Flying kites in Charleville

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I liked Charleville: its wide, unbusy avenues that I could step back on to in search of the right angle without fear of being mown down; its smart historic buildings, dilapidated houses, deserted station, unfamiliar shop contents, garish commercial buildings, lazy river, and its park.

But most of all, I loved the hundreds and hundreds of silently circling Black Kites. For a large part of the day they were a sight to behold. Back east, you just don't see huge flocks of birds. I understand there used to be – the Rainbow Lorikeets of Currumbin on the Gold Coast, for instance – but no more. We'd spotted the kites during the last couple of hundred kilometres yesterday, but in Charleville their numbers were staggering. It was almost eerie, but also magnificent.

 

Charleville is the main town of Murweh Shire: it sits on the Warrego River at the end of the Warrego Highway. It grew up around a watering hole and a crossing on a stock route. The town's wide streets were designed by an Irish surveyor, William Tully, to accommodate turning bullock teams and their wagons. He probably named the town after Charleville in Co Cork.

Following our long drive, we idled away a day in Charleville, wandering and observing whatever caught our eye. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

 

 

 

The Graham Andrews Parklands are worth a visit. Here you'll find the Vortex Rainmaking Guns that were used in 1902 in an attempt to alleviate a long-running drought. Invented in the 1880s by an Austrian, Albert Steiger, the 4-metre high steel cannons had been used in Europe to disperse hail clouds. Thirteen were made in Queensland and used in Roma and Harrisville as well as Charleville (6). Gunpowder was ignited and the explosion forced gas up through the funnel creating a pressure wave. As a result, differential pressure in the cloud above was supposed to stimulate rainfall. Unfortunately, it did not, but rain fell of its own accord a couple of months later.

The Park also includes an Outback Native Timber Walk. I am hopeless at identifying Australian trees and have vowed to learn how. This was the start of my education: Koolibah, Red River Gum and Mulga.

There were extremely noisy Galahs in the park, even louder geese, busy Apostlebirds and many more, much quieter Black Kites.

 

I can't believe it's taken me three and a half years to stay in a motel or eat in a pub bearing the name of Australia's most famous anthem! Our hosts Stuart and Therese at the Waltzing Matilda Motor Inn were warm and welcoming and tried hard to make our stay relaxing as well as successful. Therese scanned the afternoon sky trying to spirit the cloud away ready for our Cosmic experience. But it was not to be, again. This time I received the cancellation call while I was learning all about bilbies.

If you're in Charleville between April and October you can observe small, nocturnal, desert-dwelling marsupials known as bilbies, an Aboriginal word meaning long-nosed rat. Bilbies are essentially bandicoots that burrow. They are endangered as a result of habitat loss and the threat from feral animals, particularly cats. Conservation measures focus on breeding programmes and the reintroduction of bilbies to areas they once inhabited. A fenced enclosure was built and cleared of ferals in 2006 in Currawinya National Park about 350 km southwest of Charleville, which has a captive breeding programme. We observed mothers and babies. They were all much smaller than I had imagined and the babies were tiny yet capable of scampering quickly.

The disappointment of not being able to stargaze was thus mitigated slightly by little furry animals.

Back for pizza and beer in the cabin and packing ready for an early start.

Outback: Brisbane to Charleville

A gentle harp wakes us at 5, but departure is nearly two hours away, despite much packing and loading last night. Endless food prep, or so it seems; final list checking; locking; wondering... what have we forgotten? The roads are quiet even though it's a holiday weekend, and the Ipswich Road out of Brisbane is uncannily empty. It's a high-cloud morning, but there's the promise of sunshine in the bright bits.

Is there anything beats the anticipation at the outset of a long day's drive at the start of a serious road trip?

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We've never been west of Toowoomba on the Warrego Highway. I know there's a lot of mining and agribusiness to come, but I'm still excited. First up, Oakey Power Station, right next to the Roma-to-Brisbane gas pipeline. Pretty in its own way.

