From Airlie Beach, we headed north towards Townsville, then headed west to Charters Towers.
Charters Towers is the first place we lived when we moved to Australia in 1973.
The first night we were there, we had a mini reunion with some of my class mates from Charters Towers State High School. It was great seeing some of the guys I used to hang out with, and one (Terry Wise), even brought a picture of him and me taken about 35 years ago. The evening was organized by Debbie Bray, who was in the same grade as me, but in a different class, and Geoff Winstanley, who I used to work with at Aridas after school taking out the trash and cleaning the windows.
The first full day we were in Charters Towers we visited our old house, which was really WAY TOO small for a family of five. Walked down main street (Gill Street), which only took about 15 minutes or so, and seeing the church my dad pastored, which is now an architect business. We also saw Tania Marie Ault, who is an Aborigine artist. She presented us with the painting, "Freedom of Spirit" which I mentioned in an earlier post. That evening we had tea (dinner) with John and Robyn Lingard, old friends from when we used to live there.
Another highlight of that part of the trip is showing Roni where we used to go swimming and camping on the Burdekin River, which now has a sign warning about crocs. I was surprised to see that because we never had crocs back in the 70s.
It was a good time seeing the old outback town, and meeting old friends again.
Are you going to share a few cool pictures? Or did I miss that post?
ReplyDeleteDan
And it was totally terrefic catching up with you again, too, Kevin (even tho you were suffering a little bit of chemo brain! lol, it's a great excuse, but stick with it!!) I'm glad your trip back here was a lovely experience - we're all still talking about you! :)
ReplyDeleteDebbie