CHARLEVILLE
Another beautiful sunny day, 31C tops. And a nice lazy day with no travel, no packing and unpacking to do.
None of these country motels offer breakfast later than 7.15 am, so one really can't manage a sleep-in. But I lazed about before heading to the local church for 9 am service. The parish priest was in Quilpie this weekend, so the local convent school principal led the communion service. They still believe in Sunday as a day of rest here, so everything was closed except the newsagent and bakery and pubs.
At the town information centre I picked up an excellent CD that has an audio guided tour of the town .. 40 places to visit, with info about each. So I spent the afternoon trekking around the town catching up on its history: much of which is to do with the US military presence here in World War II, and with the 1990 floods that led to evacuation of almost the entire town.
Cobb and Co had a significant presence in most of these western towns until the railway arrived. Charleville eventually became the company's sole coach manufacturing centre, due mainly to the availability of well seasoned timber that would not split with wear. Earlier coaches manufactured near the coast constantly broke down in the harsh inland climate. The convent school now includes the site of the old factory that closed in 1920.
Tonight I had a really WOW experience. At 6.30 I lined up at the Cosmos Centre, Charleville's very modern observatory. I was the only taker for the first hour Introduction to the Night Sky ... so got very personalised attention from the instructor. She took me outside, helped me identify the major stars, and then learn how to measure distances using hand-widths which translate to finger-widths on a start chart.
Then at 7.30 a group of 18 went up into the observatory where 2 telescopes probed the night sky. We got to look at a nebula, binary stars, new stars etc.. and while there caught 3 or 4 brilliant "shooting stars" as well. It was a most educational and enjoyable couple of hours. I have been given a contact in Birdsville with the suggestion that I get to see how the angle of the constellations will be quite different out there.
Tomorrow I fly to Birdsville: will be a couple of days until I can get the next post online.
Photos here
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