Min Min Adventure - Day 9 - Longreach to Charleville.
So...as I mentioned yesterday when we arrived at the Caravan Park at Longreach, the manager warned us of a stormy forecast. He gave us the opportunity to pitch our tent under a shelter. We did look at the weather forecast ourselves. It said '70% chance of 1 to 5 mm' and when it says that, where we live, we usually get nothing. So we pitched the tent on grass out in the open but in the shade of some trees.
Big mistake!
First the wind started, and this wind was worse than the wind we endured down at Betoota, Our poor little $50 Aldi tent was buffeted terrible. Will went out to peg down the guy ropes and then the rain began. There were two storms that passed over us last night and there was way more than 5 mms!
The first storm lasted about an hour from 12 midnight until 1.00am and after that our bedding was damp. I awoke about 4.00 am in the middle of the second and wilder storm. The lightning was like strobe lighting and the thunder rumbled loudly all around us. The strong wind was blowing a gale and was pushing the outer tent onto the inner and the rain was just coming straight through. By morning the bottom of our bedding was sodden but we had survived the night. We just packed up straight away, had breakfast in Longreach and then set off for Charleville.
I drove for the bit first and the road was flooded in three places but we got through OK.
Our first stop was Barcaldine to see the Tree of Knowledge, a dead ghost gum, that once proudly stood on the same site and it was the site of the reading of the Labour Party Manifesto in 1892 that lead to the formation of the Australian Labour Party.
The tree was poisoned and killed in 2006. They never found the culprits, but cuttings and a few clones still survive and we saw one of them at the Australian Heritage Workers Museum nearby, called 'The Young Un'.
After Barcaldine Will drove us to Balckall , where we saw The Roly Poly, a steel tumbleweed and the Black Stump.
We stopped in Tambo for a pie then I drove us on past Auguthella to Charleville. We drove over 500 kms today.
We have set up our tent again. The bedding has dried but the mattress is still a bit damp but not too bad now.
We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and then headed on out to the Cosmos Centre here in Charleville. We spent nearly an hour there. Our guide was Matthew, from Stoke on Trent. He took us into a large shed and we were directed to sit on the spaced chairs before the roof opened up and the open sky was above us. We had the chance to look through two telescopes at Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Butterfly Cluster near Scorpio. It was great apart from the fact that Will and I were feasted upon by mosquitoes!
So far there is no wind and no rain is forecast tonight here but we have seen on the rain radar that Longreach is copping it again.
Our little road trip is coming to an end but we still have one more day and night before we get back to Frogknot.
