Day 27 Narromine to Roseville By Caroline

Going home. This last 500 kilometres is taking forever.

So... some questions to pass the time; 

JESS

Favourite thing about the trip? Climbing the rock.

Worst thing about the trip? Breaking down.

Something you learnt? That camels have three stomachs.

First thing you will do when you get home? Go on the hammocks and trampoline.

TILLY

Favourite thing about the trip? Climbing the rock and Lochie Cossers show.

Worst thing about the trip? Sleeping the night at Darwin with that psycho person Dad got in a fight with.

Something you learnt? The engine of the qantas 747 plane is so strong that if you stand in front of it, it can suck you in, and if you stand behind it, well you wouldn’t want to because it can get to 600 degrees.

First thing you will do when you get home? Crack the whip and do a bead thing that she bought at Alice Springs.

BILL

Favourite thing about trip? Climbing the rock and watching Tom Curtains and Lockie Cossers shows.

Worst thing about the trip? Arriving into NSW

Something you learnt? How to work out which way South is using the stars.

First thing you will do when we get home? Ride my old horse, Little, bareback because she is normally fresh after a while so I’ll see if I can make 8 seconds.

EMILY

Favourite thing about the trip? Darwin and riding the camels.

Worst thing about the trip? Driving, walking around the rock and writing a journal.

Something you learnt? Jupiter is made of gas.

First thing you will do when you get home? Netball and a cross stitch.

ADELAIDE

Favourite thing about the trip? Riding the camels and reading her new books.

Worst thing about the trip? Falling over in Orminston gorge. ( West Macdonnell Ranges )

Something you learnt? Camels eye lids are seethrough so they can still see in a dust storm.

First thing you will do when you get home? Practice netball.

PADDY

Favourite thing about the trip? The water parks in Darwin.

Worst thing about the trip? The car seat.

Something you learnt? Saying Aaahhhwww (like aahhww I get it)

First thing you will do when you get home. Crawl on the floor.

MUM

Favourite thing about the trip? Getting everyone down the rock safely.

Worst thing about the trip? The cost of everything.

Something you learnt? How to find the emu in the sky.

First thing you will do when you get home? Have a shower and then roll around on the floor enjoying the space.

DAD

Favourite thing about the trip? Everybody getting to the top of the rock even Paddy. Mission accomplished!

Worst thing about the trip? How busy the red centre was and how many places your not allowed to have a fire.

Something you learnt? You can bodgy weld leaf springs to get you home. (Or at least as far as Junee)

First thing you will do when you get home? Check the stock.

Some of our favourite photos

Day 26 Cunnamulla to Narramine - by Adelaide

This morning we woke up in the float. I slept in a lot, but then I had to hold Patch so I got up. We are now playing wave 👋🏻 cricket. 🏏 

Last night when we were driving, we saw sparks coming out of the float. We thought it was just a reflection of the lights on the mud flaps, but it was actually sparks. We could hear it too. We stopped on the side of the road, and that’s where we stayed last night.

Now we are waiting at the float. Dad has taken one of the wheels off the float, and has gone to town to get another spring. 🤔

Dad has now came back and is fixing the float. Paddy was helping out too.

Mission accomplished.👍🏻

We are all getting ready to hit the road.

We’re now on the road, and have stopped at a petrol station I bought a block of chocolate. 

We are in DHA again ( Mum’s car ) and I have seen about 204 emus and one of those emus, got ran over a little bit, and Emily and I saw the feathers come out of it. 

We have also seen about 150 goats 🐐 and about 100 kangaroos. We’re now listening to music. We have now arrived at a bakery and I got a ham and cheese croissant. (Yum yum.😋) We are now heading to Narramine. We kept on racing 🏃🏻‍♀️over to the rubbish bin and I almost won all of the races. We are now going to a club for tea.

There’s colouring in and I did a minion. It’s bed time now.

P.S can’t wait to get back home tomorrow.

                     

         Good night sleep tight.

Day 25 - Longreach to Cunnamulla ( side of the road) by Emily

This morning for breaky Mum just made cheese on toast. Then Dad said that he was going to get a coffee,but then Mum said that we will all come. We drove there, but as we were parking I spotted a horse and carriage, that people were taking rides on.

First we had a look at the shops in the street. We went to the Saddery, and another shop. At the other shop I got some fabric.

