The Birdsville Track Audio Tour is produced by me (Jackie Stallard) under the guise of Oz Audio Tours. See how it works!
I lived in Birdsville for seven years from 2000 to 2007, for most of that time managing the Big Red Cafe (previously Caravanserai Cafe) and Blue Poles Gallery, where I spoke with tourists every day.
People would come in and say, ‘I wanted to drive the Birdsville Track before I die but I’m so disappointed! It’s nothing but rocks and dust!’
This is so sad! The Birdsville Track is amazing! – Dust bursting into carpets of flowers that stretch for kilometres – catfish crowding the Diamantina Crossing, waiting to swim upstream – stunning, wide skies and a million stars.
I love soaking in hot bore springs – and have spent many hours wandering by the Diamantina, even finding plant species that hadn’t yet been identified!
I love reading about the explorers too. I’m fascinated by Aboriginal culture and the stories of the old drovers! Sometimes I think, ‘Australia’s a unique and amazing country. Birdsville’s harsh, beautiful and like no other place on earth – our coastal dwellers haven’t got a clue what they’re missing!’
The locals’ stories are funny, extreme, heart-breaking. There’s so much to say about the Birdsville Track and yet our tourists have been missing it, flying by ancient, historical spots in a cloud of dust. I just had to do something!
So before I left, I travelled the Birdsville Track, visiting station owners, road crew, locals born and bred – in fact anybody who’d talk to me! I recorded their voices on a mini disk recorder and took my precious cargo back to the coast, where I researched, wrote and edited. It took a few years. But I nurtured the stories, adding sound effects and music, recording and rerecording the narration until I had something I could be proud of – something that would finally show tourists the ecology, history, stories and people that make me love the Birdsville Track so much. Now, finally it’s ready – for you to share the experience of our legendary, extreme, mind-boggling Outback!