Our first pit stop is at Oakey, for fruit salad, cold toast and hot coffee. Trip themes gradually emerge over time, but here is a big clue to one of them...

Back on the road – I wonder how many times I'll write that in the next few weeks – coal was making its presence felt by the Western Line Railway. Still no covers on the coal wagons, then?

By now the plains of the Darling Downs are so flat they are miraging.

And then we're in cotton country, around Dalby. Much of the crop has been harvested, but I am on a photographic mission to find bolls still on the stem and stacks of striking yellow bales.

Dalby is 210 km from Brisbane. I have never seen so many pieces of machinery – tractors, ploughs, backhoes, cultivators, harvesters, balers, excavators, rockbreakers, scrapers, loaders, dumpers, graders, you name it. My friend simply says: 'Don't like this. One frickin' big plant park'. On Myall Creek, a tributary of the Condamine River, Dalby is the administrative hub of the Western Downs as well as supporting a highly productive agricultural region and servicing an ever-growing resources sector. Cattle, cotton and coal. Signposts along the Warrego are all too familiar: Tara, Acland, Cecil Plains. Offices of the energy companies are in all the big towns, along with commercial property agencies, huge new industrial sheds 'with highway frontage', warehouses and workshops. This is a more pleasant view.

Chinchilla is about 300 km from Brisbane and has a much nicer feel to it, starting with its welcome sign. Here we see our first road train, another theme-to-be.

Not surprisingly, I didn't know the Melon Festival was so renowned. I didn't know there was a melon festival. Chinchilla produces a quarter of Australian melons (including watermelon, rockmelon and honeydew) and the festival began in 1994 to raise the spirits of producers devastated by drought. Its popularity has increased, and now there is melon skiing, melon bungee, melon bullseye, melon ironman, a pip spitting competition and melon head smashing – cracking open watermelons using only the head. The record currently stands at 47 in a minute. Crazy Chinchillians.

There is Miles more agriculture and mining development in the Western Downs. And big numbers still to do. Miles is on Dogwood Creek and was thus named in 1844 by my old mate Ludwig Leichhardt, but then renamed after a Queensland Colonial Secretary, William Miles. The early colonists went in for honouring bigwigs. More nice name signs and big silos follow.

I'd expected Roma, 515 km west of Brisbane, to be bigger than most of the main towns along the highway. I know it has an expanding fly-in fly-out population, and there is evidence of workers' camps, storage yards for heavy machinery, signs to rigs and so on. What I wasn't prepared for was the huge number of Queensland Bottle Trees. They're everywhere, hundreds of them, in the main drag, lining side streets. Remarkable.

We stop for a picnic lunch on the other side. From now on the vegetation is sparser, the road emptier and the towns smaller. The railway is still with us.

Advice for Outback drivers includes a warning to watch out for kangaroos active at dawn and dusk. We've seen several dead by the roadside for the past few hours, but onward from Mitchell – 587 km west of Brisbane and 176 east of Charleville – it's carnage. Unfortunately this is something we're going to have to get used to. We come across our first live one standing in the road at 3.45 pm, 28 km from Charleville. So much for dusk. We cut our speed, even though progress has been hampered by extensive roadworks. They add at least an hour, if not more, to our journey time today and we'd quite like to get there now.

But then, big excitement. My friend spots our first echidna in the wild, on the verge. As we screech to a halt and turn around, he's crossing the road painfully slowly: the image below is blurred not by his speed but my excitement. I anxiously watch the road for trucks. Do you think they'd stop if I stood in the middle flagging them down? Our spiny friend makes it but he's aware of us now; he stops and hunkers down. We have to take his picture quickly before leaving him alone so he'll head for the undergrowth and safety.

And, a few minutes later, a Major Mitchell's Cockatoo, unfortunately with no photograph to prove it. I spot it high in a tree by the roadside with another bird I can't identify as we pass. Major Mitchells are restricted to arid and semi-arid areas and their range is contracting as a result of their favourite woodland habitats being fragmented by land clearance. Later, we are assured we'll see more of these distinctive birds.

