Puffing Billy in Queensland
Fifty steam engines will puff into life from August 26 to September 3 for the Australian Heritage Festival in Queensland’s Darling Downs.
The historic display – possibly the largest collection of working steaming engines ever seen in Australia – will be the star attraction of the 30th annual Heritage Festival in Jondaryan.
Each year, the nine-day event celebrates the Darling Downs’ rural heritage, and aims to educate visitors through authentic re-creations of yesteryear. The 2006 festival will focus on the significance of steam power to the region’s development.
As well as the Steaming Under the Southern Cross showcase, vintage tractors, trucks and cars will be featured.
Visitors will be kept entertained by a host of demonstrations and displays – from blacksmithing, shearing, whipmaking and horse-drawn ploughing to weaving, camp-oven cooking, cheese-making, sheepdog trials and shingle-splitting.
Colonial costumes, bush poetry, country music, arts, crafts and rural workmanship all add to the atmosphere of the event.
The festival is held in the heritage-listed Jondaryan Woolshed, 45kms west of Toowoomba, which is more than 140 years old, was one of the largest shearing sheds in the Southern Hemisphere and remains Queensland’s oldest continuously operated shearing shed.
Admission to the festival costs $15.50 for adults, $9.50 for children, with pensioner, family and 2- and 9-day discounts also available.
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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