Viewing the stars in Charleville

Moving locations on a school on-air day is a little bit more difficult now that we are back on Queensland time and they go from 9:30 am until 10:30 am.  We either have to get up and going and hope to be within mobile phone range by 9:15am which allows us time to log in and get setup, or ask the caravan park for permission to check out late and get on the road around 11am.  Our decisions have been based a lot on how far we plan to drive for the day as if you have a long day, only getting away at 11am is really quite late for us. 

So as our plan was to get to Charleville for our next stop we decided that we needed to get on the road by no later than 8:15am and really that would have been cutting it fine.  Still we surprised ourselves and were on the road by 8am, beating pretty much everyone else out of the caravan park!  Obviously 8am is too early for most (ha ha) but it works for us, and well it was really easy because Hamish woke up at the crack of dawn and would not stop talking so we decided we might as well get up. 

We made it to Tambo with plenty of time that we thought we could have a cuppa and enjoy morning tea before the lesson started.  However we had trouble connecting to the internet so in the end just scrapped in with having it all setup in time for the lesson to start.  Kayla and I just hung around in the park area whilst Jason and Hamish did the lesson.  We even found a massive rolly-polly that Kayla had fun playing with.  I have no idea what plant they use to be but that is what we always called them as kids. Whilst waiting for the lesson to end, I noticed that we must have only just been ahead of most travellers as they all pulled up, had their cuppa and left before us, so we had now been officially overtaken by them all on the road.  Some even recognised Kayla from her dance moves the other night in Blackall.

One massive rolly polly.

Once back on the road we hot footed it straight to Augathella where we pulled over and had some lunch at the servo.  Jason actually made the call that it was the best steak sandwich that he has had this entire trip.  Now that is a big call but I must admit it looked very nice indeed.  Then it was back in the car to do the last 80 or so kilometres to our destination for the next three nights.  We had decided to stay at this little caravan park outside town as it sounded really nice and quiet.  The problem is there is also a low cost campsite with the same sort of name a street over, and you guessed it, that is where we first pulled into and had to drive in and turn around, explaining we had the wrong place! 

The place where Jason got his best steak sandwich so far on this trip.

Not to worry as we managed to find ours easily once we stopped listening to google maps!  We checked in, picked our site and set ourselves up nicely.  It is a great place with heaps of room.  I mean there is nothing for the kids in the sense of playground or pool but they are kind of getting use to that and a few sticks seem to entertain them for a while.  As we had been told about the 4:30pm happy hour around the fire Jason decided to get some marshmallows for the kids.  I was doing school with Hamish and it just happened to involve craft and of course Kayla wanted to stay.  I told Jason I didn’t mind at all and she would be fine.  Well what felt like half a tub of glitter later I was starting to regret that decision.  At least now our floor shines, and it isn’t because we have scrubbed it clean!

We then did some painting outside for Hamish’s puppet show before making our way over to join everyone else at happy hour.  Now we were definitely the youngest by far but we have gotten use to this on the road and find the company great no matter what age.  Of course Kayla had everyone wrapped around her finger and the kids had fun toasting marshmallows on the fire.  Hamish even gave one to another gentleman.  I think he might have regrated saying he was jealous of them having marshmallows, but politely ate it all the same.  You see, Hamish doesn’t just toast his; he burns them to a crisp!  Not the way I like them but hey if he is happy eating them that way then let him be I say.

Cooking or burning marshmallows.

Happy hour around the fire.

After a while everyone started to disburse and return to their vans for dinner.  I got the kids straight into the shower and started dinner before Jason finally came back.  He had been having a great chat with some fellow travellers.  As I went to cut up the vegetables I asked Jason if he had bought the zucchini that I had put on the shopping list.  I just assumed that they might have not had any in stock but he assured me he had.  Well he hadn’t, instead we had another cucumber.  I think this is the third time he has done this so I think I might need to show him the difference between a cucumber and zucchini.  We did get a good laugh out of it and said Pop would be in disbelief!

I think we are really going to like it here and there seems to be so much to see and do in the area so I hope three nights is going to be enough.  That evening we finally submitted our tax returns and let’s just say some not so nice words were said about some government departments.  Honestly it feels like each year they try and think of a way to make it harder.  It doesn’t help though when I constantly forget the MyGov password!

Thursday morning was a little bit chilly but I still managed to drag myself out of bed and get a few things done before everyone else got up.  Jason did put on the heater when he got up to warm up the van for us all.  We thought we would finish off school for the week, do Hamish’s on-air lesson and then go out and see the sights of Charleville.  Well that was all thrown up in the air when I got Jason to check the details of the weather station tour and we found out it started at 8:45am.  Luckily we realised this with about 30 minutes to spare and had already managed to do some school before that.  So now we had to quickly get dressed and get over to the weather station.

