Charleville
Categories: holidays, friends, australia, astronomy-space
Date: 26 July 2006 02:47:24
What a wonderful outback town: I truly enjoyed my week spent there -- due in a large part to the wonderful people I was staying and travelling with. But Charleville itself has a real charm about it: I love the wide, wide streets and just "the look" of country Australian towns. They do have a certain style and charm all of their own.
And there is plenty to see around Charleville as well. The Cosmos Centre was a pleasant surprise to discover, lover-of-astronomy I am. A fantastic museum with great and informative exhibits, a fascinating video on the traditional stories of stars from an Aboriginal group; and an enjoyable and fun video on space and theory of the relativity (truly!). You can also view the night sky in almost perfect clear-sky conditions: although, of course, the night we booked turned out to be one of few cloudy nights each year! Oh well -- we got a refund: next time.
The Charleville Base of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) has a fascinating museum on the history and work of the RFDS which is well worth a visit. The Charleville School of Distance Education is also interesing, and we, after meeting one of the teachers through a friend in Charleville, got a tour of the school -- they run tours daily for the public also. Both the School of Distance Education (School of the Air) and the RFDS serve people in remote areas: the Charleville school caters for around 35 preschool children and 200 Year 1-10 school age students across a geographical area of approximately 400,000 square kilometres; and the Charleville Base of the RFDS services approximately 622,000 square kilometres of southwest QLD -- and that is but one base of many.
But the best part of the holiday was spending time with the people, friends, I stayed with and travelled with: I had not met the people we stayed with before and I'd only met the people I travelled with once before. We truly got on so well and had such a great time enjoying each others' company. Dinners were slow and lazy affairs, with the conversation flowing as liberally as the alcohol: we even had a Christmas in July dinner -- a popular thing to do in Australia as the cooler weather gives us a chance to have a European-style Christmas meals: roasts and hot puddings and such generally don't feature when you have a Christmas Day of 35 degrees C or more.
We also went on a picnic 50 or more kilometres outside Charleville, in the middle of nowhere and alongside a creek. Beautiful country: rough, harsh and dry: but very, very beautiful.
Also good fun was the Ulysses night held: the couple whose house we stayed at were going through James Joyce's Ulysses with a friend: the small part I heard that night has me very much intrigued: a beautful, poetic book: though it seems like a hard slog also. After Joyce we talked about a number of things, including our favourite poets and poems: my choice was John Donne's Batter my heart, three-person'd God: and I learnt of many new poets whose works I'll be searching out. A wondrous evening.
God willing, I'll be back. And I now have a deep desire to follow Unordered's trail and see more of the Outback. We truly are blessed with a fascinating and special country.