Around Australia by Schooner

I wouldn't normally bother visiting somewhere like St George in Queensland. The town's motto is 'Resources - we exploit the buggery out of them'. Actually, I made that up, but with Cubbie Station to the south and the fracking paradise of the Surat Basin to the west and north, it's something the Shire Council should consider. Cubbie Station from the air Checking the place out meant a 250km detour on the way to my next stop (Lightning Ridge) but that didn't matter, because I was on a mission. St George, you see, is where our former acting Prime Minister learned to count. The former Deputy Prime Minister That's right, Barnaby Joyce developed his accounting chops in St George. I was excited. As I walked along the banks of the Balonne River, I wondered if I might bump into the great man himself? I mean Barnaby's known to like a bit on the side. Perhaps he might be supplementing his backbencher's salary by visitin

There was no memorial. No plaque. Nothing to indicate that the ground where I stood was soaked with the blood of the innocent. It was a dusty wasteland of drought-stunted trees, cacti, rusted bits of machinery and discarded beer bottles. A desolate place. A place where in 1837, Thomas Crampton shot and killed at least 15 people. Near Crampton's Corner, Goondiwindi I was on the outskirts of the Queensland border town Goondiwindi, discovered (according to the local authorities) by Alan Cunningham in 1827. That Goondiwindi needed discovering would have been a surprise to the Bigambul people who had a connection to country dating back some 40,000 years. 40,000 years of history, 191 years of recognition Within a few years of Cunningham's 'discovery', squatters started arriving, including a thug from England called Thomas Crampton. He'd been sentenced to transportation for robbery in 1830, but before his sentence in Van Diemen's Land was comp