Around Australia 2012: Charleville QLD 14/11/12 to 17/11/12

In Charleville we stayed about 2 k's out of town at The Charleville Bush Caravan Park. We were lucky to get in there as the owner was closing it down until next Easter, when the tourist season gets back into full swing. However, as he was still on site, he let us stay and it turned out we were the only van there for the first night. Well set up park with good facilities, which we had all to ourselves. For nights two and three the relieving caretakers turned up in their van, so we had to share. In hindsight we also had to share the park with the huge number of kangaroos that turned up at dusk and dawn.

Again it's very hot with temperature once more in the high 30's and pushing 40 degrees. We went into town the first afternoon and, once again like other older country towns, the streets are extremely wide. For Charleville this was so they could turn the bullock teams around. We looked at a few old buildings and checked out the Hotel Corones. This must be one of the biggest timber pubs I have ever seen. It is so big it took five years to complete, starting in 1924 and finishing in 1929. A very grand old hotel and in fairly good condition. The public bar is huge with more room behind the bar than in front. We also headed out to the Cosmos Centre and checked out their set up. A lot of interactive displays around the planets and stars. We all got to hold a piece of shooting star - which is actually a piece of meteorite that fell to earth many years ago. A video was also included which showed how the earth was formed and its place in the solar system. Very good and kept the boys interested through the whole display. Back home and turned on the air con in the van and, despite it being quite noisy, ran it well into the night before we dared turn it off.

We headed out to the Charleville Weather Station the next morning to learn about weather recording and watch the release of the weather balloon. A balloon is released every day at 9.15am with equipment attached for sending back info to the station. Apparently, weather balloons are released all over the world simultaneously to record this information and get a picture of the conditions to enable forecasting. From there we decided to head to the local pool for a swim. Due to the heat, and the fact that the artesian water is used in the pool, you have to stay down under the covered end if you want to cool down. Otherwise, you might as well be having a bath. After lunch we did a drive around town, listening to a CD on the town history which we had picked up from the tourist centre. A good way to get a down load on the town when the weather is touching 40 degrees. When we finished that we decided to stop in at the RSL for a drink and take advantage of their air con for a while.

The boys hadn't had a skate park fix for a while so on our last day I took them out to the local skate park early in the morning, before it got too hot. The park was OK with some fairly "tame" ramps but the guys had a pretty good time there. Back home to set the air con going then we headed down to the local river, the Ward, for a swim and muck around. We took some lunch, our blow up surf mat and the sub skates and stayed down there for a couple of hours. Back home to spend most of the afternoon around the van. We had booked and paid for a night viewing at the Cosmos Centre. However, the cloud rolled in and it had to be cancelled. We had to go out to the centre around 7.30pm to collect our refund. So, after doing this we went to the roadhouse and bought some ice blocks and wandered around town eating them. Have to say not much happening in town for a Friday night.