Day 47 Saturday 10th Lake Redbrook Holiday Retreat (near Childers) Rain Spoils the Day

Unfortunately, the weather turned on us today. We knew this was going to happen and no matter where we will be in the next few days, it will be the same. Rain and more rain but at least it wasn’t cold, today. I was determined to complete the town history walk in Childers and as the majority of the walk would be completed under the expansive verandas of some of the old buildings, I thought it would be ok. We drove into Childers and started the day with a delicious morning tea at the beautiful old post-office building. We had stopped here last year and decided that it was definitely worth returning to despite the fact that the street was littered with gorgeous cafes, in lovely, old, restored buildings. I enjoyed my walk while Rob did some shopping. I visited The Old Pharmacy located on the main street in the centre of Childers. This building housed very old pharmaceuticals and displays of early medicines from the late 1800s and early 1900s. There were collections of everything you could think of including the old books from the 1890’s where scripts were written up. Apparently, the pharmacy was started by a man in the 1880’s. It had been passed on to his son who was a pharmacist, then on to another pharmacist in the 1940’s. The actual building was burnt down in 1900 when a fire razed 23 shops in Childers along the main street.  Despite this, very little had been disposed of and had remained in the same place until 1982. The wife of the last pharmacist, turned it into a gift shop and when the shop was going to be sold the locals requested that the shop and all it contained should be bought by the council and retained. This is what happened and it is now quite the tourist attraction. After returning to the van for lunch, we debated whether to play golf (Rob) and for me to kayak. I decided I didn’t trust the weather so I would go with Rob to walk around while he played golf. We headed to the local golf course but while driving there another rain squall came through and by the time we reached the course the heavens had opened and it was pouring. Scratch the golf. Rob then was happy to drive me to a remote small cemetery. Google maps successfully navigated us there but unfortunately the very small cemetery was now on private property and it was pretty obvious that trespassers would not be welcome. Anyway by the time we made it back to our caravan park the rain had cleared. Rob had to do some work on the car and some other jobs so I went for a walk around the opposite side of the lake. There were numerous kangaroos hopping around and the park also has pheasants, chooks and peacocks as well as deer. I spent time admiring the wildlife before sitting on a seat overlooking the lake and watching the sunset. It was very peaceful, relaxing and the stunning outlook  which made the walk very worthwhile.