AS the 2008 Outback Queensland Barbarians tour got underway, the early pace of travel, matches and social engagements was jokingly described by players as “brutal”. Three weeks later when most of the team arrived in Brisbane after 16 hours of travel from Los Angeles, the word brutal was still being used but the joking references had all but disappeared.

It was with a great sense of achievement the Barbarians returned on Tuesday, justifiably proud of their efforts in maintaining a furious pace for 23 straight days.

25,000 kilometres of air travel, 3000 kilometres of bus travel, three countries, eight US States, seven games of rugby and an unswerving commitment to accepting the generous hospitality of their US hosts at every turn meant it was a tour where there was no place for the weak or faint-hearted.

The aim of a Barbarians tour was to give players from rural and regional areas the chance to tour internationally and to experience new cultures and styles of rugby.

One reason that made the 2008 tour such a success was that much of the tour was spent in lesser visited regional areas such as Spokane, WA and Missoula, MA, areas of the US that compare demographically to the regional areas where many of the Outback Barbarians live.

For players like Capella Cattledogs prop Eddie Shaw, the tour provided the rare luxury of being able to turn up to a game and simply focus on playing rugby, without having to worry about the normal pre-game organisational duties for his club of selecting teams, filling water bottles, marking lines etc.

It was also a rare chance for players from small one-team towns to play in a team where there were no weaknesses across the paddock, where each could focus on their own game safe in the knowledge that the other 14 players were entirely capable of doing their jobs as well.

Along the way the Barbarians encountered a diversity of natural scenery that was awesome to behold. The unseasonal snow that fell in Vancouver on the tour’s first night and turned the city into a glittering winterscape within a matter of minutes set the tone for what was to come. Snow followed the Barbarians all the way south to Yellowstone National Park, a land of fire and ice where steam and snow share the landscape in defiant harmony.

As the team bussed its way south through Washington, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California, the beauty of the US landscape revealed itself time and time again: the snow-capped majesty of the Cascades and Rocky Mountains, the impossibly large salt lake upon which the Utah capital is both located and named after, the sweeping irrigated potato fields of Idaho, and the vast red haze of the barren Nevada desert.

The drive into Los Angeles revealed a city of overwhelming scale, of huge concrete highways and an all-encompassing, colour-dulling smog. “Welcome to Los Angeles, where you can see the air before you breath it,” the Barbarian’ bus driver Bob Friesen announced.

But one common aspect of LA’s outer suburbs that was warmly greeted by the tourists was the unmistakable sight of Aussie gum trees towering above the highways.

Eucalyptus trees were introduced to California in the 1850s by Australians travelling to the Californian gold rush. The trees were initially intended to support a building and furniture making industry but the quality of eucalypts grown in California could not match the centuries-old Australian trees and the industry never made if off the ground. However the trees are still valued for use as wind breaks for highways and farms and for shade and ornamental trees across the largely tree-less state.

That the organisers Geoff Barton and Trent Raymond were able to bring together almost 30 rugby players ranging in age from 20 to 35, from all corners of Queensland and from a diverse range of backgrounds and jobs – coal miners, stock agents, IT specialists, civil engineers, salesmen, cattle producers, electricians etc – and end up with a group of people that immediately got on like long-time mates from the outset was a credit to the unsung work they both invested in putting this tour together.

The team played some excellent rugby together, winning six of seven matches. Their only loss came in the final five minutes of a closely-matched tussle with a high level Canadian team.

The Barbarians' made a commitment when the tour began to play true Barbarians style rugby - which meant taking no penalty kicks and running at every opportunity - and their impressive for and against figures for the seven matches of 299 points for and 37 against shows how successful they were in delivering that promise.

The standard of opposition they faced ranged from part-timers to high quality teams with Canadian and US test players among them.

But beyond the rugby the major highlight was the confirmation provided by the tour that rugby camaraderie and culture indeed knows no borders. Everywhere the Barbarians went they were treated to amazing after-match hospitality. The hope is now that the teams the Baa Baas played will tour Queensland soon so the generosity can be returned.

A lasting memory of the Barbarians tour will live on at Queensland Rugby Union headquarters in Brisbane after tour manager Geoff Barton today presented the QRU with the Most Honoured Trophy award won by the team at the Missoula Maggot Fest.

The players are now planning a reunion at the 2008 Roma Cup races, and the hope is that now the ground work has been laid, an international Outback Queensland Barbarians tour can now become a reality every second year.