Finally, a welcome sign. I can't help looking back for a moment, however. We head straight for our accommodation.

A few years ago, I typed 'the best place in Australia to view the night sky' into Google. Charleville was the answer. In 2010 we had a weekend booked – what a helluva drive there and back in a weekend – but had to cancel because of a cloudy forecast. At last, tonight, we're booked in at the Cosmos Centre at 7.30. Cloud has been building since later afternoon, but I know it can often clear by evening. We head to the Cattle Camp Hotel for a delicious steak (but too few chips) and a Barossa Cab Sav. We've just ordered when I get the call: tonight's viewing of the heavens has been cancelled. I rebook for tomorrow night, after the Bilbies! When we leave the pub at about 7.45, large areas of the sky are clear and many stars are blinking at us. I can see the Milky Way from the middle of town there is so little light pollution. Tomorrow is another night.

How to reduce electricity bills

I'm sick to death of people banging on about the cost of electricity here. It is always top of the agenda in the cost-of-living debate. I would be less cross if that debate ever included even the smallest reference to the environmental impact of high energy usage, but it doesn't. Complaints singularly focus on Australian pockets with ne'er a mention of carbon footprints.

Electricity price increases have just been announced in Queensland – as much as 22.6 per cent for some households. Premier Campbell Newman had promised a $100 electricity rebate, but his government was not able to balance the books in quite the way they'd planned, so an increase was, they suggest, unavoidable. The style of the State Government is to blame others for their own inability to deliver, but unfortunately this time they couldn't agree among themselves who the culprit should be.

Treasurer Tim Nicholls blamed the cost of maintaining the network infrastructure; Energy Minister Mark McArdle blamed the Federal Government's carbon pricing scheme*. Collectively they blame anyone who's incentivized or subsidised solar power uptake: the Federal Government's rebates, incentives and subsidies to facilitate the installation of solar panels; the former State Government for setting a solar feed-in tariff** that the current government has to honour; and, by default, anyone installing solar power.

The Queensland Government owns the transmission and distribution sectors of the electricity industry. It could, if it wanted to, tell network operators to write off infrastructure spend to keep costs down, or to lower their profit margins.

You might have expected them to consult the (independent) Australian Solar Council when appraising the costs of electricity, since the solar feed-in tariff is subsidised by all electricity users, but they did not, according to CEO John Grimes.

Governments' only way of interesting the majority of Australians in going green is the carrot of cheaper electricity: saving the planet appears to be a side issue. I doubt Dennis (top) is thinking too much about reducing carbon emissions.

In this, the sunniest continent on earth, there is a reluctance to embrace renewables that is truly staggering; to the extent that those Queenslanders who over the last few years have saved and invested heavily in a low-carbon energy future are now being demonised in order to absolve a government that is still wedded firmly to fossil-fuel resource development and power generation.

The most straightforward way of cutting power bills is to use less energy. Australians have ample scope to do this: Australia is gadget land, after all. Lifestyle choices are going to be compromised in the very near future by society's need to curb energy consumption and hence carbon emissions. Then we will be forced to do this by governments: we should be doing it now, responsibly and willingly. Get used to the idea. Here are some suggestions.

• Hang your wet washing on a clothes airer on the balcony or in the yard. If you're in Queensland, it'll dry more quickly most days than in your power-hungry dryer in the laundry room.
• If it's chilly while you're having a barbie, fling on a sweater or a jacket rather than using outdoor heating. It's not a constitutional right that you should be able to do everything in all seasons and weathers dressed only in T-shirt, shorts and thongs.
• Sweep leaves up rather than blowing them to another part of the driveway/garden.
• Trim the hedge using a pair of manual shears or hedge clippers.
• Trim the lawn edges with a pair of long-handled shears or a half-moon edging tool.
• Mow the lawn using a manual hand push mower. You'll get fit at the same time.
• You don't need a high-pressure water hose to clean your front steps. Use a brush and a bucket of water.
• Tell the body corporate that you don't need the pavement outside steam-cleaned; that you can walk through the lobby for five seconds without it being kept at arctic temperatures.
• Don't automatically reach for the air con control if you're too warm. Open the windows back and front so you get a through breeze.

