The good folk of Alpha have given their town the description of 'The Gateway To The West' for reasons which are a little beyond me and, frankly, seem a touch grandiose. The fact that the town lies on the railway line which runs west out of Rockhampton to Longreach may have had something to do with this decision, but today there is nothing particularly significant about Alpha's location.
In the days of yore, notably for a few years after 1884, when Alpha was the railhead for the cattle shipments east, this claim had more clout, but once the line extended further west Alpha became just another stop along the way.
Before that happened, the sleepy little town we found today was anything but. In those days Alpha was aptly described as a real frontier town which soon gained a reputation for lawlessness. Reports of the day have it that on pay nights things got particularly chirpy, when the town became "the scene of wild free-for-all fights".
Today this is now a much more law abiding town of about 350 permanent residents. It took its name from a nearby cattle run established before the town came into existence, and continues to operate as a service centre for the surrounding grazing industry in an area which is renowned for being one of the best cattle raising districts in the country.
In fact when he came through here as the first European to set foot in the area in the winter of 1846, Major Thomas Mitchell described the area as being characterised "by rich grassy plains, fragrant tropical air, many trees in blossom and flowers to deck the earth". With an accolade like this it is small wonder that, by the 1850's, settlers had moved in to establish stock runs.
But there are some concerning commercial clouds on Alpha's horizon of today, something about which I'll touch on later.
For now, we were on a mission of discovery which went beyond a mere town toddle. In the course of our pre-arrival research, we had read that one of the features of Alpha is its array of public murals.
A map indicating the locations of each of the twenty-six sites was available, but we decided to just wander about town on a quest of 'accidental discovery'. If nothing else, the ageing joints of your scribe were in need of a good stretch and we were keen to see what else we would find along the way.
The town CBD lies in the Alpha Creek valley, and as this plaque we discovered in a small park at one end of Shakespeare Street so amply shows, this usually benign little waterway has been known to bare its teeth.
This is a shot looking down along the same area as it was today.
This commemorative garden is also the site of another of Alpha's well known attractions,
the 'Fossilised Forrest'. Petrified wood can be found in significant quantities around Alpha,
but I'll let the plaque which accompanies this work of public art tell its own story,
and invite you all to make of this what you will.
From this point we walked down into the town CBD, which is not extensive, as this shot looking back whence we had come shows.
All the usual suspects can be found here, the town pub,
the old town pub (a far more impressive looking building)
a small supermarket
and an assortment of other commercial businesses one would expect to find in a small country town.
These included the local hairdresser, housed in a modest building which would have not grabbed my particular attention but for the notice on the door.
Although the outcome of my efforts is a rather poor photo, I just had to share this with you. For those with diminished eyesight, this read "Salon Open but unable to wash hair c/s no hot water (unless you Brave) Working on fixing ASAP". Strangely enough there was no queue at the door but at least any 'walkups' were given fair warning. Hopefully the cutting and colouring abilities of the proprietor are superior to his or her signwriting skills!
This was not the only odd little discovery we made in this small CBD. At first glance there seemed to be nothing at all unusual about the Bank of Queensland building next to the local newsagent,
but as we walked past we came across another 'first' in our travels. The strange looking grey coloured contraption next to the steps is a lift designed to raise customers arriving in gophers from the footpath to the entrance level of the bank. No-one could accuse the BOQ of not doing its best for the old and infirm of Alpha!
Whilst in this part of town we did come across the first of a cluster of the famed murals to be found here, almost hiding on the side wall of the bakery just beyond the local tourist information centre.
Needless to say, the subject of this offering was entirely predictable.
The same could be said for the largest of the town murals, one commissioned by Queensland Rail which decorates the side of a large railway shed across the road.
That to be found on the nearby public toilet wall, a very well done scene of an early bush camp, was far less directly connected to the premises it adorned, but from our point of view was one of the better offerings.
This is probably as good a time as any to mention another little town oddity. When the town was gazetted in 1885, many of the streets were named after poets (sorry, no idea why!). As Aussie Towns notes:
"Hence there is a Milton Street, a Dryden Street, a Byron Street, a Tennyson Street, a Burns Street and a Kendall Street."So what I hear you ask? The piece continues thus:
"It is local joke that the only street in town not named after a poet was Shakespeare Street (the main street) which was named after the local publican, George Shakespeare."
