About Charleville

Leaving Innamincka and re-tracing our route back into south-west Queensland, we turned off at Noccundra and drove north then east through Quilpie - a lovely, tidy little town with friendly locals and we enjoyed a stop for morning coffee and a chat with the cafe owner's mother who was changing a quilt display in the window.

She does stunning work and has such a flair for colour. She directed us down to the town's Information Centre where there was a small gallery of quilts made by local ladies. Those Quilpie quilters know their stuff! (Sorry, got carried away with alliteration!). Peter happily spotted a nearby exhibition of WW1 Military History and so avoided being dragged into the quilt display.

Our usual mode of travel is to leisurely get moving about 9am and drive maybe 300 kilometres with a break at a rest stop to stretch our legs and have a drink along the way (and hopefully find 'facilities' to use - and these vary considerably in these remote outback areas). This way we get to a camp spot in the early afternoon and avoid driving in the hottest part of the day. The parks we often stay at provide power and water, often sullage, and of course bathroom, shower and laundry facilities.

Typical 'toilet' in  outback reststops.

Other times - especially in very remote areas, we 'free park' with riverside areas or just areas set aside for travellers with only a basic toilet (usually eco) which is sometimes quite a distance away. However, as we are pretty well self sufficient with some solar panels to provide lighting and a little power at night, LP gas for our stove and a small refrigerator, so apart from shower/toilet for which we improvise, we manage very well. The added bonus is that in these remote areas, we often camp alone with maybe only one or two other vans some distance away - and we can have a campfire to sit around under the stars at night. So good for the soul!

We stopped for 5 days at Charleville - a town we visited several years ago and like a lot. It was a good chance to catch up on a little 'housework' with clothes washing, dusting out the van and re-stocking with food, not to mention a good clean up of ourselves too. These dry outback towns are still in drought situation, however water is drawn up from the Great Artesian Basin below and is used extensively. The downside is that there is a strong sulphur smell to it which dissipates when cooled. It's quite a novelty, though, to see that toilets are flushed with hot water.

The lovely 1929 Corones Hotel - built by a Greek migrant.

Charleville is lovely and makes sure its visitors are encouraged to stay longer with a variety of
attractions - the Cosmos Centre is a brilliant open air observatory perfectly sited in this part of the outback to take advantage of the clear night skies, also a Bilby Sanctuary, a newly built Flying Doctor Centre, campfire meals in the park, a few nice shops to browse, some beautiful old early 20th century buildings not forgetting the two remaining old Vortex rainmaking guns (which were, sadly, not a success).

One attraction which we loved was the American WW2 Convoy - a tagalong of cars with various stops through the large area on the outskirts of town which had been taken over by the Americans as a base during the war.

The small concrete building housed the Norden Bomb Sight during WW2

Over three and a half thousand soldiers/airmen manned this base - and it was huge - and very top secret. It was based here because it was too far for enemy fighters to reach, but could safely maintain planes to despatch to northern bases. Over two hundred and fifty bombers left Charleville (refuelling at Charters Towers) enroute to the Battle of the Coral Sea. Only about 210 made it back.

A restored Bomb Sight

Some buildings remain including one (of five) huge hangars which is now still in use by the Royal Flying Doctor service. The remains of mess-houses, bitumen baths, ablution blocks and dance halls are mostly just the concrete bases, but the small hospital building remains and is still used as a residence today. The most tightly held secret was the Norden Bomb Sight which was used by bombing crew to accurately pinpoint their target. When not in use they were stored in a small specially built concrete building, guarded day and night. This building remained empty and forgotten for decades until the story of  the American base was researched and the concept of the Convoy was planned. Trying to find an old Norden Bomb Sight somewhere in the world to display proved quite a challenge. Once one was found, all sorts of bureaucracy had to be overcome before it was even allowed into the country. One lesson they learnt was never to put the word 'Bomb' on any official import papers!

Once we were cleaned up, refreshed, re-stocked, we once more took to the open road heading north again with overnight stops at Blackall and Longreach. Next stop - Winton for a bit of dinosaur work.

