I Love a Sunburnt Country.

# W is for Woorabinda

The Aboriginal Shire of Woorabinda is situated about a 2 hour drive south west from Rockhampton in Central Queensland and currently has a population just shy of 1000 residents in the township. It makes the cut for this blog because of my happy mid 1970 memories of travelling to Woorabinda as part of a team delivering health services.

At that time, a doctor from the Base Hospital would fly by light aircraft to Woorabinda to conduct a clinic each week and at fortnightly intervals a dentist and dental nurse would also attend. Whilst the doctor would fly back to the Base at lunchtime, the dentist and assistant would work a full day and a driver from the hospital would collect them and deliver them to their homes. This was about a 4 hour round trip for the driver who used the trip to deliver supplies as well as to collect us. It was a long 12 day for the dental staff; but it was different, interesting and fun.

It was at Woorabinda that I mixed amalgam filling by hand; weighing the alloy, manually dropping the mercury into the alloy and mixing the amalgam with a mortar and pestle. Frequently patients did not present until the damage to teeth was quite beyond repair; I recall extractions were common, fillings not so. I surely hope things have changed since the 70s.

I recently revisited Woorabinda just to have a walk down memory lane. Today it is an enclave of Indigenous Art and Culture and the pride in the township obvious.

We approached Woorbinda travelling from Rolleston to Bauhinia and then along the the Fitzroy Development Road much of which is unsealed. This is the sign as we came in to Woorabinda. Isn’t that blue sky just wonderful?