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The emu, "He can run the pants of a kangaroo"... ... that's just as well because if you can't run fast out in the outback you finish up looking like the guy in the next pic.
The slower runners look like a pile of sun parched bones at the side of the road.
The town of Augathella is famous for the "Meat Ants".
We didn't get to wander along the main street until late in the evening. Connie said "what's that clicking noise up that telegraph pole". I thought the best way was to take a photo with the flash - and from twenty feet away that's what we saw.
No it's NOT a close up! It is honestly - truly - twenty feet up the light pole.
.. and made of fibreglass.
This is what a terrified kangaroo sees just in the last few milliseconds of his life.
NIGHT LIFE in Augathella ... yes both of the residents come here to the pub each night - that's the publican and the barmaid!
But whats this? the pub in Augathella is called the "Ellangowan Hotel" ???
Apparently Augathella has had several names over the years - but the licensee got sick of painting new names on the front.
The "Cosmos Observatory Centre" in Charleville looks like a painted "tin shed" until you go inside and everything changes. It's well worth an evening visit where you get to look through powerful Meade telescopes at Alpha Centauri, Saturn, the Moon and some others. Get well rugged up because the nights can be real cold here in the winter.
Clement Wragge thought he could end a long drought by firing a number of huge cannons of "rain producing gas" up at the clouds. Today it seems rather ridiculous but many years ago when a severe drought had been hanging around for years, anything was considered to be "worth a try".
There were a number of these huge "Votex Rainmaking Guns" placed around the Charleville.
Hell! imagine the bang when Clement Wragge gave the signal to FIRE!
Charleville was unfortunately located where two rivers meet and flooding has been a major problem for many many years. Levy banks and walls are helping some parts but making it worse in other parts.
This set of flood gates can be opened or closed depending on which direction or river the flooding is coming from ... but will it ever come from both directions at the same time? Let's hope not.
I think Connie was doing a "tummy"comparison with me and the Dutch baker when I caught this picture.
Good grief .. no comparison at all!!!!
.. is there?
Travelling from Charleville to Cunnamulla presented some unexpected road hazards ... like horizontal pedestrians.
This fellow gave me fair warning with his tail - poised ready to beat the daylights out of me.
This was another unexpected hazard. He is on a direct collision course with us. We expect kangaroos during the early morning and dusk ... but not during the middle of the day.
In the typical random way that kangaroos behave, he stopped at the last moment and ran along the road instead.
This opal seller was 68 kilometers from Cunnamulla in a tiny place called Eulo. His sign must have cost more than his house.
A surprise at Cunnamulla was the extent of the cotton farming. There is more than seven kilometers of this watering system. The "farmer" has an amazing system of reservoirs.
This is one of the pumps that suck the water from the trench in the foreground and pump it kilometers out along those little sprinklers!
And if you want an artesian mud bath ... or a bottle of the exquisite Date Wine Liqueur ... go to:-
"PALM GROVE" at Eulo, where you will find the Date Winery and Artesian Mud Baths. The baths are not quite as opulent as the "city equivalent"
... and the mud doesn't have to be transported very far at all. I think it arrives in a wheelbarrow.
< Another year >
< Index page (& map) >
< Part 1 >
< 2 > < 3 >
< 4 > < 5 >
< 6
> < 7 > < 8 >
< 9 > < 10 >
< 11 > < 12 >
< 13 > < 14 >
< 15 >