Latest news with #Cunnamulla
ABC News
02-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Yapunyah Lodge in Cunnamulla reopens as aged care and disability centre
It was a "boys' footy racing weekend" that somehow led two Queensland blokes to open an aged care and disability centre in the outback. Daniel Manley and Brett Sandy met at the Darwin Cup in 2023 and, several pub crawls later, formed a friendship based on a shared love of sports and a dedication to improving services in regional Queensland. They started their own aged care and disability group, Gwandalan Support Services, drawing on Mr Sandy's experience of raising a son with a disability in a small rural town. Two years on from their chance meeting, the pair has opened an assisted-living facility in Cunnamulla, an outback town of 1,200 people, 800 kilometres west of Brisbane. Mr Sandy said Cunnamulla had not had an aged care facility for five years. "Little towns like Cunnamulla … unfortunately they miss out because there's not enough funding to help with facilities like this," Mr Sandy said. Their combined disability and aged care model has focused on encouraging active, healthy living. "Our support workers we've employed are all footballers," Mr Manley laughed. "An active body leads to an active mind and leads to much better outcomes." Cunnamulla has a higher percentage of residents aged over 60 than the national average. In 2020, not-for-profit organisation Churches of Christ closed the only aged care centre, Yapunyah Lodge, due to the high cost of operating in a rural area. Resident Barbara Capewell said many ageing residents were forced out to larger towns including Toowoomba and Roma. Paroo Shire Council Mayor Suzette Beresford said the council had been trying for years to find someone to take over Yapunyah Lodge. "We're very fortunate that the Southwest Hospital and Health Service built 10 aged care units within the hospital, but they're fully occupied," she said. Mr Sandy said he had family near Cunnamulla who told him there was an aged care facility sitting unused in the town. Gwandalan Support Services was able to reopen Yapunyah Lodge in May as a disability support service, with plans to add aged care residents later this year. The response from the community was immediate. Yapunyah Lodge now has its first resident, lifelong Cunnamulla local and Gunggari man, Keith Stewart. For the past year, the 66-year-old has been being treated in Toowoomba after having a stroke. His daughter, Meisha Johnstone, made the 1,200-kilometre round trip every fortnight to visit. "I wasn't going to let him go there by himself," she said. Mr Stewart said the reopening of Yapunyah Lodge was a lifeline for his family. "To get back to Cunnamulla was good," he said. "I just love being out in the bush." Yapunyah Lodge manager Fiona Sodeau said she had seen enormous health improvements when elderly residents such as Mr Stewart returned to country. "It's just amazing, it's where people need to be and where they want to be," she said. Ms Johnstone said having her dad back home meant everything. "He's a completely different person now that he's in this place," she said. There are challenges to running Yapunyah Lodge. "Everything is just so much more expensive out there, especially when you're talking very remote like Cunnamulla," Mr Manley said. Mr Manley and Mr Sandy invested their own money to reopen the lodge, with support from the council. They have been rallying for federal government funding. "If you don't have the funding, the aged care packages themselves don't cover the high level of cost of regional aged care facilities," Mr Manley said. Aged care consultant Paul Sadler said many rural aged care services struggled with long-term viability due to the higher cost of overheads and smaller clientele. "At any one time, up to half of aged care services in rural areas operate at a deficit year on year," he said. "That's simply unsustainable." The government has been contacted for comment.
ABC News
25-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
Neighbourhood centre started by 21yo in Cunnamulla provides safe space for teenagers
The Queensland town of Cunnamulla is a peaceful place but the nearest big town is two hours away by road and after-school activities are limited. "A lot of people in town, a lot of kids, they don't have anything to do outside of school," youth support officer Jarib Branfield-Bradshaw said. "There's not much sport or anything like that to take their mind off what is actually going on at home." Cunnamulla has a population of about 1,200 people and 44 per cent are Indigenous, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Mr Branfield-Bradshaw, a 21-year-old Guwamu/Kooma man, grew up in the town. "I didn't have somewhere safe … I didn't have that growing up," he said. Shortly after starting in his youth support role with Paroo Shire Council in 2023, Mr Branfield-Bradshaw noticed many young people were looking for direction after school. But he saw potential in an empty council building that was previously a student hostel and after pitching the idea to council the neighbourhood centre was running within a month. "I went to the school and spoke to the young people to see what they actually wanted, not just what we wanted for them," Mr Branfield-Bradshaw said. About 10 to 20 kids attend the centre every weekday and Mr Branfield-Bradshaw has designed a program to meet their needs. There's chatter and laughter as the teens play cards, video games and table tennis and the Vegemite jar in the kitchen is almost empty. "It's really chill and there's lots of good food here," 15-year-old Mikeala Brown said. Some of the kids had little to do but to ride their bikes around town before the centre opened. "I started coming here because you have someone to talk to and something to do," 16-year-old Isaac Hatchman said. Mr Branfield-Bradshaw says he tries to give the young people lessons they can carry into adulthood. "We teach life skills, how to make food, how to clean up after yourself, no play-fighting," he said. Mr Branfield-Bradshaw knows from his own experience that growing up in the bush can be hard. "It's good because you learn a lot of skills that you don't learn in the city — you learn how to be resilient and to be strong … but you don't have the some of the facilities that everyone else has," he said. Over the last year, the centre – which is open after school until 5pm from Monday to Thursday and until 9pm on Fridays – has welcomed more than 200 young people through the door. Cunnamulla Police Senior Sergeant Rob Hanbridge said Mr Branfield-Bradshaw's work was "phenomenal". "It's given the youth of Cunnamulla somewhere else they can go after school … that is not going to get them into any trouble or wandering around the streets," Senior Sergeant Hanbridge said. Mr Branfield-Bradshaw attributed the program's success to the active involvement of the town's youth, who had made clear what they wanted in their community. "Being able to provide that for the young people is the biggest service that I can do," he said. "It's not just a space for them … it's their space.
