Qantas Founders Museum

Picture this: It’s 1920 in Longreach in Central Queensland, which is almost in the middle of nowhere. You want to start an airline with a war-spared Avro 504, and you want to become the biggest airline in the world. This museum shows how three folks—Paul McGinness, Sir Hudson Fysh, and Sir Fergus McMaster—did just that.

The museum was not founded or run by Qantas, but by an independent group to preserve the area’s history. It is home to a number of artifacts, including the planes themselves, that tell the long history of Qantas. The museum details the airline’s history, from when plans were made to start it to where it is today as one of the world’s most powerful airlines.

The hangar from the first takeoff still stands, and there’s also a building constructed for the museum that will knock any Avgeeks’ socks off: The Airpark, which contains a decommissioned 747, 707, DC 3, and a Super Constellation, among others. You can tour some of them, but not all. However, tour guides can put you up on top of the 747’s wings. Not a bad compromise, huh?