Mitchell – Charleville

Enough is enough, this is too much!

After 3 days of bike riding, sitting quietly, going to the spa bath we say enough is enough or perhaps its because we needed to meet the 3.20 plane from Brisbane with Jo on it we need to move on to Charleville.

Some of the riding I did was around the town and also out along the highway to another free camp called Fishermans Rest. Its a nice spot but only a handful of good sites with another dozen or so spread around in the bush.

Anyway after the 3 or so days of Mitchell we move out on the Monday morning driving the 180 k’s to Charleville. The drive was easy enough but there was plenty of roadkill laying around on the way in. We checked into one Charleville caravan parks so we could be central in town and be able to clean up a bit. I will be glad when Jo gets in, plenty of washing to be done, the house needs a clean and we are running out of food. She left Canberra at 9.30 and flew in at 3.20 so there is a few hours before dinner for her to catch up…..

The news on her Mum was positive so we were happier. More so because Jo had an update from her specialist and things are also much much better than they were even a couple months back.

For those who havent been to Charleville, it has a number of interesting points:
– the rain making guns, a dozen or so were set up around 1900 in the midst of one of Charleville’s worst droughts with hope of breaking the drought, they underwent testing and were to fired on a certain date only for the rain come a week early and flood the place – I guess the inventor can claim success for that one.
– The WW2 history, Charleville was one of the big bases during the war with bombers taking off from here. They also stored the Varden bomb sight under tight security during the war (see the photo) only to find out that just before the war broke some of people who worked on it tried to sell the secret to the Germans – who ignored it because it would not have been accurate enough. The Charleville airport has a nice easy ride (or drive) around the marked WW2 interest points.
– The Cosmos Centre, which has been set up with 4 20 inch telescopes with tours run nightly. Jo and I have now been 3 times and this was Peter and Fiona’s first visit. On our first visit we saw Saturn and it’s rings, and we did this time as well. Fantastic and well worth doing.

After a couple of days in the big smoke, we moved on and started down Australia’s longest road, from Charleville to Mt Isa. We are following it for a bit before turning off to look at the dinosaurs and their history in this part of the world.

The major town on this road is Quilpie – the end of the railway to the west, the place where, in the late 1930’s Amy Johnson landed her plane thinking it was Charleville (her maps said the railway ended at Charleville), and home of the world famous Quilpie pies! Needless to say pies were off the menu, so we decided to have the $10 lunch at the pub, steak and bacon burger….for me I deleted the bread and onion and Fiona followed my lead. Luckily (perhaps that should be gladly!) the meal came with chips as well.

From Quilpie it’s about 240k’s to Cooper’s Creek and about halfway along we stopped for a cuppa and throw some firewood up on the roof of the car, we have found in the past that firewood is in very short supply there.

We stayed a couple of nights on the banks of the “Cooper” just outside the town of Windorah. Our first meal was a couple of pizzas from Jo’s takeaway, luckily it wasn’t far to go get them!. The bikes came down again we rode into town along the scenic drive before returning on the main road. In town we used the caravan facilities for a small donation before heading off to coffee, scones and cream at the local patisserie. There isn’t any mobile coverage in Windorah but the local library has a WiFi Hotspot where you can catch up on mail and spam.

In Windorah we filled the fuel tanks up at a $1.63 per litre. At the petrol station there was a 1962 Chamberlin tractor getting it’s rear tyre fixed, it was punctured by a kangaroo bone just outside of Windorah – I don’t know where tractor started from but he was heading towards Alice Springs. His wife drives the support vehicle….

The Barcoo shire has 3 towns in its 62000 square kilometres, Windorah, Jundah and Stonehenge. the population in this shire is just 462 people, I would think that at any given point in time there are more tourists than locals….we stopped at Jundah and topped up at $1.52 per litre, when we mentioned it to the owner the price difference, we were told that they (in Windorah) get the fuel cheaper than Jundah. It’s interesting, but this shire is one of the best kept around.

Our overnight camp was on the Swanvale Jumpup which has great view over the surrounding plain. When Jo and I came through last time with Paul and Judy, there was only one other person there, a young lady doing yoga or having a sleep or something (not sure what actually), Paul would remember we named the place Twinpeaks. Dinner last night was a webber cooked roast beef with roast veggies and the potatoes done in the fire. The dinner was great, getting the footy results of the wallabies v NZ via satellite SMS from Rebecca wasn’t! Before moving off, breakfast was bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and hash browns….

We stopped at Stonehenge for a look at the town and of the 3 towns in the shire, it is the only one that has mobile reception, and you need to be outside the pub or the community centre to get it.

We put Fiona in the gaol and took her photo, enjoyed an ice cream from the pub – we had to wait for the pub to open to get the ice creams! This weekend has also been the local rodeo weekend, there were a few people hanging about (and few that were hanging in….)

This update is being sent from Longreach where we are restocking, catching up on the washing and the news from the south before heading bush again.

Cheers

J