Quensland Outback Tour - Town Tour & Museum

Lunch at Hotel Corones

We're still in Charleville ... in fact, finding it hard to leave. Everything we do is met with friendly people.

This morning we took the Heritage, Flood and Fire Tour, hosted by Graham Reid. We received an extensive run down on three floods in recent history (1990, 2010 & 2012) including their causes and consequences and what has been done to mitigate against further problems when the Warrego River bursts its banks. Graham was very knowledgeable used photographic evidence to great effect.

The final 45 minutes of the tour was a commentary of well know buildings put together by the local history society. As it played, Graham drove us to each point of interest. The thing which stood out was the high number of buildings which have been burned down over the history of Charleville, some of them such as pubs, several times!

This was a really good tour and great value at $10 a head.

After the tour, we visited the Historic House. Originally the residence for the manager and business quarters for the Queensland National Bank in 1889, it stayed that way for 53 years. From 1942 it was a private residence until a local group bought it and turned into it a museum reflecting lie in past times in Charleville. Its an interesting place, with lots to look at but as is often the case with these types of ventures, the volunteers are great and enthusiastic collectors but they lack the ability to curate. As a result, there is too much on display and as time has gone on, it has become haphazard, making many of the areas in the house cluttered.

We went back to Corones Hotel for lunch, this time sitting in the bar to enjoy the atmosphere. Sue had bangers and salad  and I had Barramundi. I forced a couple of cold beers down as well.

Click for today's photos

We'll probably extend out to fifth night tomorrow as we want to do a history tour of the Corones Hotel and in the morning, 25 historic aircraft will be landing as part of a tour that is being flown to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Charleville has been a very friendly town for us.