Starry night at Charleville

This post is all about monuments, explorers and western towns. We are now in Charleville, spent quite a bit of time this afternoon wandering its wonderfully wide streets, buying bits and pieces we needed and being helped by very friendly locals.

Maranoa River bridge at Mitchell, showing damage from
recent floods, including to murals on pylons.

Before we left St George on Sunday morning we discovered the memorial to Sir Thomas Mitchell naming the crossing of the Balonne River there on St George’s Day in 1846. We were in Mitchell within a few hours but he took until June to cover the same area in 1846, then naming the Maranoa River, beside which we stayed on Sunday night.

Before we had reached Mitchell we stopped to have lunch at a little memorial to the last confrontation in Australia between police and bushrangers, in 1902. Apart from the whole story told on a big plaque, there is a modern sculpture depicting one of the bushrangers (who had stolen horses and murdered two men north of Mitchell, then were found in their camp south of the town by mounted police) who tried to get away but fell and was captured.

After a fairly fast drive this morning from Mitchell, we arrived in Charleville, around 750km west of Brisbane, according to the road signs, and settled into a caravan park for a couple of nights. We’d phoned ahead as we’d heard lots of caravanners and motorhomers were stuck in Charleville and Tambo because of flood damage to a road to Blackall. We’re not going north on that road, but further west to Quilpie, then we’ll turn north.

The police & bushranger sculpture near Mitchell.

There has been a lot of rain, there is water beside most of the roads, and the red soil is VERY, VERY soft, so our 5 tonne vehicle doesn’t leave the blacktop at present.

Lots to do here and tonight at 9 we’re booked for a session at the Cosmos Observatory. There’s a lunar eclipse tonight as well, so that’s a bonus. Glorious clear night, and we’ll have to rug up, as heaters fog up the telescope at Cosmos. We probably won’t be here on Wednesday night for the transit of Venus.

John with one of 4 tiny granite soldiers
 at Charleville War Memorial