The next stop on The Great Caravan Adventure was Charters Towers. Why Charters Towers? Why not? Plus, I had been wanting to show Husband a little bit of ‘The Outback’ and Charters (as we ‘locals’ know it) was only a short trip inland from Townsville.

Heading out Husband mentioned we needed fuel. I got a little nervous as we had just left Townsville and was pretty sure there was nowhere to stop on the way. The Wiki camps app also said nothing (traveling is so high tech now!). It’s been drummed into me that when you are ‘out west’ that you fill up whenever you see a servo (thanks dad). Just as I was starting to panic we saw a sign. Hallelujah! We pulled in…. to a road train fuel stop. The sign actually said that they cater for 3 trailer road trains. We were the ONLY vehicles there that wasn’t a road train or a dirt covered 4wd. Unphased I went in to pay for fuel and am pretty sure that I was the only female to have ever walked in there without wearing high vis clothing….

(Yes, this is one truck. They are up to 50m long.)

It was also on this stretch of road that Husband learnt about the 2 fingered wave. People were driving past and giving it to him, but he wasn’t reciprocating. I had to teach him the ways of the country. (This is the universal ‘hello’ of drivers in the country – raising 2 fingers from the steering wheel). Of course we didn’t get it from the road trains. Maybe because we were an annoyance to them – like a mosquito buzzing around an elephant.

We did get to the stage where if we saw a road train with only 2 trailers we didn’t even get excited. Pfft.

Back in the day (1871), gold was discovered in Charters Towers and it was the biggest town outside Brisbane. Locals nicknamed it The World, as they believed they had everything you needed and hence didn’t ever need to go elsewhere. They also had 26 pubs back in it’s prime. Mining must be thirsty work.

(Recycling at it’s best. This old pub is now the library.)

The town has been well preserved and many of the old buildings are still being used today. Hello Target Country!

There is so much history in this town. We visited an old miners cottage and the local museum, where locals have donated items to create a massive exhibition.

(She’s not to sure about this museum…)

There was even an American presence in Charters during WW2. Around 6,000 of them. It was a massive airforce base. Apparently if the planes took off from Townsville (on the coast) they wouldn’t get enough elevation and would hence run into nearby Magnetic Island. So bomb shelters built into the hill can still be seen today.

The final thing I wanted to do was to attend a cattle auction. Yes, you read that right. I wanted to see what it would be like. Sure, it wasn’t huge but it was really interesting. We stood up on the viewing deck and watched. I had to hold Isabella’s arms to stop them from waving around, otherwise we would have ended up owning 300 head of cattle.

For those of you asking about Isabella (she seems to be the star of the show), she is doing great and enjoying testing the swimming pools of every caravan park. We are making sure she earns her keep though.

For those of you who think we have a big caravan….  we really don’t. And this one isn’t even that big.