Charleville and the Cosmos Centre

Monday, 7 September 2015

Giddup!

Waiting ...

Cooking ...

Plating up ...

Quality control!

Apostle birds

Red wing parrot

Walking track

Yellow flowers

Wild melon thingies

Little white flower

Purple flower

Bird watching at the dam

Caravan park bore

Late Saturday afternoon, while we were listening (from afar) to the daily entertainment – country and western, of course – a pony and buggy trotted into the park and the owners very obligingly stopped for photos.  Cat was very excited to have a ride!

Sunday morning, Fathers’ Day, we hit the road again, headed 300 km south for Charleville.  The countryside was much the same as the previous days, but not quite as much roadkill today.  We were lucky enough to see more bustards and emus, with one emu have six very small chicks.  We had short stops at Tambo and Augathella to change drivers and arrived at the Evening Star Tourist Park about 12.30 pm.  About 8 kms from Charleville, this caravan park is on a working cattle station, has very large sites (gravel, naturally), lots of flowering shrubs and modern amenities.  There is a campfire every night, with damper supplied twice a week – and lucky for us, Sunday night just happened to be damper night!  Unfortunately, we don’t have television reception and mobile/internet connection is a bit faint at times.

After filling up on damper, we visited the Cosmos Centre, or observatory, for a view of the outback sky after dark.  With the moon not rising until well after midnight, we were able to see the Milky Way, stars and planets without any light pollution.  After being led outside along a darkened pathway, we entered a large shed, lit by a few red lights, and were briefed on the four telescopes and what we would see.  Then amazingly, the upper walls and roof split in two and each half rolled completely away and we were left with an uninterrupted view of the heavens.  Our second look through the telescope was a star cluster called the Jewel Box and while I was looking at the stars, a shooting star flashed across my vision – just wow!  Our final look for the night was at Saturn, with its rings clearly visible.  We had been warned to dress very warmly, with coats, beanies, thermals, etc, but the temperature was still a pleasant 25 degrees when we arrived and only dropped to 20 degrees – hardly thermal weather.

Today has been a relax day, with time to catch up on some washing and cleaning.  We had a drive into Charleville this morning for a few supplies and also checked out the other two caravan parks.  All three parks are fairly quiet at the moment, but this is expected to change in the next few days when the Birdsville racegoers arrive back in town.  This afternoon, we undertook the caravan park’s “bush walk,” about 2 kms through the scrub behind the park.  There are lots of birds about and apart from the usual wattlebirds/honeyeaters and apostle birds, we have seen the red wing and mallee ring neck parrots, both in the shrubs right outside our caravan.