ABC News
11-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Cunnamulla's outback postie Ruby Gamble a larrikin and a lifeline
A few things are certain in the outback around Cunnamulla. Dingoes do not want pats, the next drought is never far away, and Ruby Gamble will make her deliveries. Now in her early 70s, Ruby the outback postie has spent nearly three decades delivering mail, medicine, beer and just about anything else her remote customers need. Cunnamulla, 750 kilometres west of Brisbane, is home to about 1,200 people spread out over a region bigger than the size of Tasmania. Ruby's vehicle of choice — a two-wheel-drive Toyota Hilux — covers up to 10,000km a month across vast, sunbaked, bulldust-covered roads. "They forget when they're in the bush." The Australia Post contractor's customers live and work on isolated sheep and cattle stations the size of European countries. Some do not see another soul all week. That makes Ruby more than just a delivery driver — she is a lifeline. The postie even maintained connections with her customers when devastating floods across Western Queensland earlier this year made it too dangerous to go bush, forcing her into one of the longest breaks of her 28-year career. "I kept ringing them to make sure they're all okay, and if they need food or anything," she said. Now that the waters have receded, Ruby is back on the road. Ruby's three-year-old ute is already pushing half a million kilometres. It has been modified with an extra-long tray to carry hay bales — and the occasional case of beer. "Just about ready to trade it in," Ruby said. She and her late husband Col took up the delivery contract in 1997 and shared the run for more than a decade, until her partner of 43 years passed away. "The bastard handed in his rifle on the Paroo River," she said. "We caught a heap of fish, he drank a six-pack … then he comes into the caravan, towel around him, throws it open and says, 'Anyhow Ruby, I'm the only one who knows how to find all the good fish holes.' "I told him, 'Shut up, you skiting bastard' — they were the last words I ever spoke to him." Within 10 minutes, Col had died from a massive heart attack. Ruby took a break from work to grieve after Col's death while friends filled in on the mail run. But before long, her customers came calling. "After a couple of months [they said], 'Ruby, we need you out here,'" she said. "They made me get out of bed and keep going." Joanne Woodcroft, the licensee and self-titled postmistress of the Cunnamulla Post Office, said Ruby was part of the town's identity. "Ruby and her husband Col, stalwarts of the post office … the fabric of our community," she said. Fourteen years since Col's death, Ruby has not remarried, despite encouragement from her kids. "One of 'em says, 'Mum, you know, we were never meant to be on our own and if you find somebody else that's OK with us,'" she said. "I said, 'You bastards have only been here four days and I can't put up with you … how am I gonna put up with someone else?'" Seven hours a day in the car gives Ruby a chance to reflect on the adventures she's had on her mail run. "A few years ago, I got bogged — no phones out there, I can't get anybody on the UHF," she said. Thinking quickly, she hit SOS on her GPS and, 30 minutes later, spotted a jet circling above. "I'm looking for a tree to hide under, thinking, 'What have I done?'" Ruby said. Rescued and brought to safety, Ruby inadvertently went about the rest of her day without telling the authorities she was OK. "The police caught up with me later that day at the pub," she said. "They had called my son to ask if I was on any medication, he told 'em, 'Yep — VB and Panadol.'" After nearly three decades, Ruby is showing no signs of slowing down. But of an afternoon, odds on you'll find her enjoying a VB at the old Billabong Hotel in town, ready to share a tale from the road. "It's been a good life, I wouldn't swap it for anything."
