Charter Towers - Townsville

Miners Cottage Museum Charters Towers

Townsville and Magnetic Island

We left Winton for Charters Towers stopping at Hughenden for lunch. Despite dinosaurs continuing to be the theme we only saw a small (almost prehistoric) dog in the park while we ate our lunch on the banks of the Flinders River, which we now know is the longest river in Queensland.

We stayed at the Charters Towers Tourist Park that promotes itself as the Shady Park. It was truly a shady spot but we were told that most of the trees had been removed after cyclone Yasi had ripped its way through the town. As suggested in the information brochure we stayed for 3 nights so that we could explore the city's rich heritage, of 'gold, greed, ghosts and grandeur'. We walked the main shopping street, admired some of the magnificent heritage buildings, one of which was the 1891 World Theatre and was originally the Australian Bank of Commerce when Charters Towers was referred to as "The World". It was in this building back in 1902 that the Mosman Street Tragedy took place, and the blood stains are still visible on the table where the shooting occurred. We also took a drive up the once heavily mined Towers Hill to take in a panoramic view over the region, and visited the Venus Battery, an old gold processing plant where the 'ghosts' come alive. The Battery is a working gold mine and a mine of information.

Looking for Gold

A highlight was a visit to the Miners Cottage museum with new friends from the park, George and Sonja and their friends Mike and Debbie. George is a military lawyer about to commence work in Townsville so Marty and he had a few things in common. The old host at the cottage enjoyed an audience and put on quite a show playing lots of old songs on a piano accordion and changing his hat to match the country of origin of each tune, ie when he played Swannie he had on his American hat with a US sheriffs' badge on it, and when he played a Scottish ballad he donned his tartan beret. After all the music recitals we were then treated to a demonstration on how to pan for gold. Then we were shown a DVD on the Miners Cottage with a "ghost" in it.

We then travelled onto Townsville where we meet up with Marty's nephew Billy and his soon to be wife Louise, and they turned out to be wonderful tour guides of Townsville. On the Friday night Billy and Louise took us out for dinner at the Yongala restaurant where we all enjoyed a Greek banquet, this restaurant is also the venue for their wedding reception that unfortunately we will miss. After dinner we were taken up to the top of Castle Hill lookout, a red rock monolith in the heart of Townsville to see the panoramic views. The next morning Billy and Louise took us out to the Ross River dam, before heading back into the city and to the Museum of Tropical Queensland, where we learnt about HMS Pandora, the ship sent by the British Admiralty to capture the Bounty mutineers and return them to England. The ship ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef and has only recently been located. That evening the caravan park put on a seafood night and I adopted 2 (young, good looking) Dutch back packers and invited them to dinner on Sunday. Sunday morning we meet up again with Billy and Louise at the Reef HQ Aquarium, an underwater observatory that is visually breathtaking. Its living reef is the largest 'captive' reef in the world. We really loved viewing the giant turtles in the turtle hospital in the museum. Monday morning we also returned to the summit of Castle Hill for a 360 degree view of the city in daylight. We also 'walked the strand' and looked at Queen's Park gardens, hiding from each other in the maze. Many of our friends know about Marty's fetish for Rivers fashions, so after finding out that there is a Rivers store in Townsville he had to top up.


Turtle Hospital at Reef HQ



Reef HQ

Barcaldine to Charters Towers

















Arnos wall



We arrived at Barcaldine on Wednesday 11 May. The caravan park put on free damper and billy tea which was a good start. The next morn we visited the tree of knowledge in the town but unfortunately nothing of the tree's sagacity rubbed off on Marty. The tree has important links to the foundation of what is now the Australian Labor Party. We also visited the Australian Worker's Heritage Museum in the town which celebrates the town's role in the first shearer's strikes. We were going to look at more things in the town but, being thirsty, decided to go to the Shakespeare Hotel for lunch instead. I ordered a Chick Parmi which, when it was served, could have fed some small countries for a week. When we commented on its size the staff advised that they only serve the really big ones for evening meals. We were joined by Dave and Angela, two Brisbanites originally from Northern Ireland who were also staying at the caravan park. After a few beers we gave up any thoughts of sightseeing and adjourned to the caravan park with Dave and Angela and had a few more quiet beers and some not so quiet bundies. Marty accepted an invite to see Angela's beaver. Please refer to our facebook site for video evidence.

On Black Friday we travelled to Longreach and stayed in a very dodgy caravan park. We visited the Stockman's Hall of Fame and the QANTAS museum where we toured a 747 jet. I also wing walked on the plane while Marty listened to the footy (the Kangaroos won so apparently it was all worthwhile).

Winton was the next stop where we toured the Waltzing Matilda Museum. Marty always tears up when he hears Waltzing Matilda so it was an interesting visit to a really good museum. We are now experts on Banjo Paterson and the poem but this will probably only last a few days. We visited the other tourist attractions in the town including Arno's Wall (a collection of junk concreted into a wall) and the musical fence. Lastly we visited the Australian Age of Dinosaurs, a working scientific preparation area where palaeontologists and volunteer work collaboratively to piece together the various pieces of dinosaur bones found in the area into 2 dinos.

A highlight was the bush poet evenings put on by the caravan park. Marty often sprouts forth bawdy verse and met his match. The bush poets, called the 2 short sheilas, were very entraining. It was interesting that in a former life one of the ladies was a senior CPSU organiser working with the new Chief Minister. Their travelling two-woman show combines fair dinkum humour with their passion for our unique Aussie heritage as they perform comic, original and traditional bush verse. One of the bush poems that Susan recited was written by Roy Wheeler my high school principal. We stayed at the Matilda Country Tourist Park and we once again enjoyed the company of fellow campers Ian and Diane who were from the Sunshine Coast.



Sheilas in the Shed



Walking with Dinosaurs