Because it was September school holidays which is prime time to do this trip, I could only get one night in Charleville. I would recommend spending at least two there but we managed to fit a lot in.

We started off with a look around the WWII Secret Base, then we check into our motel and ate a late lunch, then we were off to our Bilby encounter where we got to learn about bilbys, the programs in place to help keep them safe in the wild and we got to see some up close in their enclosure.

After this it was back to the room for dinner (we bought food from a nearby supermarket and had a car fridge which was so handy for keeping snacks and water cold), a relax and then off to the Cosmos Centre for our star gazing experience. This was really great, lots of time looking into the telescopes and explaining what we were looking at.

The next morning we went back to the WWII Secret Base to take a photo outside, then decided to go to the Royal Flying Doctors Service information centre nearby.

When my oldest was a toddler, we were visiting friends in Mt Isa (the same friends we were meeting up with on this trip!) when he came down with severe croup and we were flown on an RFDS plane from Mt Isa to Townsville. The Time My Throat Swelled Up is what he calls it. So because of that we wanted to show the kids some information on the service and what it does. We even managed to spot a photo of the flight nurse who was on the plane with us!

While we were walking to the office to buy a souvenir we said good morning to a pilot who was arriving. After we had bought our merchandise we had turned to leave when the same pilot came back out and asked us if we would like a closer look at a plane.

So we got another super up close look at an RFDS plane, but this time in a non traumatic way. We got to see the plane, the hanger, ask lots of questions and hear a few stories about landing an outback runways at night, lit by various things.

After this it was off to Longreach!