Day 15: Tue 10 May - Charleville to Wyandra
16 – 18°, Cloudy, with light showers by midday and steady overnight
Towed 101km
Having already spent three days in Charleville, and with three days of forecast heavy rains, we decided to head south stopping overnight at Wyandra in a free camp about 90km shy of our original destination - Cunnamulla. Greg and I went for brisk morning walk around Charleville, returning for breakfast, then packing up and left by 9am.
On the way along the Mitchell highway we stopped at the site of the Angellala Bridge Explosion. On Friday 5 September 2014, a truck carrying almost 53 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was involved in a single-vehicle incident. The explosion was the equivalent power to 10–15 tonnes of TNT and so powerful (measuring 2.1 on the Richter Scale), that Charleville residents 30 km away thought there was an earthquake. The story is told through photos and signs at the site.
The Mitchell Highway was quite narrow in places and thankfully there was very little traffic today as the edges looked soft from the recent rain. The mulga plains along the way did look good from all the recent rain though. Driving about another 30km, we stopped for morning tea at a roadside gravel pit. Not long after, we reached our destination for the night - the Wyandra free camp. With the rain threatening, we parked and quickly set off for a walk into town. We went into the quirky old post office to buy some bread, but Noeleene quickly latched on to the smell of hot chips, so hot chips it was for lunch (the seagulls even got a few, and they tasted good). We eventually made it back to the van before the rain got too heavy, and there wasn't much else to do but have an afternoon nap. At about 3 pm, between showers, Greg and I wandered off for another walk to the nearby beach about 2.5km away (just a big sandy section on the Warrego River). The dirt road in was very slippery from the rain, making it difficult enough to walk on, let alone driving on it. As it was, someone did try to drive in while we were there, but quickly turned around and left again. We returned to the van to tuck into a batch of fresh scones which Noeleene made, perfect with a cup of tea on a cool and wet afternoon. We had our now routine 5pm meeting/drink (red wine today - too cool for beer) under the cover of the free camp kitchen before returning to our vans for dinner and a quiet night listening to the sound of steady rain falling on the roof.
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| Council Building |
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| Town Hall |
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| Charleville and Western Areas Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Health Centre |
That's looking very remote & quite now. But very interesting.
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