Listen to the wind, man, rather than the thrum of machines.

* carbon pricing appears to have successfully helped to reduce electricity consumption: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/6/5/energy-markets/no-sign-end-falling-electricity-demand?utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=
310397&utm_campaign=cs_daily&modapt=
** a premium rate paid for electricity fed back into the mains grid 

   

Ready for the off

The preparations for our trip to the Channel Country and Far West and Central West Queensland have been more extensive – and more expensive – than for any other trip.

What the Aussies don't know about trips of this nature isn't worth knowing, so it's best to listen to their advice and follow their recommendations. We have spent a number of hours at ARB, whose 4x4 accessories are 'designed tough to withstand the harsh condition of the Australian Outback'. They advised us about fridge-freezers, maps and radios, among other essentials.

Months ago, we debated about fitting bull bars, but decided against it for fear of compromising certain safety features on the car, although the jury may still be out on that, I think. Also, if you watched Kangaroo Dundee, you'll appreciate how the affable Aussie character who rescues joeys from their road-killed mothers' pouches probably tipped the balance against bars on the car. Call me a softie pommie if you will, but I'd rather drive for longer hours at slower speeds than have to deal with roo remains. Land Rover UK rather unhelpfully didn't respond to our questions. Instead we are fitting sonic animal guards, devices that emit high-frequency sound waves to warn animals away from moving vehicles. I suspect we will only know for sure if they don't work.

The absence of roo bars and the fact that the bonnet (hood) of the car folds over the wings meant fitting an aerial to increase the range of our UHF CB radio was something of a challenge. We now have one, but I promise you a fishing rod holder will not be next on our accessories wish list.

We have a lot more paraphernalia accumulating than usual before a road trip. There is a boys' bag, containing torch, a tool roll, rope, ratchet straps, WD-40, spare batteries and bulbs, electric cable, spare gas canister, catapult and jar of small stones! We have acquired a 22-litre jerrycan, an 'adventure' (gas) lantern, a high-performance gas stove and aluminium kettle. So, if we get stranded or lost, at least we can have tea while attempting to ward off unwelcome critters*.

We've had the driving-in-sand tuition, and a few weeks ago ventured into Landcruiser Mountain Park (top), serious off-road territory. But you can never be sure you've covered all eventualities. I have to check Bulloo Shire road condition updates as late as possible before departure on Saturday. We're hoping to use a few minor tracks to reduce daily distances and free up more time for exploration, but they'll be out of the question following heavy rain. This region isn't called the Channel Country for no good reason.

We have 1:250,000 topographic maps of the whole of Australia installed on our iPad. And we have a GPS receiver. My friend has set up EOTrackMe online so friends and family can locate our destinations and see how far we've progressed – or not. A Brisbane pal has a list of all accommodations  from which I will check in, technology permitting, upon arrival.

Just to add a frisson of concern during the few days prior to departure, we ordered a number of spare parts a little late and they still haven't arrived from Europe**. If they get here in time, there'll be another bag in the back of the car for fan belt, radiator hoses, air filter, tyre repair kit, bulbs and fuses, break oil, power steering oil and radiator coolant. Three more days...

I think we've done most of the things you're supposed to do to avoid mishap in remote regions. However, no amount of preparation will save us from obscurity if we happen too closely upon the Min Min lights. And if you don't know what they are, then you'll just have to read my Outback posts over the next few weeks.

* I'm actually not really sure why there's a catapult in the boys' bag
** they've arrived!
This post was last updated on 7 June 20113