Winton II

I'm a day behind, but what can you do?

Yesterday we loafed around Winton, doing nothing at all. I wandered out toward dusk and took some snaps just for fun, then later we partook of the camp dinner in the park before settling in to enjoy the show put on by Mel & Susie: bush poets and yarn spinners. We saw them here last year and they were just as good, very entertaining and an enjoyable couple of hours.

Here they are hamming it up for my camera:

Winton, QLD

Straight run up the road to Winton via Barcaldine and Longreach. Road between these two is rubbish, almost the entire way was under Road Works.

Stopped in Longreach for a cuppa, then kept going right through. Well, almost, stopped at a free camp 40k out of town for a sandwich, then kept right on going.

Once installed on-site, Judy cooked up a chicken roll and potato salad for lunches while i patched up the broken down pantry cupboard. Seems a few things are starting to show their age and the kilometres we are clocking up.

After a hard days work doing not much, we dropped in at the Winton Hotel and sat out in the street drinking wines and dissecting the world and all its problems. Ordered a pizza and claimed Rugby League neutrality being neither NSW or QLD. Mind you, you'd be pretty keen to back anything but the 4xs up here.

It's a bit odd being back on the old trail, unlike the first time when it was a big adventure and everything was bright and new and exciting. I mean, everyone has driven 400k in 4 hours through flat uninspiring grazing land and sighted the tail fin of a 747 sticking up above the horizon, haven't they?

No snaps today, lucky you.

Blackall, QLD

A short run of 300k up from Charleville is Blackall, where we put up for the night. Having got in early enough we had time to take in the tour of the old wool scour, steam driven and operational until 1978.

A really quiet, peaceful place, there was extensive grassed areas with old 'junk' to poke around in and of course 'the tour'. We started with the artesian bore, the boilers, the steam engine and then the scour workings themselves. The old bloke was in our top ten of worst ever guides, Judy named him the real historic bore on the property. Good one.

The old caravan took my fancy, just like the first ones the old man built except this one was clad with aluminium What a novelty, why didn't dad think of that?

Wandered about a bit, took the obligatory snap of the the one-and-only 'black stump', checked out the free camp with about 30 vans already settled in and then returned back to our park.

OMG, they've got some fossil who calls himself a country singer. Awful, horrible. Every song sounded the same as the last, and every song sound like it was stolen from someone else. Thank god it stopped at 6:20pm, it was enough to put you right off your tucker. At the end they announced that if we were lucky enough to be here tomorrow, that they would be doing it all again, and again and again. Until the end of August. I had this vision of all the vans hooking up and bailing out at first light. I know we will be.

Snap of the day:

Judy. Blackall Wool Scour. Blackall, QLD

Charleville III

Off to the pub!

We went on the Scones and Story tour of the Hotel Corones this afternoon. The Hotel was originally the Hotel Norman until bought by Haralambos (Harry) Corones, an enterprising young fellow from Greece, in 1924. Harry had come to Australia with nothing except his 12yo cousin Dimitris and after a few years in Sydney and Brisbane, moved to Charleville to buy a cafe that was for sale. He was soon co-opted into taking on the Charleville Hotel, but later bought the Hotel Norman and transformed it into his vision of elegance and splendour. Much later, he bought the Charleville as well to add to his portfolio of some 10 hotels.

The tour is run by the information centre people, our guide being the great granddaughter of the builder engaged by Harry to build his dream. Lovely tour, got to see a whole lot of the hotel, the bar, the rooms, the very room where QANTAS was hatched, the dance hall and ended up with tea and scones in the dining room. Fortunately the whole place is now heritage listed and some amount of restoration is being undertaken.

We also looked through the 'Historic House' museum, which had some interesting things, but these places always leave you feeling a little disappointed, as if you've wandered into a junk shop, notr a museum.

Last thing, we drove out of town 10k to the 'rock pool'. Don't know anything about it except that it's just off the road and may well have been a quarry. The water was frigid of course, but i'll bet its a big hit with the locals during summer.

I've added more snaps to the Charleville tag on the right, but here is the obligatory snap d'jour:

Charleville II

History Lesson today

I went and joined a 'convoy' in the morning. It was a guided tour of the area around the airport, which during WWII had been taken over by the USAF and converted into a top secret Air Force base (no wonder you've never heard of it!).

Charleville was chosen because it was too far inland to come under naval attack or air attack (remember: the bombing of Darwin is very fresh in their minds, as is the USAF getting wiped out in the Philippines). Anyhow they brought a reputed 200 B17 'Flying Fortress' bombers and 3 1/2 thousand servicemen into town and proceeded to upgrade the airport and everything else around town. The Top Secret turns out to have been the use of the super top secret Norden bomb aiming sight, basically a mechanical, clockwork, analogue computer. So top secret that the few they had were housed in a special bunker, kept under armed guard 24 hours a day, escorted to a plane selected at random, and not uncovered until that plane was well airborne. Supposed to have been accurate to within 100ft from 21000ft. There is some doubt about that claim. They were designed by a Dutchman and assembled in the USA from parts made in neutral, but surrounded by axis forces, Switzerland, and smuggled out to the USA. So much for 'good old American know how'.

