Minyup – 'Coopers Crossing' – home of the Flying Doctors

How lucky were we to be staying at Rupunyup and to see a sign to 'Coopers Crossing'. We were not big fans of the TV series “Flying Doctors, but neither did we have our 'heads in the sand'! Of course, being so close we were going to visit.

What a lovely little town, The fact that it had remained relatively unchanged meant it was a perfect set for The Flying Doctors. The name Minyip is believed to mean 'ashes' in the local Aboriginal language. The first Europeans to the area were were in 1836 with the exploration by Major Thomas Mitchell. Squatters moved into the area after the 1850's gold rushes. The town was established in the 1870's by former gold miners and German settlers from South Australia. The area is a wheat growing area and the railway arrived in the area in 1886. Many silos were built to store the wheat and some have been painted – another blog post!

Minyip became famous as the setting for the TV series Flying Doctors in 1984. There are a number of historic buildings and we did the Heritage walk. There are plaques situated around the town and a brief brochure that we picked up in Rupanyup.

Many of the historic buildings in the main street were used in the TV series and a display can be found in one of the shop front windows showing film set scenes.

The town is set up for the tourists and well worth a visit.