Just a blast along the Gregory Highway to Charters Towers – the rocky ‘towers’ of weathered granite were interesting but not enough to make you want to live there.

Charters Towers is a nice town with lots of buildings left over from its heyday as the big gold mining centre in the late 1800’s.

While having a beer at one of the many pubs I overheard a conversation down the bar.

The talker was a shearer who had shorn on my brother’s place ‘Drumlion’ in years gone by. More unusual he was talking to a tourist who had discovered that one of her Crombie relatives was operating a (clothing?) shop in the main street of Charters Towers. The shopkeeper was probably my cousin three times removed!

Anyway, a nice wash up and sleep on soft grass at a caravan park on the north side of town.