After that we went and picked up Dad from the coffee shop, and went to get the horse float.

We then hopped in the car, and it was my turn to go in Dad’s car.

We then drove not far down the road and Dad got fuel for his car, but Mum didn’t need any.

We then drove and drove, and saw people mustering, then saw more people mustering.

After we stopped at Tanbo and got petrol, and a packet of chips, m&m’s, and Dad got a pink drink thing for free, because he put it on the counter late and she didn’t see it there, so he got it for free.

We are now back on the road.

In the car we saw lots of kangaroos,emus, goats, and cattle!

We ate the stuff in the car. We drove and drove till we stopped at another petrol station called Chareleville. At Chareleville we got an ice-cream, which we ate in the car.In the car we had lots of fun making pictures on Jess + Tilly’s I-pods.

Like these ones.

There were heaps more!

This is the view out of my window to the right.

After that we didn’t have much fun, because then we ran over 3 kangaroos, but one of them ran into the horse float, this was very bad timing, because it turns out that one of the Springs was already cracked, and the kangaroo made the whole thing snap.

Dad wasn’t to worried about it, because we aren’t very far from home, so he was going to fix it at home, but then it got worse.

We ended up on the side of the road.

We then got in Mums car and went for a drive to find somewhere that looked like a mechanic, and somewhere to have tea. 

On the way, Dad chased a policeman and made him pull over by flashing his lights. Dad asked if there was a shop that sells Springs, and if there was somewhere that we could get tea.  The policeman helped Dad, and showed us where a good pub was.

We then went to the pub for tea, and Dad apologised for swearing.

At the pub Dad met some new locals, and they told him where the place was that Dad could get a new spring from. Dad said that he will get a new spring from the shops in the morning.

We ate our meal while watching Britain’s Got Talent.

We the drove back to our horse float, and did our jobs and went to bed. 

Goodnight!

.

Day 24 The Blue Heeler (Kynuna) to Longreach By Bill

This morning we woke up nice and early so we could get to Longreach for Dad to do a radio interview. We went over to the Blue Heeler pub and saw Dads CAC brand that Dad put on the floor in there on their ride.
We also got a photo near the sign.
We started driving and we saw a big mound full of buried cattle because a truck rolled over and killed all the cattle.

After a while we got to Winton and we fueled up and then we went to the Waltzing Matilda Centre. We took a photo of a statue of Banjo Patterson.

In there was facts about war and stuff. You could wear ear phone things if you couldn’t be bothered to read. We saw a big statue of a horse from the light horseman.

 We also went out the back and saw some old trains, utes and other stuff.

I bought a number plate then we started driving again. We kept driving till we got to Longreach. When we got there Dad did his interview and then Mum picked up us kids and went to a Quantas plane thing. When we got there, we went in and booked in, then did some fun stuff. You could fly a pretend plane and I had a go. Later a man took us on a mini tour and we saw some real planes. Then we went on a big tour and saw the really big planes. He told us a lot of things about the planes and at the end we got to go in them. First we went in the C-379. Nah, I don’t know what it was, but it was something like that. When we got in it we saw all the buttons and stuff and he told us about it. This is what it looked like.

Then we went in an old fancy one  and got to see all the buttons and stuff.

These are also the planes that we saw.

We also got this photo in an engine of the plane.

Dad was waiting for us when we went back so we bought some souvenirs and went to the caravan park. We got ready then went to the Longreach Hall of Fame to see Lochie Cossers show. When we got there he put on a really good show. 

He was really funny too and at the end he rode a bull playing the guitar and singing.

When the show was finished they brought out the horses, goat, bull and a pet snake. We had tea and it was very yum then talked to the Cossers till late then we went to the float. When we got back to the float, we did all our jobs then went to bed. Goodnight!!!!

Day 23 the Barkley roadhouse to Kynuna by Tilly.

This morning we woke up and went over to the roadhouse where we got some souvenirs and some toasted sandwiches for breaky. Then we got into the cars to head for Queensland. 

The land is very flat and the towns just look like a few houses from a photo in a helicopter. This is a photo we took and a postcard I bought.

We have just seen the first sheep we’ve seen in a very long time. It was dead of course, but it’s still a sheep isn’t it? 

