We enjoyed our short overnight stay at Charleville Bush Camp. It was $46 for a powered site. We found out that the park is now run by the son of the people who set up the park and as they have passed away the son inherited it. We felt that the park could do with some love as it was quite untidy but it has potential to be one of the better ones.

The amenities were nice and clean though.

We packed up and headed back into Charleville then southwards towards Cunnamulla.

30km southwest of Charleville we came to the the site of Australia’s most powerful explosion in transport history at Angellala Bridge. A truck carrying amonium nitrate crashed in 2014 and the resulting explosion was equivalent to 15 tonnes of TNT going off. The explosion measured 2.1 on the Richter scale and could be felt 30 km away. The explosion took out the road and rail bridges and sadly the rail bridge has never been rebuilt. You can no longer catch a train from Charleville to Cunnamulla, you have to go by bus.

Incredibly no one was killed in the accident, although 8 people sustained injuries. There is a memorial at the crash site. We pulled in to check it out. There is an area for cars and vans to pull into and info boards tell the story of the explosion. It is quite sobering. The remains of the railway bridge can be seen on the other side of the road bridge.

On the highway 120km from Cunnamulla there was water lying in large puddles on either side of the road . It looked like it had recently rained and the road had narrowed considerably. You wouldn’t want to drive off the road onto the muddy shoulder. You would sink!

Emus emus emus. We saw so many emus on the flat grassy plains. The children kept count and by the end of the day they’d counted 154 emus. That’s the most emus we’ve ever seen in one day!

We arrived in Cunnamulla, filled up with fuel then drove around to park near the VIC. I cooked toasties for lunch then we all walked down to the VIC passing under some trees that were full of white Corellas roosting. The branches were covered in Corellas.

We checked out the VIC and visited the statue of the Cunnamulla Fella. Of course we had to take a photo with him. Behind the VIC is the new Cunnamulla Hot Springs. We thought that would be worth a visit until we found out that it cost $45 per person for one visit. That would be a no from us.

We headed east towards Charlottes Plains. It is 50km from Cunnamulla to the turnoff to the Bore Camping Area. Lots of people make the mistake of taking the first road into Charlottes Plains however that road takes you to the homestead and the Shearer’s Campground where they have powered sites. Then you have to travel 8.5km back up to the Bore Camping Area Ground. If you wait and take the second road into Charlottes Plains it is only 4.5km of gravel road to the Bore Campground.

I’d seen the campground on so many social media posts I sort of knew what to expect. What I didn’t expect was the amount of campers. It was packed. Obviously the best spot to camp is along the bore drain however they were packed in like sardines along there so we drove right out the back and found a spot away from others. Much better!

We did a walk around the campfire until to check out the hot bore pool and it did look inviting. The water comes out of the bore at 42°. Scattered along the bore drain are bathtubs in sets of two. Anyone can hop in, fill up the tub and soak in the lovely hot artesian water.

Tyre tubes are available and you can hop into the bore drain and let the current carry you along. This is popular with kids.

Charlottes Plains have a pub on site and a merch shop. It’s all pretty cool.

There are fire drums scattered around the campground made from 44 gallon drums cut in half with legs welded on the bottom to raise them off the ground. There was one near our camp so we set that up and Rich got the fire going.

It was Katie’s turn to cook and dinner was tacos which everyone enjoys. We sat around the campfire until about 9ish.