Kinnons bringing heritage to life at Longreach

Telling the story of outback Australia's history has always been at the heart of the Kinnon family's aims, and now they're moving into a whole new level of storytelling, thanks to the successful tender for a parcel of land from the Queensland Agricultural Training College campus at Longreach.

The Unleashing Australia Fund Pty Ltd, also known as Outback Pioneers, was announced in June as the purchaser of the improved farming land adjacent to the Thomson River, for $1.2 million.

"We put in for the tender and I didn't think about it again, to be honest, because I had too many other things on my mind, and blow me dead, if we didn't win it," Outback Pioneers founder Richard Kinnon said.

The main thing on his mind was the shock sinking of the historic paddlewheeler, The Pride of the Murray in March, after it had been transported 2300km by truck in an incredible overland journey from Echuca in Victoria to Longreach in June 2022.

The 99-year-old vessel, built as a barge to tow behind other boats, with 80-100 tons of wool aboard, was to be a star attraction for the Longreach tourism enterprise, joining Cobb & Co stagecoach rides, an old-time tent show telling the story of Harry Redford, station experiences, and pioneer-themed accommodation.

While the Pride is set to be refloated shortly, the Kinnons are excited about the green light they've been given to open a window into a ubiquitous slice of colonial Australia, the Chinese market garden, thanks to securing part of the former Longreach Pastoral College.

They had been leasing the land beside the Thomson River frontage from the QATC, and had been dreaming of how to incorporate the story of Chinese gardeners and the dominant role they played in isolated outback towns into their immersive storytelling style.

"A lot of outback towns had Chinese gardens and gardeners - Longreach isn't the only town," Mr Kinnon said.

"(The area we bought) was where they had citrus gardens."

As well as utilising traditional methods, advised by Chinese people, the family sees the enterprise as being able to grow fruit and vegetables for the wider central west region.

"Just with the cost of freight, we see this as an opportunity for the west - my gut feeling is that a community garden can work," Mr Kinnon said.

They are looking at establishing a market for the produce on the block of land in Longreach where the Lyceum Hotel stood until it burnt down in 2018, which they subsequently purchased.

"We mightn't be able to grow every type of vege here but that's why we're bringing farmers in - they'll know," Mr Kinnon said.

As if that isn't enough, the land purchase, which comes with a water licence that the pastoral college used to grow stock feed, is going to become part of a heritage hay-making venture, complete with horse-drawn hay binders and harvesters, steam engines powered with timber, and vintage chaff cutters.

"I would love to think by April next year we'll have a heritage haystack down there in the hayfields, built with pitchforks," Mr Kinnon said.

They've purchased a steam engine known as the Granny of Victoria, and also have visions of hooking one up to the shearing shed at Nogo, the property they own close to Longreach, to tell the story of the early days of mechanised shearing.

Some of the hay will be used as feed for the horses used to pull Outback Pioneers' Cobb & Co coach rides, while the majority of the hay, irrigated by a centre pivot, will go to the district's equine community.

"I'm pretty strong on that point," Mr Kinnon said. "I believe it will be great for the community in every way."

He also says the two projects take the enterprise to a whole other level for story-telling.

"So many people said it wouldn't work, but I kept going at it until I worked out what did work.

"Believe it or not, we do 20,000 kilometres a year now in the Cobb & Co coaches, (use) two-and-a-half ton of horseshoes, and people are lined up to ride it down the mailtrack.

"If that's not working, I don't know what is."

Mr Kinnon is a born-and-bred cattleman who diversified into tourism 20 years ago to stave off the income-starving drought they were wrestling with at Morella, 60km north of Longreach.

He thought their purchase of Nogo Station, itself a part of the region's history, was at the end of a drought.

"We were thinking, it can't go on for much longer. Little did we know we were going to do another five years of dry times," he said.

"Nogo presented itself as a great opportunity because it was so close to town, for our type of storytelling.

"It's a great way to tell a story and our city cousins drive away remembering, from the smoke of our campfires to the horse poop of the Cobb & Co coaches, to the people that make the outback happen.

"It keeps us busy."