Day 13 Hughenden to Charters Towers

Today was the day everything changed.

For the first time we headed east and for the first time we were travelling under cloudy skies.

After only a few kilometres out of Hughenden we left behind the broad mitchell grass country that we had become used to and started travelling through heavy scrub with low hills in the distance.  I really began to love that wide open country. The road began to lose its "straight as a die" character and soon we were travelling through those low hills.  We even travelled through a road cutting would you believe and even saw a real mountain in the distance.  We also noticed that the traffic density had begun to increase and so has the length of the road trains.  Several were 4 trailers long and one was 5.

For the first time we have entered a large regional centre.  No more the little villages with a few shops and just a few more houses.  Instead we are back in the world of MacDonalds, Subway and Woolies. We arrived in Charters Towers at about midday after covering 244 kms in 3 hours.  The road was in very good condition and the trip was a dream.

I think we have also left behind the freezing nights and bright sunny days that seem to typify western Queensland.  Yesterday I was wearing shorts and we didn't have to turn on the van heater this morning.  It was a bit cooler today but the evening is going to be quite mild.  Probably won't have to worry about the electric blanket tonight.

We had a quick look at CT this afternoon.  As most of you will know CT started life as a gold town.  The gold rush stage lasted from 1872 until the turn of the century.  Fortunately for all of us in the 21st century, this coincided with the emergence of photography as a relatively cheap and reliable form of historical record keeping.  This means that there are heaps of photographs available showing what life was like and what CT looked like back then.  Pictures of the main streets show that they looked exactly like the streets of cow towns that you see in American westerns. Even today, if you look hard enough, you can see that the character of these streets still remains.  I will be taking my own pictures tomorrow and I hope to include them in tomorrow's blog.

Tonight we went to the caravan park's happy hour where we were entertained by a bush poet.  Not a bad show but not as good as Sue and Melanie's at Winton.  I'll tell you more about the park tomorrow.