Our first stop was at the NT/QLD border. We got a few photo’s there and Dad told us a story about how he was on his ride and one of the greedy girls doing it with him asked if they could sleep in in the morning, so while everyone was asleep the next morning, she saddled up her horse and rode off and wanted to be the first to cross the QLD border. One of Dad’s friends found out and he went around and turned off everyone’s UHF’s so they can talk to each other without anyone else hearing what they are saying. They saddled up their horses and took off. While the girl took the road which was swirling and was longer, Dad and Col stuck to the fence and only did as much as they had too. They cantered across the border and when the girl found out, she tried to beat them for about 20 meters, but then gave up. Dad put a photo of him and Col shaking hands on the border in his book.

We then stopped at Camooweal. When we stopped at Camooweal on our first trip with Nan and Poppa, I bought a workshirt which is now getting a bit small for me, so I bought a new one which is a different colour. The other kids did too because they see me wearing it at home and every time I wear it Bill would ask me if he can have it when I’m dead.

After that, we kept driving until we got to Mt Isa. At Mt Isa we all went to a country clothing shop called Way Out West. Then everyone in Mum’s car went and got some water from the supermarket and got Macca’s for tea while Dad’s car fuelled up and left.

We kept driving until we got to Cloncurry where we fuelled up and decided to drive another hour to make it easier for tomorrow.

We just crossed a bridge over William’s creek which was on the Matilda’s Highway.

Our next stop was at the Walkabout Creek Hotel (where crocodile Dundee was filmed.) where we went in and had a quick look at the pub and at the ute outside which was the car that they where in when they told Charlie the buffalo to get out of the road. 

Bill bought a number plate and has realised that spending 25 bucks on a number plate everywhere we went wasn’t the smartest thing to do seeing that he is now on a 20 dollar budget. I didn’t think that they had any souvenirs, but Bill told me as we were driving that you needed to ask the man for it. I am really starting to regret not getting the magnet.

We kept driving until we got to Kynuna and stayed at the Blue Heeler pub. Dad went in and asked for a spot and they told us to go where ever we want so we went in and parked the float in a nice spot where we stayed the night. Now we are going to bed. Goodnight!

Day 22 Katherine to Barkley Homested by Jess

This morning Dad woke us all up at about quarter to 8. He said to get up and that we were going to go soon. We left Tom & Annabelle Curtain’s place at about 8. We were on the road for about an hour before we stopped in Mataranka to try to fuel up. We stopped at a servo and tried to fuel up there, but when we hopped out, we realised that it was shut so we kept going for a while till we got to a place called Hi Way Inn, which is pretty much the same place as Daly Waters. Bill got a singlet there and Emmy got a shirt. We also got something to eat in the car. I got a pie and the others got a sausage roll. Our next stop was at Threeways where we fueled up and got to sit down for an hour or so. We ordered two large chips to share with us all, but we got one and ate it and was waiting for the last one to arrive but it didn’t. Mum went and asked them where it was, and they forgot about it so the gave us a half eaten medium size one instead and didn’t give us our money back or anything. There was also one of the staff’s dogs running around and being a nuisance It chased Adelaide around and bit her a few times which made her cry. There was also a random little girl that got chased and jumped all over by it as well. We weren’t very happy with Threeways.

 We had 2 hours left until we were at the place where we wanted to be by the end of today, so we drove for 2 hours and arrived at the Barkly Homested at 6:30. When we got there we fueled up and got a park then went over for tea. We also went to the shop there and I got some earrings. Once we go back we pretty much went to bed at a quarter to 10. Sorry about the lack of photos, so I’ll just make up with some selfies. Na, just Kidding. Goodnight.

Day 21 Mt Bundy Station to Katherine by Danny

So I woke up feeling a hundred bucks after the beers I had last night and the $20 I was missing from paying Bill to sing The Man From Snowy River to the diners at Mount Bundy Station. It actually felt a bit like the morning after the races, so twenty down probably wasn’t a bad result.

We all got to have a sleep in this morning which was great. Then we skipped out at a quarter past eviction time (10:45 am), after I spoke to all my new mates. We made our way back to Katherine, and once again we were guests of Tom and Annabelle Curtain, who run the Katherine Outback Experience show - he also won 2 golden guitars this year (and I got to touch one). The Curtains were at Tipperary Station NT giving a breaking school for the weekend so we had their place to ourselves. 

We got organised and headed into the Katherine Show/Rodeo. The last time I was here for the show I placed 5th in a campdraft on Col Mitchell’s horse. Good memories, and the best part still, was that I got to catch up with Martin Oaks who wrote Trail Of Dreams with Sara Storer. Still the cracking bloke I remember.

