BARCALDINE

  Barcaldine, Queensland, Australia
Thursday, July 16, 2009

BARCALDINE - July 16th, 2009

This was just an overnight stop as we head off towards Emerald.

Barcaldine (or Barky as it is affectionately known to the locals) has a colourful past which centers on the Great Shearer's Strike of 1891. It is, or was, home to the Tree of Knowledge and the birth place of the Australian Labor Party. 

Wollongong had it's Table of Knowledge (enough said about our latte sipping inhabitants of the said Table); a little town of Muckadilla which we passed along the way has a Seat of Knowledge outside the pub, and Barcaldine has a Tree of Knowledge.

The tree was a ghost gum which grew outside the Railway Station for over 180 years and it unfortunately was poisoned and pronounced dead in 2006. It is listed on the State Heritage Register and is only one of 74 nationally listed icons, along with the Sydney Opera House and the Great Barrier Reef!!!

Barcaldine is also home to the first free flowing bore in Queensland which was sunk in 1886. Artesian water is the life blood of the Outback and is oten referred to as liquid gold. Even though the countryside looks dry and dusty, each town we drive into is so green and welcoming because there is just no shortage of water! It seems so strange when the rest of the country is in the grip of drought. Nice to have long, hot showers at the end of the day.

Back to the poisoned tree.......The trunk and branches were removed in July 2007 and transported to Brisbane for the preservation process to take place, before returning it to Barcaldine to form part of the $8m Tree of Knowedge Memorial opened on 2nd May 2009 by Prime Minister Rudd and Premier Anna Bligh.

The memorial is essentially a "cube" comprised of recycled hanging timbers suspended from a glass covered roof structure. The 3,500 batons recreate the canopy of the original tree as it stood in 1891. The external timbers are charcoaled to create a veil around the memorial space. The majority of the timber came from redundant telephone poles in SA. The root ball was salvaged and can be viewed through a glass floor.

I thought it looked like a giant wind chime!! However, the effect is best viewed at night from under the canopy of hanging timbers and it is meant to look like a tree, it moves in the wind as normal branches and leaves would,


Because of the encasing cube unfortunately during the day, if it hadn't been explained to us we would have had not idea what it was all about!

Apparently an architectural masterpiece - but don't expect this comment from the locals!

Does any of this make any sense to anyone??

There are 6 pubs in the main street of Barcaldine, and if you are wondering how to pronounce the name of the town - try "6 Bars to call in"! or just plain Barky

Oh.. and all the streets in Barcaldine are named after trees!!