September 20th 2022
Charleville
A pleasant surprise greeted us last night in Roma, the hotel restaurant had recently reopened. The Chef and his young wife, a Thai couple had just moved to Roma from Brisbane. He had previously worked in Brisbane’s Chinatown but also had a good grounding in western food. Why anyone would move the 475 kilometres from Brisbane to a small outback town like Roma is anyone’s guess, but a lot of internal migration is going on right around Australia at the moment. The menu consisted of both western style and Thai food. We went for the Thai food always a favourite of ours, we were not disappointed.
Once again we wake to a brilliantly sunny morning, the shorts and T shirts are back on again for another day. The drive to Charleville again, is at first open plains with that huge dome of big sky above us, then changing to mulga forest and back again, we feel like we are driving through a huge park as the landscape has sprung to life with spring foliage and the verges are a lush green. in places purple flowers spread out along the roadside. Stray yellow canola that has escaped last years fields also puts on a show of yellow along the highway. It is easy to tell that we have had plenty of rain in the outback this winter season.
This mornings drive takes us in a more or less strait line west from Roma to Charleville along the Warrego Highway for 267 kilometres. We have purposely shortened our journey to arrive in Charleville so that we can visit the Bilby centre in town, where a great deal of work is being done to rehabilitate these small marsupials back into outback Australia.
We arrive early, allowing us to have a further look around the town, we take a walk along the Warrego River that is a muddy brown colour from the recent rains and flooding up stream. We can see evidence of the rivers raging recent past with up rooted trees and branches lodged in the muddy bottom of the now calm stream.
Charleville is also working on the beginnings of a botanic park, with lakes and bridges, featuring native trees and shrubs that are indigenous to the area. Including the architecturally attractive Bottle Tree that is featured so much here in this part of Queensland Towns landscaping. We take some time to walk around the lakes and look at the plantings. Its early days but the park will be of significant value to the people of Charleville and its visitors as the flora matures. The atmosphere is already peaceful with gently running water that cascades down a stepped waterway spilling into the lakes. Turtles sun bake on the rocks, conveniently placed for exactly that purpose, but they are camera shy and plunge into the water as soon as we approach.
Time is approaching our Bilby experience, after topping up the fuel tank at $2.23 a litre we top up our lunch and breakfast supplies. Then check in at our hotel that is conveniently located just across the road from the Bilby centre, located in the old railway station building that also acts as the visitors centre.
The Bilby experience is a fun event, a very animated and passionate young lady gives us a slide show about the Bilby’s demise in Australia. While the little Bilby, about the size of a small rabbit used to range all across the arid dry lands of central Australia. European settlement brought cats for pets that in turn became feral, catching and eating small birds and the small marsupials that lived in these regions. Rabbits also provided food for early settlers but bred “like Rabbits” soon competing heavily for food with the Bilby and other small native animals. Then of course came foxes, brought into control the rabbits they also killed the native animals. All of these imported animals thrived in all regions of Australia leading to the extinction of 34 native species in the past 100 years. This is more extinctions than any other advance western country in the world. A poor record for Australia. The Bilby centre here has not only introduced a breeding program, but has sent progeny out to all the major zoo’s. They have introduced fencing that is electrified and cat proof so that large areas of arid land can be effectively fenced off to feral animals. Giving the Bilbies a fighting chance to regenerate their populations.
We have long supported the Bilby cause, having given away the practice of buying Easter eggs and Easter rabbits, we started buying the Easter Bilby. An Adelaide chocolate manufacturer took up the cause, donating part of the proceeds of the sale of their chocolate Bilbies to the save the Bilby fund. Now a number chocolatiers are following suit. If we can save an Australian icon and eat chocolate while doing so, this has to be good.
Bilbies at Charleville
Finally we have a chance to meet the Bilbies in person a family of three. Dad, Mum and baby Will, live in an enclosure that simulates night time while allowing us to see them in action. Bilbies are nocturnal and omnivorous, making them hard to detect and study by day. At night they come to life foraging and scampering around looking for small insects and the young shoots of local vegetation. The enclosures are lit by a red light (removed in the video above) that the Bilbies narrow range eyesight can’t see, leading them to believe its night, during the night normal lighting is switched back on and the bilbies retreat to their burrows to sleep. This marsupial has a very short gestation period 12-14 days and leave the mothers pouch at around three months, when the cycle can start again, they can have between one and three young. We are allowed a good viewing, while the still animated young lady tells us more about the features of each of the members of this little family. An hour goes by very quickly, after buying some Bilby souvenirs we cross the road to our hotel.
The heat of the day had risen dramatically during the afternoon into the low 30c (90f) but rain is forecast for tomorrow, expecting to drop the temperature dramatically for our journey to Cobar. The further south we travel the colder it is anticipated to be so we will enjoy the last of the warm weather while it lasts, until spring turns to summer Stirling.
On to Cobar tomorrow…….