Not quite half way between Boulia and Winton is Middleton. It’s misleading to call Middleton a town. These days it’s just a pub.
Inside that pub is Lester Cain, who perhaps draws more people inside than the prospect of a cold beer.
Lester is one of those outback characters you call into every pub along the way hoping to meet: snow white hair hidden under a well-worn Akubra, matching stubble on his chin, a genuine “she’ll be right” attitude and enough stories to spend a lifetime behind that bar and still not tell ’em all.
At 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon it looks like Lester has had a few himself. But no one’s going to bother much about that out here.
The Middleton Hotel is considered one of the most isolated pubs in Queensland, which is a fair call when it’s the only place to get a drink for nearly 200 kilometres in any direction. It was the first of eight pubs built between Boulia and Winton and the only one still standing. It’s hard to picture eight watering holes along the otherwise empty 363-kilometre stretch between the two towns, but outback Queensland wasn’t always this quiet.
From 1865 Middleton was a changing station for the mail coach operated by Cobb & Co that travelled between Winton and Boulia. The route took four days each way and Middleton was one of nine stations where the coach drivers would pick up fresh horses. This traffic helped develop Middleton into what the sign outside the hotel describes as a “thriving community” that 26 people called home in 1907.
Eventually that thriving community died. Now all that stands is the pub with an original Cobb & Co carriage parked out front, a disused hall, a very lonely phone box and a campground that someone with a sense of humour has named the Hilton Hotel.
The pub, inside and out, is a home-cum-establishment. Customers walk through the living room with the TV blaring in the corner to get to the bar, which has a collection of old furniture, including a futon couch, stacked in the corner, next to displays of opals for sale and the standard Aussie outback pub paraphernalia. A menu above the bar offers breakfast, snack and dinner options including chops & eggs, sausage rolls and the House Meal.
During the winter, when the temperature is more pleasant in the outback, there is a steady supply of customers providing distraction. In country like this the Middleton Hotel is quite the attraction. Most people passing by at least poke their head in.
Lester pulls up a stool on his side of the bar while his customers nurse their stubbies.
“D-d-did you stop at Cawnpore Lookout?” he asks a couple that has driven from Boulia way. No they hadn’t, although the woman gives the impression she would have liked to.
“B-b-b-best view in the area I reckon,” Lester says, referring to the incredible vista of Jump Up country, the odd name given to the erosion-molded landscape about half an hour west.
Lester speaks with a stutter, although it’s unclear if it’s exaggerated by his drinking. The sentences come out slowly, but his audience waits. All the predictable questions have been answered by a comical Frequently Asked Questions board and somehow the conversation turns to camels.
Camels were imported to Australia to help with transport across the barren Australian outback, but after a while were no longer needed. The herds were turned loose and continued to breed, uncontrolled. At one point it was reported there were between 750,000 and a million feral camels roaming Australia, although a cull that lasted several years brought the population down to an estimated 300,000 in 2012.
Lester’s herded a few in his time.
“T-t-t-t-t-three hundred and s-s-s-sixty in the yard in one hit,” he declares.
Lester’s rounded up a few cattle as well, although the camels are harder to handle.
“T-t-t-t-the whole secret to mustering camels is n-n-n-never let ’em gallop. If you g-g-g-g-gotta go out wide to turn ’em, then that’s what you g-g-g-gotta do.”
With several empty bottles on the bar, Lester takes a break from his stories and turns his attention back to the job.
“Havin’ another?”
