Aramac

It’s reasonably common for a town to be named after a person, but this town was named after Sir Robert Ramsey Mackenzie, who carved RR Mac into a tree when he was exploring the area. Consequently another explorer named the watercourse Aramac Creek, and the town eventually became Aramac. It was originally Marathon, which is a town in the Queensland Railway song. However, it must be a different Marathon. This partly explains why I decided to visit Aramac today. When they were planning railways in Queensland, they decided to put the railway line through Barcaldine rather than Aramac. However, the good people of Aramac (which is one of the oldest towns in the area) decided to build their own branch line joining Aramac to Balcaldine, and thus the Aramac Tramway was born. It ran until 1975. I don’t think there are any other railway win Australia that were run by town councils.

A more important reason I visited Aramac today is that this was where Captain Starlight had his adventures. He was a cattle duffer - he stole cattle, walked them to another market (in this case South Australia) and sold them there. This wasn’t a venture for the faint hearted, as it’s a very long distance, through desert. However, that year there had been exceptional rains in the area, and it worked. Or it would have, except that one of the 1000 cattle stolen was a prize white bull specially bought from England for 500 pounds. White bulls were quite unusual (one might say unique), and it was traced. When Captain Starlight was tried (in Roma), he refused to have anyone who was well dressed on the jury, and the jury decided he was innocent. The judge said “Thank god, gentlemen, that verdict is yours and not mine”. The court in Roma was adjourned for two years after this. In his subsequent career as a cattle duffer, he was later acquitted of two other charges, but was finally convicted on a third occasion. He is quite famous as his exploits were recorded in “Robbery under Arms” a fairly popular Australian book. It’s thought that one reason he was acquitted was that he’d developed a new droving route.

While I was in Aramac I visited the library museum and the tramway museum to find out more about these.

However, the other reason I visited Aramac was to see the 200km sculpture loop. This was fantastic! Milynda Rogers has created 40 sculptures and placed them along three roads, forming a triangle. Most of the sculptures are impeccably located and beautifully executed. They enhance a scenic drive. Only one of the roads is paved, and the recent rains have made sections of the dirt roads somewhat challenging to drive, as the churned up mud has solidified. But it was still very worthwhile.