Australia is in the grip of a housing crisis but, in the heart of the outback, the opal town of Quilpie is looking to expand its tiny population
Out the swing doors of either of this town’s two pubs, past the old railway tracks and the one-strip airport, vast plains stretch beyond all horizons. Tin-roofed houses perch on blocks of red dirt and bore-fed lawn near the banks of the broad Bulloo River. The Bulloo is dry most of the year but for clay-coloured billabongs lined by coolabah trees, until it bursts its banks with monsoonal flood waters that drain to ephemeral inland lakes.
Welcome to Quilpie, nearly 1,000km west of Brisbane.