Outback Queensland road trip Day 4: Around Charleville

 

 

By the numbers

1 tank of fuel

843kms before filling up

5.09kms walking

 

The day started cold, but we both stayed in the room until late morning before deciding to go for an explore. We thought it would be a good idea to plan where we are staying as accommodation had been a little bit iffy with things being almost booked out. Roma had no vacancy when we arrived. There was a sinking feeling things might not turn out to be so great. I had managed to make two bookings the night before to secure a place in Longreach and then went exploring other locations like Winton had nothing the Friday after. The pan ended up being that we head to Highenden and then to Winton.

 

It wasn’t until later that we realised there was an event on in Winton and that was a film festival that went on for a week that we did not know about and it explained the issues in not finding anywhere to stay, but we ended up with accommodation towards the end of the festival so it was alright. We did book some of the experiences for that time as well. I was using this time to take it easy as we had been on the move for several days and it was good to sit back without any real plans.

 

When we did leave not long after 11am, I was wanting to visit the information centre where the Royal Flying Doctors was located as I hadn’t seen very much about it at all. The TV had only been advertising the visitor experience out at Alice Springs. A touch too far to visit on our time frame. The small museum at the visitor centre told us about the beginnings of the service and that it started in Charleville and was essential for medical flights and these days flights and other services for remote communities who need medical help including dental. It was interesting they started with morse code radios and then that was soon replaced by actual radios and communications over the airwaves. We didn’t see any aircraft there, and nearby was something I hadn’t been that interested in going to though would next time. It was about the WW2 facilities, there was also the cosmos centre all about looking at the night sky.

 

Nearby at the airport I had seen a little museum that had today vanished from Google maps and I wanted to see if there was some interpretive centre out that way. There was a very small museum and it explained that Charleville airport or airfield was essential since flight began in the 1920s from air races and to mail runs with the small company Qantas that is now a little bit bigger. Many of the major flights that took out world records used Charleville as a stop over and it did include a short bit about the Royal Flying Doctors in the area. It was small, but a quick museum / interpretive centre about the history of the area. The airport was just as quiet and there were even signs telling us to watch out for snakes. We never seen any that were there at all

 

After looking at the airport and then finding the weather balloon centre, which told us they let of balloons every morning, we headed for the next item on my list of things to see and that was the cemetery, although we stopped at one of the parks that had a big red bench. There was a blue tree too as it was part of lifeline and then story boards throughout the park. The park had something far more interesting. Some devices that gave hope in creating rain The Steiger Vortex guns that were supposed to create rain around 1902, but didn’t actually work. The next stop was the cemetery, which was pretty sandy and had a sign telling us to keep the kangaroos out by closing the gate. Just outside the fenceline was an info sign telling us about the flooding in the 1990s and how a work crew stent a day and half cleaning up the cemetery. That I found interesting and walking amongst the headstones you could see how dry it was and see where other people were walking. It actually got pretty warm out there and I thought that was a good thing as it had been cool enough.

 

One of the jobs we needed to do before things got too far was to fill up with fuel and that was the first time we had gotten fuel since we had left Tweed and had done at least 800 or so kms since we left. We did visit the RSL again as they have some nice meals and some deals as well like pork chops or even a chicken parmi.