(This was a ride that lit Jess’s eyes up. I told her to look at old mate who’s job it is to tighten up the nuts and bolts before she decides to get on. Dunno if she rode it or not!)

(Martin Oaks. NT horse breaker and top bloke)

While I was having a beer with Martin and reminiscing - Caro had a few stresses to deal with - a young girl asked her to borrow her phone to make a call. It turns out the young girl was hiding from her father and didn’t know what to do. The girl rang her mother in Adelaide, who asked Caro to take the girl to the police. Messy caper. Turns out security and the cops and child welfare  and all got involved after Caro left (she went back to check on her).

(A random rodeo picture that was sent to me - because we didn’t take any good ones on the night)

We watched the thrills and spills till 9 pm and thought we’d go home for an early night as we had a 1,000km day tomorrow to get to the Barkly Homestead.

Tomorrow we should make Longreach by lunchtime - wait a minute - I’m a couple of days late with my blog - tomorrow we made ...Barkly Homestead .... ladies and gentlemen I give you Jess Phegan who has been patiently waiting to post her blog ...

Day 20 - Darwin to Mount Bundy Station - By Caroline

Our day started at ABC Darwin where Danny and Adelaide did a radio interview together. Adelaide coped quite well telling her own stories and making up her own facts.

On our way to the interview, Jess’ thong broke, so we had to go shopping... again. We left Darwin at lunchtime and started heading towards Roseville.

We stopped at Mt Bundy station for the night. It is a station / caravan park on the Adelaide River.

There are plenty of animals for the kids to enjoy, and a pool, that is very cold.

Danny and the older kids went fishing in the River, very tentatively, because it is full of crocs, while Paddy and I tried to rest, but none of us were successful.

In the evening we had pizzas for tea, and listened to the live music. Towards the end of the night, it became an open mic session, and Danny sang a song. He then announced that he had made a deal with Bill, that he would give him $20 if he sang The Man From Snowy River, so Bill did ( with Danny on guitar ).

Once he had finished he got a huge cheer, and people from the crowd gave him money ( and chocolate), so it ended up being a $50 performance.  He is still smiling. Now the girls are ready to have a go too!!!

Off to Katherine tomorrow to have a look at the show and rodeo.

Day 19 by Adelaide. 🦄💎💜

This morning we woke up in Darwin and we had breaky. For breaky we had pancakes.🥞  (Yum yum.) Then our next door  neighbour’s came over. I was playing with Evie one of our next door neighbours. Now we are going to the jumping pillow. All us Phegan’s are going to have a swim 🏊🏻‍♀️ in the pool. I didn’t know that Evie was there but Mum was calling out Adelaide, Adelaide then I turned around and Evie was there again. We played together and we also found a rock each that we can sit on.P.S. mine had a good view. Now we’re heading back to the float. I’m reading books to Evie my new friend! We’re getting ready to go to the water park. 

Patchy was loving it a lot!

Now Mum’s going to take all us kids to the water slide. I was a bit nervous but I was allowed to go with Mum for 2 turns, and then I was fine. I went on all of  the slides, the fast one which is the yellow one. The blue one which is the slow one. Last but not least, the double one, the red one ( where you go on a raft with someone else).

We are now heading to the Mindle markets (yippee.) I didn’t get anything except tea and a slushy for dessert.

Dad sang a few songs on his friend Dean’s stall. 

Then we saw Ray Martin, a person that goes on tv. We spoke to him for a bit.

The sunset wasn’t so good, but the beach was fun to play on. Paddy loved walking with us.

Now we are driving to Bug’s and Jen’s and Kenny’s place. We met them at Sand Palms roadhouse. Bugs friend was holding a baby python🐍 and all of us girls and Dad held it. But Bill was sensible to not hold it.

Jen let all of us kids have an ice cream and mine was a red icy pole.

We went to the cage out the back to see Two Dogs (the crocodile that lives there) but he was under the water so we didn’t get to see him. They called him Two Dogs because he ate two dogs before he got moved to Sand Palms Roadhouse.

His cage has barbed wire at the top so people can’t get in.

Now we are back at the float and it is past midnight and Mum is doing some washing.

   

Goodnight sleep tight don’t let the bed bugs bite!