It was certainly an interesting tour.  We have wanted to do one our entire trip but we are either there on the wrong days or the station has closed or no longer does tours so we were happy to finally get one.  However the gentleman who ran the tour was kind of like a disgruntled public servant who knows he is on limited time before his job is made redundant.  So his passion really wasn’t there and you got the feeling that having a tour really wasn’t what he wanted to do.  Still at least we learnt a few things about the weather, it was just a shame you got the feeling he didn’t want us there.

Up goes the weather balloon.



Now checking the temperature.

The rain gauge.

After that was over we had to rush back to the van to join Hamish’s on-air lesson.  Of course that involved writing which he wasn’t too keen about at all but they got through it.  It is so hard to think of ways to try and make the writing of sentences and sounding out of words exciting for him so he wants to actually do it.  From there we headed straight out into town as we so needed a nice coffee.  We found a little bakery and coffee shop and had a delicious morning tea and a nice coffee before we browsed the streets. 

After a while we thought we should head to the Bilby Centre to learning about what they do to help bring back up the number of Bilbies since they are endangered.  We found out they run two tours a day and we needed to book them through the Cosmos centre (which is where the Information Centre for the town is).  So we headed off along there to book in for the afternoon tour and Jason booked us in for the evening tour at the Cosmos Centre for us to look at the stars.  Whilst I was in at the Information Centre I complimented them on their information brochure for the area.  It really would have to be one of the best and most informative I have seen in our ten months of travelling. 

So we returned to the van for some lunch and finished off the washing and just chilled for a bit before heading off to our tour of the Bilby Centre.  I must admit I was disappointed when I saw there were two other couples there for the tour as the lovely girl who runs it said that if it had only been us she would have skipped the video.  Not because it isn’t good, we really did like it, but she said it would be a bit long and not interesting for the kids.  She was spot on and Kayla lost interest pretty fast.  Still it was amazing to see what two totally different blokes who got together managed to achieve.

All excited to meet a Bilby.

A yellow footed rock wallaby.

After the DVD we headed out and checked out where they breed the Bilbies and keep them, before returning to the room where she brought in a Bilby for everyone to pat.  That was by far the best bit for the kids, they just loved it.  It was however sad to hear that the barrier fence that is used to protect the Bilby (located in the National Park 400km south of Charleville) had been breached by feral cats after some flooding.  As a result they had gotten in and killed off a lot of the poor little Bilbies.  It must be hard when you have worked so hard on something and you see that happen.  At the moment they can’t release any more Bilbies in there until they have fixed the fence and killed off all the predators inside and that could take a few years.  It is more the assurance that there are no longer any predators inside that takes the most time.

Here she is.

Kayla was pretty impressed.

Hamish even took a photo of Jason having a pat.

Hamish loved patting her.

 

By now it was getting late in the afternoon so we headed back to the van to prepare for dinner and have showers as we needed to be at the Cosmos Centre by 7:30pm for our star watching.  I finally got around to reading an email with Hamish’s feedback from the first two units of the term.  It is funny how I get nervous about reading these as you just don’t know what to expect or what is going to be on there.  Overall most of it didn’t have anything we weren’t already aware of.  We knew he is behind in his sight words but we are working hard on that and reading more to try and get them to stick.  He has improved heaps on his letters and sounds with just a few to go.  I think what shocked me the most was the comments about how he wasn’t doing well with his reading.  It kind of came out of left field as I thought this term he had improved so much and was doing really well with his reading.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect him to be at the top of the class, I am realistic but I didn’t expect him to be still graded as finding level 1 difficult.

The problem is that it isn’t just his ability to read the sentences but talk about the book afterwards using the words from the book.  So we will have to get him to slow down and read the book slower and use the pictures and the first sound of the words more in conjunction.  It is just hard when you are getting this feedback for the first time half way through term three.  Still we will get there and I am sure over time he will improve.  That is the one thing I struggle with the most and it feels like a lack of support when your child falls behind.  I don’t know if this is the same in other schools or not, but we keep just getting told to persist and make it more interesting but we aren’t qualified teachers with years of experience behind us so maybe a few suggestions of what has worked for others in the past would be great.

Trying to put that aside we headed out to the Cosmos Centre.  As soon as we walked in the door of the Hamish was so excited he just couldn’t contain himself and wanted to ask a million questions and look at everything.  We did have to tell him that we would be coming back the next day to check it all out so there was plenty of time.  I really wasn’t sure how the kids were going to go with this, and it was really all too much for Kayla but luckily she fell asleep after ten minutes.  Trying to get her to see into the telescope would have been very hard.

Hamish on the other hand would happily line up and wait his turn to have a look through and then come back and describe it to us.  He also told the man how he knew the names of two planets and that he was going to build a rocket when he was older and go to the moon!  It really was a fantastic night out and when we had entered they asked families with young kids to sit near the first telescope.  Now I don’t know if that is because it is the only one that can go up and down or if the gentleman who was on that one had the most patience for young kids, but he was fantastic and so great with the kids.  Not to mention totally passionate about his work.  One interesting fact that we didn’t know was that if a star is 7,500 light years away, we are actually seeing the star as it was 7,500 years ago as it takes the light from the star that long to reach earth.  So in theory if this star was to blow up (due to a supernova), then we would not know about it for another 7,500 years.  This place is definitely a must for people to come and see.

