The Railway Hotel at Barcaldine, probably the best town in Australia for a pub crawl.

 A yarn I wrote a coupla years back for a motorcycle magazine. Maybe some of the faces have changed but Barcaldine still has to be close to the very best place in Australia for a pub crawl!

Before the fairies arrived at around 9.30, it’d been a pretty quiet Friday night at the Railway Hotel.

The Sand Goannas were having their end of season bash out at the oval on the edge of town and so most of young blokes and their partners were out there celebrating a year of mixed fortunes.

Which was fine by me: more time to chat with Pauline, the owner about running a pub in a town with the unique and special history of Barcaldine.

Because if you’re interested in pubs or if you’re interested in Australian History or if you’re interested in the history of Australian pubs, Barcaldine is your Mecca, your Lourdes, your Sturgis, and the publicans with their contacts are your clergy!

Its population of around 1500 would normally struggle to keep maybe a couple pubs afloat and I’ve seen many towns this size struggle to support just one.

But begin at the western end of Oak St on Barky’s northern side at the recently closed down Globe Hotel,

and you’ll come to the Commercial, then in quick succession, the Shakespeare, the Artesian, the Railway and finally the low slung Union.

Five pubs in two blocks! Each with its own character and history and each seeming to be

doing okay. Impressive stuff!

When I arrived in town, I’d lobbed at the first, the Commercial only to be told they don’t do accommodation but that the Railway had rooms vacant and to just ask for Pauline.

She was expecting me and after

explaining where my room was she asked whether I wanted a key. I asked if I needed one and she said that I didn’t so I rattled my dags, unloaded the bike and headed to my room.

Now, when I head up a gloriously creaking staircase on my way to a 30 buck room which has been discounted to $25.00 with a biker discount, I have a few

ideas of what to expect.

What I don’t expect are reverse cycle aircon; I don’t expect a ceiling fan, a really comfortable bed, a beautiful verandah, a nice common area, well-maintained showers, bathroom and toilets. Well bugger me, I soon found that the Railway at Barky

had all these.

I made a brew and went out to the balcony. I wanted to kick back and take it all in.

The Railway Hotel is slap bang opposite the imposing Tree of Knowledge monument, which is one of the big magnets for tourism to this town, and the view from the balcony is perfect.

It was the Tree and the events that made it famous that’d drawn me

to this part of Queensland and to sit on this balcony across the road, in a pub which has to be amongst the absolute best value for money in the entire country, was a calming and focussing experience.

The shearers’ strike of 1891 was an event more important to our history than Eureka. The country was on the brink of all out armed revolt; a few careless shots away from full-on revolution. Bands of strikers covered the entire countryside pursued by any remaining troopers and police who weren’t guarding the scabs.

It is a story we all should know. And Barcaldine was the epicentre. It was where the leaders like Julian Stuart and Shearblade Martin were arrested, loaded onto a train just behind the Tree, sent for trial at Rockhampton and ended up in gaol on St Helena Island off Brisbane.

This 120 year history is still raw and real in Barcaldine. Over a century ago the Union and the Railway were the pubs of the unionists, the Artesian and the Commercial the haunts of the scabs, the blacklegs and their masters. These demarcations are remembered by locals still today!

Oak St with its Tree and its pubs was at the core of the strike and the organization which was hatched beneath the Tree of Knowledge became the Australian Labour Party.

Every surviving pub is alive with its own story. When the strikers got ugly after one of their leaders had been arrested the troopers were forced to retreat with their prisoner to the billiard room of the Shakespeare and wait out the storm.

When a demonstration of near two thousand marched down Oak St, they paused in front of the Shakey, the Commercial and the Globe to hiss and jeer their owners.

The Railway doesn’t do dinners so Pauline suggested the Artesian a few ‘yards’ down the street. In an exquisite irony, this pub’s now

run by a Maori couple, Phillip and Shona from Tokomaru Bay.  The birth of unionism in this country was founded as much on racism as it was on class warfare. The opening articles of the emergent ALP banned the membership of Chinese, aboriginals, Kanakas and …….. Maorilanders.

This was later expanded to the banning of members from even working with Chinese! Ah, the beginning of a labour tradition which led to Arthur Caldwell, Labour leader not too many years ago endorsing the White Australia Policy with the unforgettable line, ‘Two Wongs don’t make a White.” (How we’ve grown up!)

Back in 1891, the various pubs’ owners, faced with threats from the strikers to burn down their establishments all laid off their Chinese cooks and kitchen staff and hired whites.

Today the pubs all co-exist and co-operate for the good of all. Some don’t do meals, some don’t have gambling, some don’t have accommodation, not all have bottle departments and one makes the ice for all the rest.

The grub and the atmosphere at the Artesian was all good and by the time I’d got back to the Railway, a bloke was waiting for me. Pauline had rung local identity and personal tree of knowledge, Pat who’d dropped by with some old photos and documents to share.

Pat used to own the now-closed Globe and if I thought I knew a bit about the town and the strikes, listening to Pat made me feel like a sheep man in cattle country.

In the quiet of the bar this tough Labor stalwart gave me his time and filled in some of the many gaps of my knowledge about the town before excusing himself. The races were on and he had some tips. The Railway doesn’t have a TAB but Pat is now part-owner in one of the other pubs which does! So he apologised, made me promise I’d ring in advance next time and, grasping his memories and his form guide, headed west to his own pub.

And not long after the fairies wafted in! Wives and girlfriends of

absent footy players they’d been at a fundraiser for a friend with cancer and the drinks they ordered weren’t their first of the evening!

The jukebox cranked up, the pool table came to life and the quiet air became raucous with laughter, singing and good times.

I’ve no idea what the, “Dancing Granny’s” real name is, she’s just

known as, DG’ and pretty soon she was on a table belting out a number on the jukebox.  She likes her song as much as she likes her beer, which is about as much as young Tommy Waterhouse likes his reflection!

Those Sand Goannas didn’t know what they were missing, but then again, maybe they did!

A Saturday night in a good pub in a good town with good people.  I shouted a round, bought a fundraising beer mitt, kicked back and thought, ‘This kinda stuff don’t come much better!’

With the proximity of the hotels and their sharing of facilities, I think of Barcaldine’s Oak St more of a single pub spread out over several blocks and connected by an open walkway. Put ‘em all

together and you have a tremendous place to hang for a couple of days.

But for me the Railway Hotel is without peer for value and comfort. If you find a place with better value for your buck, let me know coz I’ve sure not found one!

Oh, but if you get on the turps, be warned, the shaming process out here is swift and effective as the signs in many of the shops along the street made evident: