Easy run over to CT from Hughenden, only 250km. Mind you, it wasn't looking too good to start with as we just had to wait for a huge road train to go past before we could pull out. But, using our trusty radio and the good graces of the truck driver we easily got around, right after the roadworks.
We kept going, just cruising along for the few hours, only stopping twice, as directed by Police as they escorted two huge loads coming in the opposite direction to us, One was a single propellor blade for a wind turbine, some 70 metres long and 7 and a half metres wide, the other was two trucks carrying huge drums or tanks, also taking up the full width of the road.
We had to wait at the gate of the Aussie Outback Oasis van park for them to process the queue, but finally we were in and a pretty nice spot it is too. We went into town and did some food shopping before coming back for a swim and getting ourselves ready for the Friday Night Pizza & Show. For $10 you get a pizza and a show put on by the Magpies, who sing their way through some old favourites. They were here last year as well but just didn't seem to get into it as much. Mind you the three big tables of people who completely ignored them and yapped the entire time might have been a bit off-putting.
Today we followed an obscure sign to the weir and Water Park, about 12km out of town, It is a weir built across the Burdekin River, the lake that supplies the towns water. The little park is quite pleasant and obviously a favourite with the locals.
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| Weir across the Burdekin River. Charters Towers Qld |
Back across town is Towers Hill, where all the goldmines were and where the Air Force had its Ordnance Replenishment Depot (lots of things that go bang, and lots of concrete bunkers to hold them).
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| Munitions bunker from WW2. Towers Hill. Charters Towers Qld |
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| Clarke Mine. Charters Towers Qld |
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| Clarke Mine. Charters Towers Qld |
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| The old & the new. Charters Towers Qld |
Later on we had lunch at the Royal Arcade which was used in the heyday of the gold boom as the Stock Exchange, then as offices, boarding house, fell into disuse and finally the glass roof collapsed when the timber beams rotted out. The fellow who built it had grand plans, perhaps to extend it through to the next street, but died only 3 years after it was opened.
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| Stock Exchange aka Royal Arcade. Charters Towers Qld |
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| Gold assay office. Charters Towers Qld |
And tonight, for something completely different, we went on a walking Ghost Tour, starting at the Post Office and moving around the streets of the old central business district. The Store, where it is said the owner of 60 years is still at work, even though he dies 40 years ago, The Stock Exchange, The Bank, where the chairman of the board of the gold processing plant was shot dead while sitting at the head of the board room table, by a disgruntled employee, to the World Theatre where the very board room table is still in use. The table is directly under the front of the building, which has been struck by lightning, twice. Ohhhhhhhhhh. Finally we found ourselves at the Private Hotel where it is said that the last and long term licensee of the hotel can be seen gliding down the staircase in the dead of night. All a bit of fun really and an interesting way to hear a bit about the town and its people.
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| Our ghostly guide. Charters Towers Qld |
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