Advertisement
Published: September 23rd 2011
Edit Blog Post
Today, Monday 19th September, we had a very lazy start. We had a couple of things in mind to do but they didn’t require much planning so I took the opportunity to do some washing. Later I needed to do a bit of shopping but before that we had it in mind to do a walking tour of Charters Towers’ city centre – The Square Mile. We parked in the Woolies car park as that is where we would end up for the shopping and there are no parking restrictions there. We walked the short distance to the Information Centre to return our CD and map and to get our deposit back. Much of the walking tour was to buildings nearby so we were able to commence the tour immediately. We had driven by many of the buildings on the driving tour yesterday but today we would get to go inside a few. First was the Stock Exchange Arcade where many huge financial business dealings had taken place in the past. It’s still quite a grand building containing an “open” central avenue off which some shops and restaurants now ply their trade. Next was the theatre which, once we’d found our
In the Zara Clark Folk Museum
lots of interesting items from the past including this iron lung way in (the obvious entrance was locked – we had to go in via the cinema!) proved to be absolutely fascinating. In addition to the grandeur of the building it contained many sculptures – part of a separate tour – and also a brilliant art exhibition made up of pencil sketch portraits of many characters suffering as a result of water shortages in the Darling River catchment area. As well as an art exhibition, the illustrations told the stories of the characters, mainly land workers, and the despair they were enduring and how it was seriously affecting their way of life and in some cases their health – brilliantly done by Michael Pospischil. The Town Hall was next, to look at a series of old photos depicting early life in Charters Towers. Unknown to us at the time, there were a few sculptures inside the main building but once we realised that we had missed them we made a point of going back later – and it was well worthwhile. More buildings and a couple of museums followed and all were excellent. The tour took up most of the morning so eventually we went looking for a place for lunch.
We remembered The Cookhouse and tried our luck again – more roast dinners which were still excellent value for money.
After lunch we visited Woolies where the car was parked and I stocked up with things we may need on the road during the next few days. Most of our intended stops will be at small inland towns so now was the only opportunity for a while to buy the stuff we use most and at reasonable prices. After the shopping, more or less on our way back to the caravan, we visited a few more sculptures in a couple of the many parks that Charters Towers has. Although the city no longer carries the same importance that it had at the height of its gold mining boom, the council works very hard to present the city in a positive image with both its heritage and its current appearance.
One of the events we had it in mind to see before we leave is a film about “The Ghosts of Gold”. It is shown nightly in an amphitheatre at the top Towers Hill commencing at 6:30pm. I was feeling much better now and as tonight was our last
night we made a point of driving there at about 6:15 to see how it worked. A few other people were already there and the “presenter” arrived soon afterwards. We decided to stay, paid our dues and took a seat while the presenter made some preparations, setting up a projector, some lighting and a “dry ice” dispenser. Throughout all this, he waffled on in a somewhat weird fashion encouraging the “ghosts” to put in an appearance and assuring us that they would be here soon. It simply made us all wonder what we had let ourselves in for – surely he must be mad? Unseen by us, though still waffling manically, the immaculately dressed presenter had transformed himself into Thadeus O’Kane, one of the “ghosts” involved in the story of Charters Towers’ development. Thadeus himself was a colourful character. Having been born in Ireland in 1820 he emigrated to Australia after he tried to divorce his ‘wife’ who, in fact, he had never married! In 1873 he became the editor of the Northern Miner newspaper in Charters Towers. The presenter told several yarns in the guise of Thadeus as a preamble to the film. He was clearly a frustrated actor
but a very good one and his yarns were very entertaining. The film, cleverly done to incorporate “ghosts” into actual locations in the city, told the story of six or so of Charters Towers most influential characters and included a few true events of the past which were of a dubious nature. It all fitted in very well with the information we had gathered on our various tours of the city. On completion of the film, “Thadeus” appeared again with a few more yarns and some suggestions as to how some of the more complex, unsolved events may have ended. It was brilliantly done and the fellow, whoever he was, is to be congratulated on putting together and presenting such an interesting and entertaining account of Charters Towers’ history. The film lasted for about 30 minutes but the overall programme went on for over an hour and it was truly money well spent.
Back at the caravan, Graham had already made some advanced preparations for tomorrow’s journey so it was just a matter of having a bit of supper, having our showers and trying for an earlyish night although Aussie X Factor seems to be occupying our evenings lately.
Tomorrow’s destination is likely to be Hughenden, a place we stayed at earlier on when travelling from Mount Isa to Townsville. It’s really just a stopover on our way to Winton and Longreach but we hope to get there early enough to see a bit of the town which we were unable to do last time.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 30; dbt: 0.072s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb