We headed west out of Gladstone, its been hot but ok in the high 30’s everyday we are used to this kind of heat it had pushed 50 out at Collinsville for a couple of weeks in December. We had packed the new double swag to sleep in on our Queensland desert dive, yeah it gets hot in the day but it will cool off at nigh, it’s the desert it cools of every night they say…

It’s a pretty average and uneventful drive until you hit the dirt roads but one suggested highlight on the tourist drive sign is the “Bottle Tree” at Roma, this was some special kind of tree marked by a large sign noting its Roma’s Largest Bottle Tree… Yep top tree that.

We drove west on the black top as the Toyotas outside temp gauge hit 45 in the afternoon sun with a large storm building many miles ahead but had to laugh when (as Forest would say) “big old fat rain” hammered the windscreen! What the… we are in full sunshine, no cloud above, no cloud other than the storm way ahead. A couple of hours later we approached the weather and bullet beaten sign of Charleville our home for the night, we could see the deep storm water drains in town had plenty of water running but we had missed the storm, no doubt the first rain in some time around here.

A quick beer in the Hotel Corones revelled a local legend, a huge old school pub with a footprint of a Charleville city block that required five years to construct when completed in 1929. But the real story of this old gem started long before and far, far away in Greece. It was in 1907 that Harry Corones left Greece headed for America but sailed to Sydney and found himself on a train rattling towards the Queensland Outback desert heat and the city of Charleville.

To quote Frances Harding author of the book “The Accidental Australians”

“In its heyday Harrys magnificent Hotel Corones – the Taj Mahal on the Warrego’ – played host to royalty, rock stars and everyone in between. Together he and Jimmy (nephew) carved our a life in Charleville and Quilpie to rival any Hollywood blockbuster”

It’s a great story and if your into Australian history you can purchase the book written by Frances at https://www.francesharding.com/ but I suspect the Frances Harding story would be a worthy read to rival any, the former Nurse and mother of eight purchased the Hotel Corones with husband Gordon in the 1980s when they resorted the grand old hotel in doing so discovered the Harry & Jimmy Corones Story.

As we absorbed the hotels sights, cold beer and history we looked at options to unroll our swag for the night, wiki camps gave us a few options and we liked the sound of the “Evening Star” who’s not up for a bit of star gazing and a beer under a western desert sky on a hot night? It’s around nine k’s out of town and we passed another campground with a lovely greeting of “NON SMOKERS ONLY” we don’t smoke but hey it’s our choice isn’t it!

Approaching the entrance of the Evening Star on the red dirt road we noticed a sign (but on the other side) “closed until easter” closed, what’s closed? We decided as it didn’t list what was closed we’d drive in and check it out.

The Evening Star campground is part of Thurlby station a 33,000 acres cattle station, on first impression it’s been well put together by people who care (a key ingredient in hospitality) but the lack of activity suggested the sign out front could be linked to this place! After a while a lady appeared with a huge smile to say “sorry we are closed” but quickly added, “was it just one night you wanted”? Yes… just a night we responded, It may have been closed but somehow we got to pay $35 and started setting up out new double swag, it was approaching 6pm and the heat still pushing 40c when Craig the owner appeared in his white Toyota… “G’day” he said with a huge country smile, then “welcome you guys staying the night are you” he then informed us if we are staying we’d have to join him, his wife and staff at the bar within the next half an hour.

Craig took off and our dome swag came to life in the outback heat, within a few minutes Craig again appeared this time his bug smile was mounted on a quad bike, his right arm at full stretch offering a six pack of beer as a (in his words) “welcome gift” we felt bad tacking his offering considering we had an Engle full of cold beers but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and he reinforced that we needed to join the others at the bar and soon.

A short walk in the dry heat to the bar and we joined the grumpy guy who worked the campground and bar when full of Grey Nomads, the lady who greeted us earlier, Craig the owner and his wife who wasn’t that far from the local maternity ward, the owners of the Evening Star’s fist. We arrived with our welcome gift to be told the bars open for you guys to drink what ever you want…. Now that hospitality… a six pack of beer welcome gift then the bars open!

We spent the next few hours getting to know the locals and trading stories of our travels and Craig’s campground, it’s a great set up and the perfect place to see the stars but for a few night each month. Now it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that we had arrived during the “few night” this nights was a full moon and that means when the sun goes down in the west the HUGE white ball arrives in the eastern sky at the same time lighting up the landscape and blocking any view we had of the amazing light show that could have been!

After a great night with the guys from the Evening Star we headed for our swag hoping the heat would drop some time soon when Craig and his wife appeared again, first we were offered bug spray then the amazing offer from Craig as he pointed to his right “its to bloody hot to be in a swag tonight, move yourselves to the brand new rooms and A/C’s over there” we thanked him but declined the offer to get the reply of “well when you get sick of the heat I want you to use the air con in the new room, no charge just be comfortable” a great offer from great hosts of a property that wasn’t even open. We stuck it out the swag that night with no chance of any sleep due to the bright lights of the full moon and extreme heat that didn’t let up until around 6am.

We woke and had a good look around the property that we can recommend to anyone passing through Charleville before Craig came over with his contact details and plenty of contact on our route should we find our selves in trouble, something we didn’t need but a great gesture and security blanket when headed west into the Queensland desert for the first time.

If you’re ever looking for a place to camp near Charleville make sure to go say g’day to everyone at the Evening Star, amazing place, amazing people.

• Contact The Evening Star
• 07 4654 2430 – 0484 917 593
• http://www.eveningstar.com.au/home
• eveningstarvanpark@gmail.com

Off to Noccundra next…