Blackall to Charleville

 Thursday 22nd July

Overnight we ran out of gas, something Michael has been expecting to happen ever since we left home…not to worry we just switched over to the second tank.

Our first stop today was in the small township of Blackall.it is known as the Arts Capital of the West and holds a Better in Blackall Festival in August. It has a very interesting welcome sign made up of a photo collage of local events/people/places.

There is a Sculpture Trail around the town as well as some historic buildings and monuments. Sir Thomas Mitchell certainly got around out here.

Supposedly everything west of Blackall was ‘beyond the black stump’ so of course they have a ‘black stump’.

Although it was actually Sales day at the Blackall Saleyards we passed on that opportunity and instead went to the Historic Woolscour. It was opened in 1908 and was deemed a state of the art facility at the time. After years of neglect it has been revived by years of work by volunteers and some of the machinery is operational again. Sadly our guide told us that no wool is cleaned in Australia anymore, it is all done overseas….despite the lanolin handcream I bought claiming to be Made in Australia? The water in this bore would be a bit hot for a swim at 58 degrees!

Our place of residence tonight was the outback teddy bear capital of Tambo. We did have a look in at Tambo Teddies where there were many cute looking bears but at $250  a bear we didn’t indulge.

But we did go to the Nightly Chicken Races at the pub. Each night the 10 chickens are auctioned off and the ‘owner’ of the winning chicken gets half the pot. The other half goes to the RFDS. Tonight the cheapest chicken went for $60 and the most expensive $400. There was a group who were competing against each other so we chose to just be spectators. Over dinner in the pub we got chatting to them and they have driven, as a group from WA in TRACTORS! They were aiming to go from western most point to eastern most point but Covid has prevented that from happening. We are just grateful that they are heading in the opposite direction to us at at a top speed of 55km/hr.

There are a number of sculptures here as well including this one of Potoooooooo… a successful local racehorse from the 1800. Legend has it that the owner wanted to call it Potato and the stable hand spelt it his own way😄.

Friday 23rd July

Before leaving Tambo we visited the Grassland Art Gallery which is currently hosting a locals exhibition called Anticipation. There was quite a variety of pieces and although we spent a bit of time there we didn’t see a soul…trusting lot out this way. 

We have been reflecting on the Qld governments efforts to bring tourism and, enhance community, to these small outback towns. Many of them have art projects, historical points/buildings of interest and festivals that seem to have at least some govt backing.

The only stop between Tambo and Charleville is Augathella. It seems to be one of the small towns that has missed the boat for govt grants. It does have Meat Ant Park with a giant sculpture of said critter on a post and some info about settlement in the area. It is also the setting for the Smiley books (1945) and the subsequent movie released in 1956. Apart from that it has a few murals and a recently painted water tower.

As it was still relatively early when we checked into Evening Star van park at Charleville we decided to take the 8km drive in to town to visit the information centre and decide on our activities while here. We arrived at the information centre about 10minutes before the next Bilby Experience, which is right next door so we joined in.

I was surprised that they were bigger than I expected and very active. This project is breeding them up, something they do pretty easily, having the shortest pregnancy of any mammal on the planet, and restoring them to the wild. Currently they have an area surrounded by a predator exclusion fence in Currawinya National Park with the aim of building a population of 400 free-living bilbies.  Their focus is to help build an insurance population of 10,000 bilbies in Australia. 

Back at Evening Star we enjoyed happy hour around the the campfire although Michael was suffering from a bit of campfire envy.

Saturday 24th July

Did you know that from 1942 until 1946 there was a 25 km2 area within Queensland that was classed as American? In 1942 the US modified Charleville airport into a crucial, strategic but secretive base. 

This morning we joined a Tag-along-tour around this little bit of USA. At one point the Norden Bomb Sight had its own secret home here and only the pilot and the bombardier knew what it was….fitted into the nose plane in flight to hone the accuracy of bomb dropping! It had its own concrete building which is so solid that repeated attempts to knock it down failed.

It appears the young ladies of Charleville had plenty of attention from the 3 500 Yanks who were stationed at their base over the years.

Even today those trying to restore the site and get more information are met with a wall of silence from the Americans. They are doing their best to reconstruct things from what they find in the scrub and old photos/newspaper clippings, such as the photo of the men heading for their weekly Tar bath.

We explored the recently opened USA secret base museum. As yet only Stage 1, of 3 stages, is complete. Another example of Qld government putting money into rural tourist infrastructure.

Our guide told us that as Charleville was the origin of the first QANTAS flight (a mail run) it was offered the QANTAS Founders Museum but the mayor of the time turned it down as she didn’t want her little town to change🥴

Today was the first outing for the restored heritage bus which does short 10minute trips around town. On the way back to camp we took a walk along the Charleville Pathway beside the Warrego River.

We had planned to go to the Cosmos Centre in town but we didn’t need to go that far. During the winter months the van park has nightly presentations by one of the founders of the Centre in town. Once things got a bit ‘bean-counterish’ he decided to do his own thing. It was a very interesting few hours with looks at the Jewel Box, Saturn, which looks exactly like in the books, and an amazing full moon. I never knew that Alpha Centauri was actually 2 stars, which we could see clearly. Michael was able to get the moon photo on his camera, through the telescope…amazing.