July 15

The Cosmos Centre Observatory session last night gave us an opportunity to have a “closer” look at some of the features of the night sky. There were three telescopes set up inside a shed which was opened up as the two halves slid apart. The telescopes were 12” and provided 100 x magnification. Two planets, Saturn (you could see the rings) and Jupiter (you could see a number of its moons) were viewed. Alpha Centauri, the brighter of the two pointers for the Southern Cross was actually seen to be two stars (3.6 billion km apart). You learn something every day! The most fascinating viewing however was of a barely visible (to the naked eye) star adjacent to the Southern Cross. When viewed through the telescope it appeared as a multitude of stars, actually 150, of a variety of colours and was nicknamed the Jewel Box as a result. Seeing the moon through the telescope was amazing as the clarity of the craters and other features could be clearly seen. Yesterday afternoon we found we had a non-functioning LH turn indicator. Purchasing a new bulb did not solve the problem, so it was off to an auto-electrician who diagnosed a fault in the wiring behind the socket and relieved me of $33 in the process. This morning we managed to fit in a visit to the local Royal Flying Doctor Service visitors’ centre which enlightened and entertained us for a while. This afternoon we did a “Stories and Scones” tour of one of the local historic pubs. It was extremely interesting and at the end we were provided with a Devonshire tea. There are lots of historic buildings in Charleville and it was a good opportunity to find out more about one of them. Overall I rather liked Charleville but I’m not sure I’d like to live here in summer – this morning Charleville had the lowest minimum in the state and a few days ago had a minimum of -30! However it is a clean and tidy town with an obvious sense of community pride. In point of fact a lot of these outback towns have a great community spirit where people obviously cooperate and pull together as a group – I suppose you have to when you’re so isolated.