SUNDAY 30 APRIL     CHARLEVILLE

Woke to a superb “tropical” morning – loved it. I felt really good all day – it was being in the warmth again.

I finished a letter I’d been writing bits of for the last week or so, to cousin K in Tassie. Did a load of washing – no need for driers here.

John slept late.

We lazed about and read for the rest of the morning.

After lunch, went for a walk to the town centre and around it. There were no barred or shuttered windows here! The central business area was fairly substantial, with lots of shops and services, a fairly large supermarket, and a couple of interesting old two storied hotels.

The town is built on the southern side of the Warrego River, which looked small when we walked onto the causeway/bridge, but apparently it can flood, big time. There was also a sort of tributary channel going through the middle of the built up area, which we walked over on large culverts.

I posted my letter and some postcards.

It was some distance from the caravan park to the town centre – probably over a km – so by the time we’d walked there and back and in between done some exploring of the central part, we’d had quite enough exercise.

We commented on how safe we felt walking the streets here, and how pleasant it was, in general. Charleville looked a well kept town.

We decided to spend another day here, just enjoying relaxing again. It was so pleasant, sitting out in the shade, in the lovely warm air – luxuriating in it. I went to the office and was pleased to find we could extend the stay. At least, with this ad hoc method of parking vans, there was no need for reshuffling of sites for us!

There were lots of wattlebirds in the trees, flitting about and making their loud, yacky noises.

I made chow mein for tea.

Another early night was called for – going troppo was tiring! Although, technically, we were not yet in the tropics.

There was a big stir, later in the evening – heard the town fire siren ring, so got up and went out to investigate, after a big cavalcade of fire, ambulance and police vehicles went past the caravan park. A house about a block up was on fire. There was much smoke about.