By now it was home to bed.  Of course feeling the pressure we did some sight words and reading with Hamish before bed.  Which really if he is struggling with it all we do just have to accept that he isn’t ready yet to do it rather than force it on him.  The last thing we want to do is have him absolutely hate school or push him through and he gets left behind once he joins a classroom.  He is at least happy to do his reading at night but we just need to talk more about the books and pictures before and after reading them.  Slow and steady I am sure we will get there.

So Friday was our last full day in Charleville and we didn’t have too much planned so it was nice to ease into the day with Jason cooking us all a delicious cooked breaky.  This was extra special as he did it in the cold outside whilst we all remained in the cosy warm van.  Next of course was school and washing before we headed out to the Black Sheep Café for some morning tea.  I had read about this café in the tourist brochure as it mentioned that there was a play area for kids.  Kayla was straight there but Hamish took a while to warm up to it but was then happy to go over.  The wall is one big chalk board so I think that was quite tempting for them, not to mention the little tent cubby in the corner.

So whilst they were happy playing, Jason and I ordered some coffees and enjoyed having a peaceful chat.  The only problem was when our coffees came out Kayla must have seen it and came and sat very matter of factly at the table and was wondering where her drink was.  Yeah whoops, Mum hadn’t ordered anything so back up I went to get them a milkshake each which she was quite happy with.  I love it when places do the kids sized drinks and they are charged at fair prices, so it was only $5.70 for two milkshakes that were the perfect size for them both. 

Once we had all finished our drinks we thought we should head back to the Cosmos Centre to do the daytime activities which were included in the price from the night before.  However, first I just wanted to pop into the cemetery and visit my Grandad’s grave.  I thought I had a good idea of where he was buried but after about 15 minutes of looking it became quite clear that I had no idea.  So I tried to call Mum but she didn’t answer, so I thought I would try again later.  Up at the Cosmos Centre we got there just in time to join a daytime discussion on meteoroids but we didn’t get to hear all of it as again it was just too much for Kayla and she was in one of those moods that she was not happy.

This meteoroid hit heart and then bounced back up.

Check out the colour in this one.

After the talk finished we did a few more activities and then called it quits.  Kayla was just being a little bit feral to put it nicely and there wasn’t anything there that could entertain her and most things needed to be listened to or read so we weren’t really getting the most out of it.  I can understand her dilemma as most screens she was too short for or she could just reach these pretty buttons to press but had no idea what they did.

Checking out some of the displays.

Kayla just wanted to wear the headphones.

So we returned to the van for some lunch and a bit more school which was interesting.  It involved trying to teach Hamish about questions, which he understands to a point but when we had to give him an answer and he had to come up with the question that was the end of it.  Another one we can easily practise or just point out in real life and he will slowly get it.  Jason tried to take Kayla for a drive to get her to sleep and out of the bad mood but that was a fail so he ended up fuelling up the car and grabbing some more fruit and snack food for the kids.

I finally called my Mum again to ask for some help to find my Grandfather’s grave and she was smart and called the local council office who gave us a reference.  So back to the cemetery we headed and this time we all went in search and this time we all came up empty handed.  The guys working out there said to go back to the council office and get a map, so we did that and got some names of the people around him.  So back again we went and thankfully this time we found him.  Talk about trying to avoid family even now!  He was actually not in the section we were told so we have noted it down and will make it on the map to make it easier for future family members!

So feeling relieved that I finally found it we headed back to the van to pack up outside in preparation for moving on the next day and to get ready for going out for dinner with Al and Rod (family friends).  We were to meet at the Bowls Club at 6pm so Jason packed up outside whilst I showered and dressed the kids.  I found a tick on the back of Hamish’s back so of course had to remove that and then I checked both kids thoroughly before they hopped in the shower.  We had already had to remove one from Kayla whilst in Longreach so it isn’t a job I like doing but at least the kids are good about it.   I guess this is what happens in bush camps when the kids play in the dirt.

We made it to the Bowls Club with time to spare and the kid’s eyes lit up when they saw the playground outside and the other kids playing on it.  So they were in their element and we didn’t see them for the rest of the night.  Well we did when they came to get a bite of something to eat and a drink.  Still it was great to be able to catch up with Al and Rob and have a good chat with them.  Before we knew it, it was time to head home and get the kids to bed and ourselves to bed so we are refreshed for the drive the next day.  Kayla pretty much fell asleep on the way home but Hamish took a lot of convincing so we let him watch a dvd for a while first before he fell asleep in our bed.  One day he is going to be too big and not want to do this so I am going to enjoy it while I can.