Well sh*t eh! The best pub at Ilfracombe, Qld

 The Wellshot Hotel

Ilfracombe

Qld

        In 1954 the boss of the Qld A.W.U. was interviewed about the roots of unionism in the Sunshine state:

 “The Labor Movement in Queensland as we know it-…., was born in the pastoral … In 1886, at Wellshot station … industrial trouble arose at shearing time because shearers would not accept the … slave-like conditions of work proposed (and) went on strike, and the news of their action went like a bushfire throughout the outback (and) when no settlement was reached at Wellshot the men began to march on Blackall (where, with shearers from other gangs and stations) they decided to form the Shearers' Union.” 

        Eventually this Shearers’ Union grew into the backbone of the organization which became the ALP in Barcaldine in 1892. The place of Wellshot Station and Ilfracombe in our political and social history were cemented forever. 

        When the Station was created in 1872 it measured a neat million acres – a bit over 4,000 square kms and 4 years later it’d expanded to over 4,700 sq kms. By 1892 it was running the world’s biggest flock of sheep – a bit under half a million of the buggers. 

        It was so big that they originally named the town after it but when that changed to Ilfracombe, the pub stayed staunch and kept its moniker. A lot of the place has shrivelled now, bullied into submission by the soulless and depressing Longreach to the west where the beautiful pubs now stand empty or converted. 

        But the Wellshot Hotel at Ilfracombe still remains, not just surviving, but thriving. In July 2016 Tracy and Paul were cane farmers at Burdekin, a bit west of Ayr and Tracy came out Longreach way to check out a listed residential property that they thought might suit her mum. She noticed the Wellshot Hotel, half an hour back toward the coast at Ilfracombe was also on the market so on a whim she dropped in, fell in love with it, and with the idea of owning a pub. 

         The price was a bit steep so she made an offer and it was accepted. She signed the forms and headed back to the sugar cane. 

 “Paul was hard at it on the tractor and so I took the papers down to him and told him I’d bought the pub.” His response wasn’t exactly “Well shot, eh?” more, “Have you effing thought this through?” She said she had and that was it. 

        They now owned their first hotel and pulled their first beers in the first week of October 2016, setting about re-invigorating this historic, landmark pub that was, at that stage a bit tired and run-down. And it was the customers, the locals, the regulars and the transients who dragged them along. 

 “When you grow sugarcane you have one customer, the mills. You spend 11 months growing your product and one month cutting it down and you sell it all to the same client. They have the same needs, and the same small set of demands. And very little feedback. But with a pub you have dozens of customers every day and most are different.” 

         It’s that dynamic with its myriad demands that’re the magnets. Covid restrictions mean the second bar isn’t operating but I was allowed in for a squizz. The walls of both bars are covered with old photos, hats and shearing gear. It ain't tacky cliched rubbish like at, say Daly Waters – there’s more an atmosphere of a place that many decent folks have enjoyed and respected over many years. In the operating bar there’re two of the five novelty stools that Paul found somewhere in 2016. This pair are covid approved and they host a steady stream of visitors getting photos. One’s in the shape of pair of jeans topped by a cowboy’s waist. The other is stockinged legs leading up to a G-stringed pair of cheeks and as I peer over my just delivered burger, I gotta say I’m happy with the buns.

                                         

         Needless to say there’s no gambling apart from the ubiquitous Keno, no screaming screens, and no atm feeding unfortunates doing there dough on machines in the adjoining room. But there is Foxtel for the ‘footy and the country music’. The ceiling’s covered with drawing-pinned 5,10,20 and 50 dollar notes. All throw-ups here. No cheating and climbing up and sticking in your dough. If you don’t know how to pin a pineapple to the ceiling of the pub, they’ll explain it to you, provide the pin and set you loose. 

         Current charity is Black Dog, a charity dear to Tracy’s heart – she reckons the pub, talking and being with people, is therapy for those on both sides of the bar. The notes get harvested each year and so far donations have topped $30,000. Well sh*t eh! 

         Generosity of spirit is a long tradition here, coupled with a dash or larrikin. Back in 1896 a local bloke was charged with using obscene language to, truly, a Salvo lady collecting money at the pub. His defence testimony included this gem: 

 “We were having a drink or two in the Wellshot Hotel when the woman came into the bar cadging; neither of us tried to pour gin down her throat; I promised her a shilling for the collection if she drank a glass of beer or gin.” 

         The salvo must’ve turned down the offer and that’s when things obviously turned pear-shaped and the fella was charged, fined a quid, and another for resisting and in default 14 days in the lockup. He probably muttered, ‘well sh*t eh!’ 

         I grab a beer and on a sunny midweek arvo, head for the side door, past a table with a sort of library of books on country pubs. Featuring is a book by a young promising writer named Colin Whelan whose first book sold out and whose second is due out in August. Well, sh*t eh again! 

         The door out’s blocked by a white calf. Got no idea about political correctness as it relates to bovines but Snowy’s - well, Snowy’s not the full quid – Tracy reckons he’d never survive out in the paddock due to some um, er, developmental issues. Let’s just leave it at “one teat short of an udder”. There’s also Sean the sheep and Chops the lamb, Esmeralda the fat-tailed sheep and Kevin the goat. It’s not quite as wild as the zoo that Garry has at his pub at Bethanga on the upper-Murray but you get the idea of the craziness. 

         Mid-week arvo and the seats are populated by a disparate bunch of families, tourists, a couple of other riders and there’s a hum of good times as tables are hopped, animals fed, and even homework done on one table. My room’s in the converted and restored shearers’quarters at the back of the pub. A glorious setting with a stunning internal veranda on the edge of the vegetable and flower beds which provide decoration for the bars and ingredients for the chef. And I park my bike not 3 metres from the room door. 

         The full-time chef serves up lunch every day from 12-2 and dinner from 6.00pm. Out front there’s a coffee hatch that does a roaring trade flogging caffeine, muffins, jaffles and home-made pies to truckies, tradies and travellers from 6.00am – 8.00 am on the Sabbath. 

         One hundred and thirty-five years after Wellshot Station became ingrained in the social history of this country, the Wellshot Hotel is just as firmly entrenched in the pantheon of our great country pubs. 

         When you saddle up after time spent here, you’re going to smile and think, “Wellsh*t eh - what a ripper pub.”