Queensland Museum & Community Collections

I’ve had the good fortune to have worked with the museum team at the Cobb and Co Changing Station Museum in Surat in 2022 and 2023, as they work towards commemorating the 100th anniversary of the last Cobb and Co coach run in Australia, in 2024!

The Changing Station in Surat plays a wonderful role in its small community – as a combined library, Queensland Government service office, tourism information centre, gallery AND museum, the space really does have something for everyone, visitor or local. The museum itself has a combination of passionate volunteers and dedicated council staff working through changing exhibitions and programmes, and to support this work I came on board in 2022 to deepen the teams’ skill in interpretation planning and display development.

One of the museum’s static displays is all about the important place Cobb and Co coaches had in Surat, and how the routes connected people and properties to the wider world. This space was due a refresh, especially given the upcoming 100 year anniversary of the last run of a Cobb and Co coach anywhere in Australia, between Surat and Yuleba on 14 August 1924. The Museum Working Group of volunteers and council staff all came together throughout 2022 for a series of workshops, to discuss the key stories about the legacy of coaches in the Maranoa region, how best to tell the stories of the daring and difficult journeys locals faced throughout their travels, and understanding what diverse audiences want out of a visit to the exhibition. The combined knowledge and passion of the working group and wider staff made for some really fun conversations, and led to some wonderfully creative interpretive text being written!

The team decided the best approach to begin with was to revamp the written panels within the Changing Ways display, which had been in place for quite some time and were beginning to show their age. Working with the museum’s wonderful photography collection as well as primary research sources, the team brought local stories to life through their engaging writing, and made information more accessible to the wide range of audiences who make their way to Surat. Themes included the role of local families in keeping coach passengers and crew fed and cared for on the long journeys, the incredible skills of the drivers and grooms who worked for Cobb and Co including renowned locals the Gallaghers, and the care and attention lavished on the hard-working horses.

I particularly enjoyed finding out more about what travelling by coach around Surat would have been like for passengers – the soft black soil present around the region meant that wooden logs were used to make roads passable, but at the expense of any comfort whatsoever! One passenger described a journey by coach as like riding “a baby camel in a hell of a hurry” – not the most comforting of images!

We worked with a designer based in Toowoomba, James Bell, who created a series of beautiful, large-scale interpretation panels, taking colour inspiration from the Surat landscape and the mural currently in the exhibition, painted by a local artist. Once the team were happy with the panels, these were printed by Serengeti Print Group in Toowoomba onto aluminium composite boards. This material was chosen because it better withstands the harsh environmental conditions of western Queensland – even inside a building the sun finds its way in.

Once the panels were printed, I enlisted the expert assistance of another Cobb and Co legend – Andrew Macdonald, Factory Manager for Cobb and Co Museum in Toowoomba (where I am based when I’m not on the road). Andy’s skills in display and install of exhibitions are unsurpassed, so I was very grateful to have his expert assistance in delivering the brand new panels to Surat and getting them installed. Plus we got a bit of a sense of that aforementioned baby camel experience – driving a delivery van with limited suspension on a blacksoil road certainly made me appreciate how much worse early residents had it in terms of travel!

The exhibition space now has a new lease on life, and the Surat team are looking towards even more development as the 100th year anniversary draws closer and I can’t wait to see what wonderful ideas they’ll come up with. If you’re heading through Surat, make sure you stop in and take a look – I’d love to know what you think!