What better example could one find of the social importance of the bloke who dispensed thirst quenching ales, porters, wines and other 'spiritous liquors' during the days of early Australian settlement!
After this quick jaunt around the CBD (as you could see there is not much of it) we headed off into the back streets and beyond where we found many of the town's public buildings, presented here in no particular order.
These included the quaintly 'almost art deco' Town Hall
the small Post Office
and the more impressive Alpha State School.
We were a little confused when we came across this Police sign in one of the back streets for a very simple reason.
As we had driven into town the previous day we had passed a complex of buildings on the outskirts, where that on the corner was clearly the (new) town Police office with the local fire, ambulance and emergency services building right next door.
Sensibly co-located with this group of brand new looking emergency service buildings was the Alpha hospital and medical centre, a facility opened here in June 2016 and built at a cost of $17.5 million.
The establishment of this community infrastructure seems to be somewhat at odds with a developing air of concern amongst the locals. You may recall my earlier comment about the clouds gathering over Alpha, clouds associated with a coal mining development.
I would comment with a large degree of certainty that any Australian who has not heard of the Galilee Basin and the Adani coal mining project must have been living under a rock for the past few years.
Everything about this whole business is huge. The basin itself covers 247,000 square kilometres of Queensland
and forms one of the largest untapped coal reserves on the planet. If all the mines being proposed for the area come to fruition the annual output from this area is estimated at over 600 million tonnes.
Now whilst the Adani approvals saga has dominated Australian interest generally, what most do not know, including your scribe until recently, is the fact that this was not the first mine proposed for the basin.
In May 2012 mining approval was granted by the Queensland Government for the go ahead of the Alpha Coal Project, the development of a coal mine a mere 40 kms north-west of Alpha with a railway line to connect it to the coast at Abbot Point. According to the project website, 4,000 workers are expected to be needed for the construction of this $6.9 billion (yep, billion) development with another 2,000 needed for the day to day operation. It may come as no surprise to learn that a Gina Rinehart company is involved!
In addition to this, another two nearby mines are on the drawing board. All this has the locals understandably worried with the very reasonable judgement that, as it stands, the local infrastructure will not be able to cope with this expansion. Foremost amongst the concerns are the fact that there is a lack of land available for housing development, and that the local sewerage, water and power systems are already running at close to capacity.
Let's hope for the sake of the good folk of Alpha that the development approvals include provisions for the necessary infrastructure to be included. If indeed all this comes to pass, the Alpha of tomorrow could well be a vastly different place to that we see today.
Mind you, there is still a long way to go before all this happens. One of the mining proposals has created a particular furore. I won't bore you with the details, other than to say that the development of this proposed site purportedly threatens the habitat of the endangered black-throated finch. This has the conservationists up in arms.
And there is a less than amusing final footnote to this saga. Apparently Clive Palmer (who has a stake in one of the nearby mine proposals), in a press conference in March 2012, actually accused those opposing it of being funded by the American CIA! How utterly typical of that odious toad of a man.
Isn't it amazing what you learn with a bit of digging....(?!), but after that somewhat lengthy aside, back to the job at hand, our town jaunt where we did come across a few more murals in the back streets.
This scene of cattle coming down to drink at a waterhole can be found, appropriately, on the wall of the Alpha butcher's shop
whilst this depiction of local flora and fauna at varying times of the day, aptly entitled Morning, Noon and Night, graces the wall of the hardware store not too far from our park.
In fact, by now we had realised that the murals of the birds which adorn the walls of the amenities block and camp kitchen in the caravan park are indeed part of the town display. Whilst most pieces are external, quite a number can be found inside buildings such as the town pub.
As a final comment about this project, I can tell you that the last mural to be painted was done by a fellow 'grey nomad' who happened to be passing through, clearly one with far superior skills with a paint brush than your correspondent.
So here in Alpha we have, once again, a relatively small town in the Australian countryside which has thrown up some surprises, some of which were immediately obvious, others less so. Here too we were presented with another example of a town in which the locals have banded together during a period of decline to come up with ideas to put their little patch on the tourist map.
It is the discovery of endeavours like this which make our current lifestyle so much fun!
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