2 February 2000

Arrived Charleville around 4:00 p.m. from Dalby - via Chinchilla, Baking Board, Miles, Wallumbilla, Roma, Muckadilla, Mitchell, Mungallala and Morven. Don't you just love some of the place names? There were some good ones going from Toowoomba down to Dorothy's place on the coast, too. I forget most of them, but how could you forget Wonglepong. Isn't it exquisite?

Most of the places we went through on the way out here are tiny hamlets but all of them have their own unique charm, the nicest one being Mitchell. Roma is quite a large place and is reputed to have the biggest cattle sale yards in Australia, but I must say it didn't look that big from the road as we came past. Some of the architecture of the old hotels and civic buildings is a feature of these outback towns and cities and I never tire of admiring and photographing it. The weather has been very warm today and it looked as if we might have had a storm here in Charleville this afternoon or tonight but so far it has come to nought. The country west of Dalby out to about Chinchilla is all cultivated and very pretty with all the different greens and other colours of the crops, but from Chinchilla out it is mainly rolling grasslands (at least what you can see from the road) and all very green due to the rains in December.

Charleville is also quite a large place but it was too late and too hot to explore it this afternoon, so we will do that tomorrow morning before we leave, when it will be (hopefully) cooler.

Tomorrow we hope to go to Augathella (I don't know what's there, but the name rings a bell from somewhere) and then retrace our steps to Roma from where we will swing north to pick up the Dawson Highway at Rolleston and then go east towards the coast once again, possibly finishing up at Biloela.