Community
5 March, 2025
There's no place like home for this Kynuna resident
Lorraine Pitt is proud to live in the tiny McKinlay Shire hamlet.
Lorraine Pitt is immensely proud of her kitchen at Kynuna’s famous Blue Heeler Hotel.
Whether it be the dozens of hours she spent cleaning out the area following the devastating floods last year or the thousands of hours she has worked preparing the meals for countless travellers, Lorraine knows every inch of that cooking space.
Despite growing up in Melbourne and raising a young family in Hervey Bay, Lorraine was drawn instantly to the tiny Kynuna township when she visited her parents in the Outback more than 35 years ago.
“My parents were doing the grey nomad thing and had gotten jobs in Kynuna,” she explained.
“I came to visit and instantly liked it here, so I got a job and bought some land.”
Purchasing a quarter-acre block for an eye-watering $350, Lorraine initially put two caravans on the property, joining them with a corrugated iron roof, which she used as a weekender while she worked in hospitality in Hughenden.
Eventually, she purchased the Yuleba roadhouse along the Warrego Highway with a plan to save any profits over a decade so she could permanently retire in Kynuna.
The plan worked and now she lives in a comfortable two-bedroom home – built by her father – and continues to work a few hours each evening at the Blue Heeler pub’s kitchen.
Lorraine said the floods that ravaged the McKinlay Shire last year were the worst she had seen in all her years at Kynuna.
But she said the community spirit of resilience made the recovery possible, which included working countless volunteer hours to bring the pub and its kitchen back to life after more than three feet of water engulfed it.
“We even managed to clean out the kitchen well enough in just a few weeks to meet a government health and safety inspection,” she told North West Weekly.
“It is a real community and everyone looks out for each other.
“There are only about eight of us in the town, so we really have no choice but to try to get along!
“If I am away on the coast and someone from Australia Post or Ergon drives into my property, then someone else in town will let me know pretty quickly.
“I want to spend the rest of my days in this place.”