By TANIA PHILLIPS
KILLARNEY is set to gain a major tourist icon with the unveilling of a new sculture that has been five years in the making.
Timber-getters and bullock wagons brought people to Killarney in the past, and now the small Southern Downs town is hoping people will be drawn here again and provide a major economic boost.
Five years in the planning and making, the newest attraction is a sculpture of bullocks pulling a tallow wood log on a wagon.
The sculpture, to be situated opposite the town’s Heritage Centre in Willow Street, is hoped to become a major tourism attraction for the small town, according to Heritage Centre president Tony Pearson.
“It will be a major tourist attraction,” he said.
“A real boost for the town,” he added.
Mr Pearson said the project, funded by the Queensland Government’s Regional Arts Development Fund through the Southern Downs Regional Council, had involved a large number of people with local sculptor Paul Stumkat providing the last major piece of the project, creating two life-sized bullocks.
Mr Stumkat said the bullocks, created from fibreglass, had taken six months to craft, with their life-like eyes coming from the US.
He said they were now finished and all ready to take up their new home.
“Each bullock has been individually sculpted, they are not copies of each other,” Mr Stumkat said.
The bullocks are replicas of the stocky Devon beasts that would have been used to carry the timber in the hilly terrain.
Mr Stumkat said it was hoped that eventually, as funding became available, the sculpture would include the full six bullocks that would have been used to carry the wood that was Killarney area’s lifeblood, out of the area.
However, both Mr Pearson and Mr Stumkat said the sculpture would have to be moved to a bigger site when that happened.
The sculpture, which will finally be put together next month, and will be dedicated to Eric Rees, the last real bullocky in Killarney who died six months ago.
An official unveiling of the sculpture and dedication ceremony is expected to be held on 31 May.