Lightning Ridge to Blackall

A long drive across country brought us to Lightning Ridge, an opal mining town known for its high quality black opals. We decided to stay a few days here to give us a chance to do some washing, some re-stocking of supplies, and general tidy-up, as well as time to see all the delights of the town. I was surprised at how much it differed from Coober Pedy the milky opal mining town in outback South Australia. Lightning Ridge has a much more settled layout with wide paved streets and a good selection of shops. Mining is still done fairly close to the town, but streets and houses seem more 'ordered' than ad hoc. Of course being a mining town there are nationalities from all over the world - some arriving decades before and those bitten by the opal fever have remained constructing for themselves homes of their own imagining and bizarre some of them are, too! One Italian miner began building his home over his mine entrance - and didn't stop. The castle-like building is now quite extensive although most of it is not roofed over.

Other miners, not content with just finding opal, began a series of underground caves and these have massive carvings throughout. Egyptian motifs, 'terracotta' soldiers as well as cartoon characters abound. This has been turned into a popular tourist attraction and probably brings in as much money as the elusive black opal.

Far beneath this area of Australia is the Great Artesian Basin, and bores in the dry outback make good use of the warm water. I was quite surprised that several parks toilet facilities flushed with hot water before I realised it was bore water. In Lightning Ridge a open air public pool is fed with hot (40degree) water from beneath the earth's surface and I happily joined others having a good long soak and a swim. Young aboriginal children also were having fun at the pool with some as young as 4 swimming like fishes and older boys joyfully taking tumbling dives into the middle of the pool.

After our stay at Lightning Ridge we moved on to Charleville and this turned into one of our favourite places so far. This outback town is working hard to develop its attractions and as a result the town is doing well with visitors staying extra days. We enjoyed the WW2 Secret American Air force base 'tag along' tour (over 2,500 American servicemen stationed at a huge base but with no interaction with the townspeople at all!). In the evening we visited the Cosmos Astronomical Centre for a talk about the night sky and a viewing of the heavens through huge telescopes. We could see Saturn and its rings quite clearly! The night skies here in outback Australia are incredibly clear and the cosmos vast and bright - it is the ideal place for an observatory.

On display in the town are several Vortex guns. In1902 Queensland was in the grip of a great drought. In desperation  Queensland's first Government Meteorologist decided to experiment with Steiger Vortex Guns, developed to break up hail over the vineyards of Italy. The experiment failed to produce the much needed rain, but several of the guns remain for us to view.

On another day we enjoyed 'Stories and Scones at Corones Hotel'. The story we were told was of a penniless Greek immigrant with no knowledge of English who arrived in Australia with his young nephew and eventually found his way to Charleville. He started a successful café,  became a licensee of a pub for 10 years, and then built his own very grand hotel in town in 1929. He loved Charleville and was instrumental in getting a hospital built, the fire brigade started and other essential services. Mostly I think he was loved because after both the first and second world wars, he and his wife insisted on employing widows of servicemen in his business. For his work, he was given an MBE for his service to the town. It was an amazing story of the life of one poor immigrant, and the afternoon was made even better by a delicious serve of scones and cream and coffee!

Later that evening we visited the Bilby Centre in town and learnt about efforts to save this endangered species of a small, little known (but undeniably cute) Australian marsupial. Being nocturnal, they are rarely seen in the wild, but introduced predators (wild cats, foxes, etc) have reduced the population alarmingly. A major effort mainly by volunteers are doing their best to protect and breed up the number of bilbies.

We have been quite surprised at how a number of outback towns are developing and promoting the various attractions of their areas. Bourke was the first one we encountered and Charleville too. Both have hardworking people prepared to do their best for their own towns, and travellers like us are delighted to participate.

Moving on - we continued our drive north making an overnight stop at Blackall where the park offered travellers a roast beef and vegetable dinner followed by damper and golden syrup for $20 per head. It was delicious - and best of all we didn't have to cook it ourselves. We've noticed quite a few parks do this and it is a lovely way to share a meal and chat with other travellers after a long day on the road. Some parks also offer entertainment in this case it was an Australian country music singer - but not being fans of this type of music, we stayed away.

We intended to start reasonably early for the next stage to Longreach, but again we got talking to other caravanners and an hour or so later, we finally began the drive. We have reached the lovely stage when an hour here or there talking to people is no problem at all - clockwatching on this trip is happily not high on our agenda.