25 August – Monday 
Overcast when we left Townsville for the drive to Charters Towers. The road was good, mainly flat with long straights. This was also our first real experience with proper road trains – four trailers and 50 metres long! The Burdekin River was absolutely amazing – very wide, sandy and very little water, about 15 metres below bridge level and the flood markers were 5 metres above the ROAD level!
The Aussie Outback Oasis Caravan Park would have to have the largest sites we have seen. Drive through, with a very large and level concrete slab, enough room both behind and in front to park the car and a large grassed area between caravans. It was built about ten years ago and definitely designed for the future caravan travellers.
Charters Towers is a gold mining town which also services cattle stations in the district. Apart from gold, which is still being mined underneath the town, boarding schools make up the other industry. A town which has done well to maintain its heritage and a lot of the shops still retain their original facades. It obviously rains very heavily, given the size of the gutters.
The highlight of the day would have been the visit to the Miner’s Cottage. This is where we met, for the first time, a group of school children who seemed to follow us around all day. We were able to try our hand at gold panning and could buy a bag of gravel for $11 (virtually guaranteeing a find) or just pan the leftovers. Being of Scottish descent, I opted for the leftovers – and struck gold! I was lucky enough to find five flakes in the bottom of my pan.
A drive to the lookout on Towers Hill gave us a great view of the surrounding countryside, as well as the fire department fighting a fair-sized grass fire at the bottom of the hill. Towers Hill is covered with abandoned mine shafts and ammunition bunkers (World War 2 ammunition dump), lots of rocks, supposedly rock wallabies and probably snakes.
When we arrived at 11.00am, we thought the caravan park was virtually empty. It has filled up in the last hour – incredible.
Overcast when we left Townsville for the drive to Charters Towers. The road was good, mainly flat with long straights. This was also our first real experience with proper road trains – four trailers and 50 metres long! The Burdekin River was absolutely amazing – very wide, sandy and very little water, about 15 metres below bridge level and the flood markers were 5 metres above the ROAD level!
The Aussie Outback Oasis Caravan Park would have to have the largest sites we have seen. Drive through, with a very large and level concrete slab, enough room both behind and in front to park the car and a large grassed area between caravans. It was built about ten years ago and definitely designed for the future caravan travellers.
Charters Towers is a gold mining town which also services cattle stations in the district. Apart from gold, which is still being mined underneath the town, boarding schools make up the other industry. A town which has done well to maintain its heritage and a lot of the shops still retain their original facades. It obviously rains very heavily, given the size of the gutters.The highlight of the day would have been the visit to the Miner’s Cottage. This is where we met, for the first time, a group of school children who seemed to follow us around all day. We were able to try our hand at gold panning and could buy a bag of gravel for $11 (virtually guaranteeing a find) or just pan the leftovers. Being of Scottish descent, I opted for the leftovers – and struck gold! I was lucky enough to find five flakes in the bottom of my pan.
A drive to the lookout on Towers Hill gave us a great view of the surrounding countryside, as well as the fire department fighting a fair-sized grass fire at the bottom of the hill. Towers Hill is covered with abandoned mine shafts and ammunition bunkers (World War 2 ammunition dump), lots of rocks, supposedly rock wallabies and probably snakes.
When we arrived at 11.00am, we thought the caravan park was virtually empty. It has filled up in the last hour – incredible.
2 comments:
Finally caught up with the blog after going to melbourne to watch 2 games of football. Thankfully one was a game!! Tigers won. The other could be described as a bore, waste of money, unemotional etc etc - by the way that was the Swans game - I think they were just after some more frequent flyer points. Luckily I had some like, some like, young males, like, who made things like interesting like with their courageous like legend like use of the like English like language like. Get the drift? Like!!
hope we can still all make it to Brisbane as Dave has been lying in bed all day feeling terrible. Jack has a virus, not as bad as Dave. Been clingy and want lots of massages. When will you be arriving in Brisbane? My parents looked up some caravan parks for you, will send info tomorrow. Shan
Post a Comment