Rail trail map<\/a><\/p>\nBut for retired farmer Mick Colyer, it is an undertaking that could save the Boyne Valley through which he first mustered cattle as a young bloke.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen those railroads closed, so many people got displaced, there was no work,\u201d the rail trail committee member says. \u201cThe little country towns basically died.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo to try to get people out into those little country areas, to try to put some money into the businesses at those townships that used to be thriving little communities \u2026 right from the start, that\u2019s been our vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Retired farmer and Boyne Burnett Inland Rail Trail committee member Mick Colyer. Photograph: Joe Hinchliffe\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
It is a vision that would require a dramatic U-turn of prevailing trends.<\/p>\n
The 2006 census counted 646 people in the Boyne Valley. In 2011, that count fell to 379. By 2013, the Australian Bureau of Statistics no longer considered the four surviving settlements of the Boyne Valley as \u201curban centres and localities\u201d \u2013 or towns \u2013 due to their dwindling populations.<\/p>\n
Then, in 2020, the valley\u2019s only pub turned off its taps.<\/p>\n
But there are already signs that the promise of the rail trail may have begun to gather steam.<\/p>\n
After years of community meetings, the first section of redeveloped track officially opened on late 2021. Running about 26km from an abandoned railway siding in the Kalpowar forest called Barrimoon, it descends the Dawes Range through six tunnels and passes Many Peaks to the village of Builyan.<\/p>\n
The rail trail is one of the biggest drawcards in the Boyne Valley. Photograph: Joe Hinchliffe\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
A year later, a second section of trail opened, south of the Boyne Valley along the banks of the Burnett River. This runs about 30km from Mundubbera to Mt Debateable, an abandoned rail siding near Gayndah. Both towns dispute the title \u201ccitrus capital of Queensland\u201d \u2013 to which Gayndah stakes its claim in the form of a Big Orange and Mundubbera with a Big Mandarin. Between these two landmarks, a rail trail now winds through citrus groves, past broad sweeps of the Burnett and the abandoned timber rail bridges that cross its tributaries.<\/p>\n
The first triumph of those sections of the new trail came last December, when the Grand Hotel Many Peaks threw open its doors again under new management.<\/p>\n
After eight years on the Gladstone regional council and having played a pivotal role in setting up the community group that runs the rail trail, Desley O\u2019Grady and her husband, Craig, moved to Many Peaks, bought the historic pub that backs on to its old train line and issued a call out for volunteers to help clean it up.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Grady says the turnout of more than 40 folk was testament to how sorely valley locals missed their meeting place. But she knows she will need more than their support to keep its doors open.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s only 25 people who actually live in Many Peaks itself,\u201d O\u2019Grady says. \u201cSo we know we\u2019re a tourism destination hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n
And one of the biggest drawcards in the Boyne Valley, she says, is the rail trail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why we bought the hotel is that over the last 12 years we\u2019ve been going to different rail trails, seeing what happened in different states and different towns,\u201d the publican says. \u201cCycling tourism is the next big thing, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
That conviction appears to be paying off. Last Sunday, O\u2019Grady says, the Grand hotel served 180 meals. Many were bike riders.<\/p>\n
Desley O\u2019Grady, the publican of the newly reopened Grand Hotel Many Peaks \u2013 a \u2018tourism destination hotel\u2019. Photograph: Joe Hinchliffe\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
But significant challenges lie ahead for the Boyne Burnett initiative. There is the sheer distances involved, the amount of work required to make the bumpy and sandy section rideable, its gullies crossable. There is the fact that all this work is driven by volunteers scattered across sparsely populated areas.<\/p>\n
And not all the Boyne Valley\u2019s business community is sold on the rail trail.<\/p>\n
Hugh Harvey runs what he argues is the only other operating business in that valley\u2019s hospitality and retail sector \u2013 a general store in the town of Ubobo, which has a population of about 20. Along with fuel, groceries and hardware, Harvey sells stubby coolers with the slogan: \u201cI\u2019m a hobo from Ubobo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though yet to be officially opened, the trail past Ubobo has been graded and Harvey has noticed a few bike riders pedal past his store of late.<\/p>\n
But he has \u201cno interest at all\u201d in the trail that passes within metres of his business of nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
The rail trail runs within metres of the Ubobo general store. Photograph: Joe Hinchliffe\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years we\u2019ve had a lot of different groups out here \u2013 and you can categorise your groups into money spenders and tight-arses,\u201d Harvey says. \u201cThe bushwalkers, push-bike riders, birdwatchers, horse riding groups \u2026 at the end of the day, they aren\u2019t money spenders.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some on the ground might be yet to be convinced, Griffith University\u2019s Brent Moyle says other rail trails have proved \u201ca shot in the arm for country towns\u201d around Australia by providing \u201csteady, reliable tourism\u201d.<\/p>\n
Further south, the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail was completed in 2018 and is credited with a boom in accommodation, the revitalisation of country pubs and the creation of jobs.<\/p>\n
A professor in tourism with a focus on regenerating remote communities, Moyle acknowledges that the Boyne Burnett is \u201cunlikely to draw Brisbane Valley-level crowds overnight\u201d. But, he says, it could \u201ccarve out a loyal niche of cyclists, hikers and caravanners chasing authentic rural experiences\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve only scratched the surface of rail trails in Australia,\u201d Moyle says.<\/p>\n
Mountain views on the Boyne Burnett Inland Valley Rail Trail. Photograph: Joe Hinchliffe\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
And for Colyer, the rail trail is not all about economics. Yes, the old cattleman volunteers his time and energy to a cause he hopes will bring money back into the Boyne Valley. But he also does it on principle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an asset owned by the public,\u201d Colyer says of the trail. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what we\u2019ve all been about all along too: just to have an asset, owned by the people, that people can use.\u201d<\/p>\n
And though Colyer is not sure the vision of Australia\u2019s longest rail trail will be realised in his lifetime, there is already a new set of pioneering cyclists making the most of that asset.<\/p>\n
To mark the opening of the Barrimoon tunnels section of the trail in 2021, Andrew Demack of peak advocacy group Bicycle Queensland rode more than 680km over nine days, linking the Boyne Burnett with two other rail trails, via a string of back roads and a few main ones, from Ipswich to Gladstone.<\/p>\n
The Barrimoon to Builyan section runs through six tunnels carved through the Dawes Range. Photograph: Joe Hinchliffe\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
The trip required planning and experience, he says \u2013 but it proved that bike trails could one day cover such sprawling journeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it is ambitious, but it\u2019s certainly a dream that Bicycle Queensland subscribes to,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, though, Demack says there is already a growing network of \u201cgreat recreational trails\u201d. And the Barrimoon to Builyan section of the Boyne Burnett, with its views of rainforest-clad peaks and valleys of grass trees, gums and rolling paddocks, he says, is \u201cparticularly superb\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most spectacular little bits of rail trail that we\u2019ve got in Queensland.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ghost station of Many Peaks is enclosed in a jumble of rocky and timbered hills. There is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-122677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}