Day 16. Possum Park, Miles. 21.6.25

Departed St George at 9am. Stopped in Surat for morning tea with G&G before they headed for home and we headed out to Possum Park for a couple of days.

This Park is 20 kms north of Miles and has been on my bucket list for a few years, we just never seemed to have the time to detour.

Possum Park history:

During World War II RAAF Kowguran Sub-depot to No. 3 Central Reserve Explosive Store was located 20km north of Miles on the Leichhardt Highway. It comprised of 20 concrete underground bunkers and 25 timber accommodation and administration buildings.

Normal strength for the unit was about 60 airmen and officers. RAAF Kowguran was the main explosive store on the Brisbane line, holding at times 2500 tons of bombs and ammunition.

In 1957 RAAF Kowguran was disbanded and all but the underground bunkers and two small brick buildings were sold for removal.

We decided to go unpowered, up the back. There's only 2 vans here. 

Our view.

A wander around the campground. 

VH-TVL Vickers Viscount 756C History:

Built at the Vickers-Armstrong Hurn factory

First flown – February 22, 1957. Registered to Australian National Airlines Commission.

Arrives at Melbourne (Essendon) Airport at conclusion of delivery flight, March 1, 1957

Aircraft was named ‘George Evans’

Set a speed record between Adelaide – Perth of 4 hours 25 minutes (Captain L.W.Manning) – July 23, 1957

Set a speed record between Longreach – Brisbane of 112 Minutes (Captain D.Lawrence) – September 1, 1957

Withdrawn from T.A.A. service and placed in storage December 30, 1968. Returned to service with T.A.A. – February 27, 1969

Final service – August 19, 1969. Placed in storage in Brisbane (Eagle Farm) Aircraft had flown 30,275 hours with 21,474 cycles.

Sold to Les Arthur of the Toowoomba Aviation Museum – November 1971

Dismantled and trucked by low-loader to Toowoomba – November 13 1971

Sold to Jensens Metals, Toowoomba 1978

Sold to J. Aspromourgus and transported to Wildmans Timber Yard – April 1989

Transported by low loader to Possum Park – 25 March, 2013

The interior of the restored TAA Vickers Viscount Plane as it looks today, is far different from its arrival in 2013. The plane has been David’s pet projects for over 13 years. It’s fully decked out with a kitchen, lounge room, twin beds, toilet and shower. It even has a chandelier in the cockpit, thats more finesse than Qantas. (Unfortunately because of insurance reasons it can’t be booked for accommodation at this time.)

Present Day Possum Park:

Today all of the explosives are gone. In 1985 David and Julie Hinds purchased the disused bunkers on 360 acres of land and renamed RAAF Kowguran as Possum Park.

Since then several of the underground bunkers have been converted into modern self contained units for tourist accommodation.

The troop trains that bought ‘the boys’ and the bombs to ‘Kowguran’ have been re-fitted as modern self-contained motel style units.

Still visible is the original man proof timber offset posts 17 strand barb wire fence that surrounds Possum Park.

All above information was taken from the Parks website. We joined the camp owners and other guests around the fire, listening to lots of stories relating to the war history of the area.

Today we travelled 293 kms.