We packed up in record time and were soon excited to be again leaving the coast and heading west. While the coast is beautiful, there is something wrong with being unable to swim in it 6 months of the year due to marine stingers – namely the box jellyfish and irijandi.
We hadn’t fully decided whether to stop at Charters Towers or push on for Hughenden, but once on the road we agreed to go to Hughenden listening to 6 hours of kiddie music would be more than we could manage so we planned a stop at Charters Towers to regain our sanity.
En route we saw the start of Outback Australia again, but surprisingly, very little wildlife. We did at one point pass an old man on a horse and trap pulled by a Shetland point to which Emily shouts, “Look, there is Granddad on a Goat”. Poor girl, we laughed so hard, but she was determined the pony looked like a donkey.
We checked into a wonderful campground and for $25 a night got a spot directly opposite the bouncing pillow and swimming pool. Em and Lachie were in heaven as they hadn’t seen a bouncing pillow for some time, but, the joy was short lived when the fighting started – they didn’t want to share. Give me patience!!
We headed out for a look around town, starting with the obligatory stop at Tourist Information. The kids were a disgrace screaming and throwing themselves around the room, so the afternoon was looking a little scary. Not to be outdone by the kids and retreat to the tent we set off on a walking tour of the town once called “the World”.
We visited the Town Hall, Stock Exchange, before getting lost with Nick not up to his usual map reading standard – apparently the map was rubbish. Anyway, with the heat splitting the stones, we took refuge in the library where the kids were thrilled. There was a monster bucket of trucks, which Lachie emptied and drove around the floor of the kiddie area and we read a few books on dinosaurs to get them ready for the Dinosaur trail ahead.
Having pottered around further and failing to get them to sleep we packed them back into the car and headed for the Hill. This was where the town was born:
“…. in the 1870s when gold was discovered by chance at Towers Hill on Christmas Eve 1871 by 12-year-old Aboriginal boy, Jupiter Mossman. Jupiter was with a small group of prospectors including Hugh Mosman, James Fraser and George Clarke. Their horses bolted after a flash of lightning. While he was searching Jupiter found both the horses and a nugget of gold in a creek at the base of Towers Hill”
We travelled to the top of the hill to the lookout and to absorb some of the history. At night they run “ghost tours” from here which we would love to have done except that Em and Lachie would be too much to bear this time of night. Thankfully they passed out in the car, so we had some peace to explore and check out some of the WW2 bunkers scattered around the hill.
As expected the kids were too nuts to take them back to the Hill that night, so we enjoyed a quiet one at the campsite.
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