Emerald to Charters Tower
Once packed up and refuelled we set of for what would be a longish drive nearly 500km by now having learnt from past experience our two fuel jerrycans were full, there were two places to top up on our way, Clermont about 100km and Belyando Crossing Roadhouse in the middle of nowhere.
We did not top up at Clermont as it would not have taken enough, and bypassed the roadhouse as access at the time was not good, and I did not want to risk a bad load of expensive fuel (the place appeared run-down from the road and with no competition able to charge what they like for fuel), I hopped I had enough fuel to make Charters Towers, and with one eye on the fuel gauge we kept on going, knowing I had 40l in reserve, but hoping we did not need it, (famous last words) note there is NO MOBILE PHONE COVERAGE if something went wrong, I did have Starlink Internet so we had communication if I set it up.
About 50km from Charters Towers I became concerned about our fuel not sure if we could make it all the way, so we started to look for a safe place to pull over and use the fuel from one of our jerrycans to top up the tank. When I finally refilled the tank and jerrycan it took 75l (the tank is a 75l tank) so we may or may not have made it to the fuel pump before the tank was dry, good thing I had the spare fuel with me. (Note replace the 75l fuel tank with a long range 145l tank when we get home).
Again, we had no booking but they had a Big4 advertised as we came into town so that is where we headed, not being the peak tourist period, we had no problem getting 3 nights for our van. This was a drive through site under trees, not ideal for our internet connection I had the dish well away from the van, luckily there was an orange traffic cone handy to keep cars away from it.
Being Anzac Day, there was not much open in town that night so even after a long drive and setup we tried an all you could eat Chinese - bad Idea as it was not cheap and far from authentic even though the owners spoke Chinese.
In the morning the usual trip to the Tourist Information Centre and a wander downtown to get our bearings, lunch then a trip to the town weir on the Burdekin River which is the fourth-largest river in Australia by volume of flow but is so erratic that its discharge can reach the mean discharge of the Yangtze River (after two severe cyclones in 1958) or have as many as seven months with no flow whatsoever (as in 1923). At this time, it had a good flow, being near the end of the wet ”wet season
The power of the flow was quite evident in the landscape below the weir, and the park also gave Mini Monster (AKA Mon Chéri) a chance to run free to her delight.
From the weir it was on to the airport which we passed on our way, here there was even more evidence of the American presence during WW2 here like Charleville, the local hospital was supported materially by the USA in case their service men (or women) needed to be hospitalised there, and like Charleville the airport itself, owes it upgraded existence to the US servicemen.
The town itself is interesting as unlike some other older towns most of the building are heritage listed, had have been preserved even though their use may have changed old advertising above the windows have been retained, these may or may not be relevant to the business being carried on. The local council is very serious in retaining the heritage feel, so much so that the modern shops usually found in the main street have been banished to an area away from the CBD to ”Poppet Head Plaza”. Even here there is an acknowledgement to the past with the building ends covered with mosaics by local artists depicting the past history of the area.
One fact about the town is that it considers it self as the world, I have been told this is because of the number of nationalities in town during the golden years.
On our last evening, we managed to book ‘Ghost Tour‘ of the new cemetery (it is called the new cemetery but is quite old as the old cemetery ended up polluting the underground water supply hence it needed to be closed), this was interesting but not spooky for me.
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