Indeed, when the Queen and Prince Philip visited Camden Park in 1970, she noted from the homestead veranda, “where else in the world can you stand in a landscape and look
360 degrees right around and see nothing man made?”
She was so impressed with the wide open space that she returned in 1988. The locals like to think it was because she made friends here.
In a dip in the land not far from here, infamous cattle duffer Harry Readford hid his rustled cattle, before he drove 1000 stolen cattle 1400km across to South Australia in 1870. The daring, dangerous and historic cattle drive across the Strzelecki Desert, where Burke and Wills had died only 10 years earlier, formed the plot of the 1888 novel Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood, and the bushranger Captain Starlight was based on Readford. When the police finally caught up with Readford, the jury at Roma courthouse were so impressed by his exploits they found him not guilty. It is the legacy of these people that embodies the spirit of the outback.
While Daniel’s brother, James, uses sophisticated computer models to monitor cattle health and dynamic forecasting for the weather, the pioneers used water diviners to find underground what was an inland sea. “A million years ago, dinosaurs used to swim in it,” says a delighted Daniel, “that is unreal.”
Above us, huge clouds are darkening and dropping menacing tendrils.
When the drought finally broke on June 8 last year, the Walkers’ young children had never seen rain. They didn’t know what it was, but danced in it and ran and screamed. “It was the most rain we had had in known history,” says Daniel. “We have seen flowers and plants that have been lying dormant for up to 20 years. There were purple wild flowers all through here. There was such a buzz. Everyone came into town, people were outside watching the storms come in, out walking in it. The community went weird.”
At last, after a concerted effort by the Walkers, helped by family friends the Hawkins, the yacht has somewhat shakily been launched. It’s on the water, if wobbly, its sail is up. In an energetic gust of wind, Daniel and wife Brooke are sailing – straight into the bank on the other side, where they get stuck temporarily. Off they go again, flying across the water, picking up speed.
The Outback Yacht Club is afloat, if taking on water. Even without a yacht, its quirkiness has been a hit on social media. An idea whose time has come, in a place where time stands still. It has brought attention and American media to Daniel’s beloved Longreach. “It’s getting us on the map. It just feels like the right thing to do,” he says.
Daniel has ambitious plans for the future, concepts that are “community orientated, one dollar coming into the community equals eight dollars when it’s passed around town. If we can help and benefit visitation to our region, then in return it helps the community.”
He wants to extend the bore into a man-made lake – “this is quite a big
“We celebrate life, the land, Australia, the outback. A lazy drink and watch the sunset.”
catchment area” – build a clubhouse that is not a tin shed, have regattas and balls. For now, though, there are dinners under the stars, cooked by Brooke, a local girl, bus tours, visits to the property, smokos, afternoon teas and, hopefully, boating – if the yacht doesn’t sink, that is – a distinct possibility at the moment.
“The sunset out here is sensational,” Daniel says. “We celebrate life, the land, Australia, the outback. A lazy drink and watch the sunset. On a clear night, you can see so many stars.”
Local businesses had their Christmas parties out here. Visitors keep coming back. “We’re trying to entice visitation to our area, to showcase what we have to offer, our little secret, that this is the best part of the world,” he says. “Getting people to check out their own backyard instead of heading overseas on holidays.”
Daniel is most hospitable, a born salesman with a passion that’s infectious. In his own way, he’s continuing the pioneering tradition, but with technology and creative thinking. “We’re still struggling as they did in the pioneering days with the water supply and water security,” he says. “We’re trying to put ourselves in our forefathers’ position, we’ve had to find ways to keep things going.”
Seconds after the dripping yacht is pulled from the water, a wild wind storm explodes. The wind is screaming, the ground seems to shake. It’s furious, the tumbleweeds flying into the sky, along with columns of red earth and anything else the wind can grab. It’s malevolent and glorious. While the Walker brothers are of this land, part of it, this elemental display, is a reminder of who is in charge here. Untameable nature is putting on a show and all you can do is stand back and stay out of its way. Respect.
“We’re here to continue the legacy of our father and grandfather,” Daniel says, “and be custodians of the land.”