Day 5 Qantas & Cruise Longreach

This morning we went to the Qantas Founders Museum.



The 47-year-old Boeing 707 underwent a four year restoration after being rescued in the United Kingdom where it had been earmarked for the scrap heap. Despite 25 retired Qantas engineers and volunteers spent 18,000 hours of work to restore it. The project spanned 6 months of smaller teams flying back and forth to the UK to have the plane fly home to Longreach in December 2006. The Boeing will not fly again.



Qantas was founded on November 16, 1920, in Winton, Queensland, by two World War I veterans and former Australian Flying Corps airmen, Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness, along with local grazier Fergus McMaster.

Hudson Fysh was voted one of the 100 most influential Australians of the 20th Century. Amongst his many achievements, arguably his greatest was the pioneering of air travel, air mail delivery and medical assistance to remote locations in Queensland. Hudson carried the first paying air passenger in Australia. He was also the founding father of Tourism Australia.















In the afternoon we went on a River Cruise Outback Dinner Show, a very relaxing cruise along the Thomson River stopping to see the scar trees and then the sunset before heading to Smithy's for a campoven dinner and entertainment by Drew Blundell.