July 14

Last night’s Bilby Experience proved to be an interesting and entertaining activity. The introductory talk was presented by a Charleville High School final year (Year 13?) student. We then saw a documentary from Australian Story on the Bilby Brothers, the two guys who were behind the bilby rescue program. The highlight was an opportunity to see some bilbies cavorting around in their enclosure. As they are nocturnal animals the only opportunities to see them are at the two “shows” each night. The whole visit was made more meaningful to us because the bilby enclosure (25 sq km) is in Currawinya NP and we saw information boards about it during our visit. The bilbies are bred here in Charleville and then released into the wild at Currawinya.

Today was relatively low-key – spent the morning cruising the shops looking for a few things. The shopping centre was very busy, especially compared with yesterday when you could have fired a cannon and not hit anyone. Lots of 4WD vehicles – you can pick out the locals – usually a spotlight on top, a swag in the back, two spare tyres and the vehicle covered in red dust.

This afternoon we went out to the Cosmos Centre and had a look at their displays about planets, the universe, meteorites etc. Tonight we go back to use their telescopes to have a look at the night sky (providing it isn’t overcast).

The caravan park isn’t as full tonight but still nearly at capacity. I can’t believe the size of some of the vans – they make ours look quite miniscule (but still nowhere near as big as those we saw in BC last year). There seem to be less vans pulled by Patrols and Landcruisers but more of the smaller variants (eg Pathfinders and Ford Territory). Quite a lot more people towing with cars than previously, probably all a factor of fuel prices.

Pension day tomorrow, yippee! So far all the money has been going in one direction – OUT!