Boulia

I mean, camels, if anyone wants to talk about them.

But the topic is, when has a local given you a recommendation when you've been on holiday somewhere? It could have been a pub or a bakery or a lookout or something that they said you must go and see and you checked it out and they were spot on because that happened with us and a friendly camel named Charlie just outside Boulia in outback Queensland.

So we were told by the caretaker at the caravan park, look, make sure that when you're heading out of town, head this way because there is a herd of camels that were owned by a local but sort of freestyling out there of course you know there's very few fences and you know sometimes they're on the side of the road and you can see them and they'll get quite close to you so We did that and one of them, who we later found out his name is Charlie, came and stuck his head in James' driver's side window and then spent a few minutes scratching himself on the bits of the truck and he was absolutely beautiful and we were very surprised that he was happy.

We pulled up to look at him and he just walked on over and stuck his head in and then as we later found out, because after I posted it on Facebook, Facebook and Instagram, the video, the Boulia Shire Council got in touch with me and let me know that his name's Charlie.

And he was orphaned when he was four days old and hand-reared and bottle-fed by a local lady.

And that's why he loves people.

Okay.

So that's between Boulia and Winton.

Yep.

Uh, seven hours to Longreach, seven hours to Mount Isa.

I'm gonna show me old boy.

So Dad ...

So Middleton Pub is halfway between Winton and Boulia, as you know.

Yep.

Yeah?

Which is that Great Central Road that runs from Kalgoorlie all the way up to Uluru, and then from Alice Springs through the Plenty Highway all the way through to, uh, Boulia and, and Longreach.

So it's called the longest shortcut and, um, they've been working on the Great Central Road, sealing some of that.

And they're, they've just finished doing a large section of the, uh, of the Plenty.

Mind you, um, it's 730 kilometers from Boulia to the Stuart Highway, and then another 70 into Alice.

So there's an 800-kilometer run.

It's a couple of days, two or three days drive.

No

Oh, good evening, Dennis.

Hello from, well, we're pretty close to a place called Boulia, halfway between Birdville and Mount Isa in far southwestern Queensland.

Right.

What a trip, like what a few days we've had.

And he was also fortunate in a way that Queensland Health became involved once the whole camel race, or most of the people in the camel race, got inflicted with Shigella dysentery.

Queensland Health declared it a health emergency and they parked us all up in Boulia.

Boulia was very hospitable.

But we had to all take antibiotics and wait there until the dysentery had been treated.

And during that time, Gordon was in hospital in Mount Isa getting intravenous fluids.

So we knew that existed and we knew where it was.

We also knew that there was one out near Boulia, far southwestern Queensland, because it's a, it's a site that anyone can go to.

They can drive there and have a look at it.

So we started with the ones that we already knew the location of, and then spent a lot of time trawling through archival maps to find any reference to any Native Police camp anywhere and talking to lots of local communities, lots of land holders, lots of historical societies, anyone who we thought might be able to give us a lead.