Stayed at the CMCA bush camp (Campervan and Motorhome Club of Australia) just on the outskirts of Charleville.
Charleville has quite a few attractions including the Cosmos Centre, WWII secret base and the Bilby Experience.
WWII secret base – apparently between 1942-1946 there was a secret US Army Air Force base in Charleville. In 1943 there were 3500 US army personnel stationed here and it was all top secret. Amazing!
The Bilby Experience – Before coming to Australia I had never even heard of a bilby! So for those who like me know nothing about a bilby here is a bit of a desciption. The bilby is an iconic Australian marsupial, instantly recognisable by its long pointed snout, long ears, soft grey fur and striking black and white tail. It belongs to a group of ground dwelling marsupials known as bandicoots.
Female bilbies unlike other marsupials have their pouches facing backwards so that the opening is towards their hind legs, this is to prevent the dirt entering the pouch during hunting and burrowing. They build tunnels to provide shelter from the heat and predators, each bilby might have 12 burrows up to 3m long and 2m deep. They dig a new burrow every few weeks. Bilbies are now endangered and are limited to just 15% of the land. They are only found in a few remote parts of Western Australia, western Queensland and the Northern Territory.
At the Bilby Experience they have a breeding facility to help build the Bilby populations across Australia.
The Cosmos Centre – This is where we decided to focus on. We signed up for two of their tours.
The first one was ‘Sun Viewing – Our Star’ where you get to look at the sun through one of the largest Hydrogen Alpha telescopes in the world. You can actually see the solar flares coming off the sun as well as sun spots. They even take a photo through the telescope on your own phone. You then get the special eclipse sun glasses to look at the sun directly. Very informative and the guide has a great sense of humour.
The second tour was the ‘Big Sky Observatory’ which was obviously the night tour. They have a 14” Meade telescopes that the guides operate for you. We were lucky there was no moon so we could see the Milky Way in all its glory. We specifically viewed the following:
Acrux (Alpha Crucis) – the brightest star in the Southern Cross.
The three brightest stars in the Crux constellation nicknamed ‘the traffic lights’ because of their colours
Saturn including all of its rings.
We were also shown the Aboriginal Dark Emu they look at the dark spaces between the stars rather than the stars themselves.