the church in the middle of nowhere....

coming back from the country earlier in the week, I drove along a road that I have driven many times before.  ....and each time I see this sign along the roadside on a gate saying that up the driveway is a church.   It has always puzzled me as to why there was a church in the middle of nowhere in the first place and judging by the driveway with its long dirt track pocketed with innumerous dirty big potholes, I was getting curioser and curioser.
....so I stopped, turned into the driveway, negotiated my little car up that dirt track through the bush and this is what I saw...

This was crazy....the last thing I expected was a sandstone cathedral!  

So as I was standing there, caught completely by surprise, the caretaker walks over (yes, there was even a house next door with the resident caretaker).   With keys in her hand, she opens the church for me all the while giving me the whole history of the building, the area, the problem with vandals, and how many weddings have been booked for the coming year!   

So let's see if I can summarize the history in a couple of sentences....well the Collins family arrived here in the 1840's and because Brisbane was a penal colony,  apparently no one could build or live within a 50 mile radius.  So the Collins family lived and died here in Mundoolan.  After the death of the parents, the Collins children built this church in their memory using sandstone from a nearby quarry.   That's really something huh!