Anyhow, all the land they took at the airport became USA soil for the duration. When they left, they were supposed to hand the land back as they had found it, and they did what they normally do, bulldozed everything they had constructed, dug holes and buried the lot. That was in 1942. Nobody gave a toss until a few years ago when council, who owns the land, decided to sell it off for industrial development. Only then did someone raise their hand and say, 'Oi, isn't there a WWII bunker in there (mallee scrub) somewhere?' And sure enough they started to poke around and found all kinds of things, then they started asking the oldies in town, then they started asking the USAF. A group from the Cosmos centre / Information centre / beating heart of town put together a tour of the bits they had found and council much to everyone's surprise, agreed to save it and moved the factories somewhere else. The immediate bits of history are: an airport in the middle of nowhere that can handle the largest commercial planes because its got a giant runway, direction beacons, B17 sized hanger that RFDS now calls home, the original 'aid station' (base hospital) and a bunch of concrete footings for buildings such as the kitchen and toilet blocks, fully reticulated water supply and underground sewers running throughout the scrub.

One of the stories they tell is about how the local hospital was built by the Americans, a yarn they picked up from the hospital tour guides. The current airport manager, who is keen enough to have had the aid station repainted to original colours and is now his home, was poking about the hospital and found the original foundation stone: 1939, 3 years before the yanks turned up. One popular and long term myth bites the dust. The hospital however, was completely remodelled and enlarged by the US to meet their needs, so the town has a fantastic hospital as a legacy as well. 

Every year these enthusiasts find more remains in the bush and extend and enhance the tour. They are now organising a proper archaeological dig team from one of the Universities: the pot of gold is a complete Kittyhawk aircraft supposedly buried on site somewhere.   Good luck to them.

Another thing of interest to me is that all this building etc was done by what they refer to as 'Australian Essential Workers' aka the Civil Construction Corps, and of which my father was a member, but he probably never came here. But then again, it was Top Secret...

Once again, as it did last year, we are struck by just how little the Australian public, either at the time or now, knew about how involved in the war we were on our own soil.

A snap of the only remaining hanger (others were dismantled and sold, most ending up as military museum hangers :

WWII Hanger fit for a B17 Bomber. Now Royal Flying Doctor Service, Charleville, Qld

Charleville, Qld

Time to mosey on up the road. You hitch the van on, pull out straight onto the Mitchell Highway and maintain speed for the next few hours. We stopped after 250k at the first town, Cunnamulla, in Qld, (not the first name, that would be Engonia or Barringun) for an early lunch and because we just had to have a break. The driving is flat and mostly straight through scrubby country. The only noticeable thing is the fauna wandering along the road: sheep, goats, cows, emus, roos, pigs. The raptors were having a field day, selecting only the most ripe and juicy while ignoring others. In Cunnamulla we had toasties and coffee and took time to snap the world famous Cunnamulla Fella (what? you've never heard of him? shame, shame shame). Nothing for it but to push on up to Charleville, another 200 or so kays up the road. I have to say that the roads at this stage are far better in Qld than NSW, but no lessening in animals looking to be the next Eagle Boys meal. Somewhere back near Bourke we encountered 'traffic' in the form of ute and two caravans, who were dawdling along at 90. I played the game, for a while but eventually slid by them. I am really happy about how this rig sits on the road.

After Cunnamulla, well, well after Cunnamulla, we came across more traffic. This time two vans doing 80 right behind each other and about a 100m back from another pair. We sat and waited. It was just off-putting. The brakes lights would flash and they'd slow down more and move entirely across to the other side of the road as they avoided yet another carcass on the side. I was getting 'toey' with them. At one overtaking opportunity two large cattle trucks came into view coming the other way and then the radio crackled into life, 'Yair mate, we got caravan heaven coming, lets see if we can bowl 'em off the road etc etc', and they both moved in toward the centre of the road trying to put the frighteners on the others. I hung back and held my place. It's the devil in me. After they had passed we hear the first truck say to the other in a shocked voice, 'Mate, I think we got a two finger salute coming back at us!' Their day would have been made when a silken female voice informed them that indeed they had and that they surely deserved it. Didn't hear a peep after that. Ah the beauty of true mobile communications.

Made it into Charley and found our spot at the Bailey Bar Caravan Park. We were immediately driven out by some w***** playing Christmas carols and other god squad numbers full blast. We went to the info centre and booked a few shows and things, starting tonight at 9pm with a visit to the Cosmos Centre to look at stars and things through a big telescope.

Returned to the van park after a lap of town but went around to the back entrance just for fun. A football match was in full swing at the ground behind us so we simply drove in and had a look. The Charleville Comets were giving the Quilpi Quails a flogging. Serves 'em right.

Anyhow enough already, and I'll try and remember to hit publish this time, eh?

Here's a snap of some weeds on the side of the road:

Weeds. Charleville, Qld

Bourke II

Had to visit the Back o' Bourke centre for the Outback show. Clydesdales, normal horses, dogs, camels and bullocks being put through some paces buy a cowboy from Milton. He claimed to have been a horse breaker out past Halls Creek. Fairly entertaining and interesting show held out the back of the centre. We also took the self-guided tour through the centre to check out the outback display, but really, it wasn't much. The place was interesting in that it wasn't fenced, anyone could wander in and not bother to pay, and they don't funnel the punters in and out through the shop. Odd. Couldn't help but think about that old conundrum: what came first, the tourists or the tourist attraction?

Highlight of the day was a ride on the PV Jandra, built locally in 2000 uing a few pictures of the original as a guide. Sadly, no steam engine. Taks a 1 hour round trip down and back along the Darling River and you are given a running commentary and history lesson as you go.

Took the mud-map tour #2 down to the weir, just because we could. It's pretty unispiring, pitty the locks were also concreted up when they upgraded the thing a few years back.

More snaps added to the Bourke Album, but here's a snap of JB with her new best friend: