Day 7 - mount surprise to rumula by Jess

This morning dad, bill, tilly and I woke up early in mount surprise to go watch a few runs at the campdraft down the road. Here’s a pic dad took but didn’t like cos there’s a pole in the way.

We went back to the float with brekky and said happy bday to Adelaide cos it was her birthday, then dad went and fuelled up while us kids got on a bus. We went for a tour to see volcano stuff and mum and dad drove behind us in their cars, but got in the bus when we got closer. We went for a walk up a volcano that doesn’t work anymore, here’s a pic.

Here’s a selfie I found of bill and dad as well

After that we ate then went to a lava tube and walked through it. Here’s a couple pics of it

Addy and paddy were listening 

Dad had to help me 

Then we got dropped off at the float and drove for a bit then stopped at mount garnet for some fuel and food then drove then stopped again at maccas in Mareeba, then ended up in rumula I think. 

We went to the pub for a drink then came back and lit a fire and gave Adelaide her bday present which was an iPod. 

Nighty night

Day 6 - Charters Towers to Mount Surprise by Caro

It was a slow start this morning, while we tried to work out a plan for the day.

We ended up spending more time looking around Charters Towers.  We drove up Towers Hill and read about the gold mining days, and the WW2 bunkers.

Charters Towers was used as a staging post for the allies, with North Queensland being the last line of defence for the rest of Australia.

There were multiple bunkers around the hill, some of them you could walk into, and listen to the information. 

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There are 5 bunkers hidden in this photo.

We then drove west, with the intention of getting to Karumba tomorrow.  

We had lunch at a roadhouse at Greenvale.

We then kept driving and went to see the Undara Lava Tunnels.  It looked very nice here, so we tried to book in for the night, so that we could quickly have a look at the tunnels.  Turns out you aren’t allowed to walk through the tunnels unless you are on a tour, and the next tour is at 3.30 tomorrow, so we kept driving.

We have ended up at Mount Surprise, and as we pulled in, the owners asked us if we were here for the campdraft 3ks down the road.  This got Danny and the kids excited, so we set up the float in the caravan park and drove down to have a look.

It was huge, and well set up, but all the riding had finished by the time we got there. We might go back early in the morning to have a look at the competition, and I think Danny and some of the kids might even go back tonight.

We have booked in to the lava tunnels tour, via this caravan park, for tomorrow morning.

We are rethinking the whole Karumba idea, as it seems a long way to go to not even get to enjoy the sunset.

There is also a birthday girl to consider who may not enjoy spending the entire day in the car.

We all ended up going back to the campdraft to watch the auction.  Danny was looking to bid on a fancy fire pit, but it sold for $2500.  This worked well for me, as the only spare bit of room in the horse float is beside my bed, and I wasn’t that excited about stepping over a fire pit every morning for the next month. There were plenty of things in the auction, including 2 eight week old goats that sold for $620.

Morgan Webb (who won the Man From Snowy River competition in Corryong in April) recognised Bill and came over and had a chat, which was pretty cool for Bill.

Danny also saw his mate Joel, who is a bull fighter from the Weipa bull ride.

It really is a small world.

Goodnight.

Day 5 - Emerald to Charters Towers by Danny and Paddy

Today started with a bit of a hangover from last night (not an alcoholic one) whereby we were trying to avoid the caretaker of the Showgrounds. Last night it was on a knifes edge whether or not he would kick us out. He arrived after dark to our camp and he made it pretty clear there was no camping - it was also pretty clear that he was a bit of an odd bod. It was clearer still the strange bastard was in love with his dog - and that was our in…we poured on the shmooze and patted the bloody dog and within a short moment Robert was our new best friend. Hedging our bets still we poured on a line that we were in a horse float because we were expecting the delivery of 2 horses the next day - and with that line I held my breath everytime Caroline spoke - as she still hasn’t mastered the art of deceit! It is either a little known rule or at least a common courtesy that Showgrounds don’t refuse you if you are travelling with or have commerce with stock. As we are always travelling in a horse float, albeit empty, we pull this one regularly.

After we got ourselves together this morning we had a look at the Emerald cattle sale which was adjacent to the Showgrounds. Bill was keen to get a Brahman calf but it was a very small sale. Anyway, before we felt compelled to pat Roberts pan licking mutt again we filled the ablution block and bolted for Charters Towers (here we were met by the single nicest Showgrounds caretaker).

It was a reasonably big day steering in an effort to get to Weipa as quick as we can. Our mates there have organised mustering at Watson River Station, a fishing trip, and a hunting trip of things we can’t commit to writing! 

We entertained ourselves through the day with a game of wave cricket (I beat Jess 50 runs to 28!) and listening to Truckies converse on the UHF where the ‘F’ word is used in every sentence to replace punctuation. Sometimes it is used in place of commas; sometimes exclamations; and sometimes even question marks. I’ve heard it said that the measure of a true linguist is being able to describe Dolly Parton without using your hands - these blokes are truely masters of the English language.

Anyway another town another Showground - We got to the Charters Towers Showgrounds early evening (expecting another load of horses!) and the caretaker couldn’t be more obliging. After setting up camp we had a thorough inspection of the float on suspicion of broken springs. These suspicions were confirmed which got me thinking how lucky we have been in this floats travels. It is the 5th time we have near lost one of the 3 axles whilst in transit and the problem has been realised while stationary. I’d hate to think how it would unfold if we lost an axle while doing 120 km’s per hour overtaking a road train.

I have become reasonably proficient at changing the springs over but that task has been made infinitely easier now we have kids old enough to handle themselves with tools.

After getting the float back together we headed off into town for tea. We pulled up at a pub in the Main Street and before we could order I heard my name called across the bar. I had a couple of beers with Jack Kelly while on the big screen Lauren Jackson was being interviewed. It felt like we were still at home.

We are now back at camp and are making a series of plan B’s for tomorrow’s trip to the gulf. We think we might leave the float here and spend 2 or 3 days in swags to head across to Normanton and beyond to ensure we don’t knock the float around too much.

Paddy was desperate to contribute to this blog but I can hear him fast asleep. here he is sporting his new jeans (we made the wrangler shops day with all the gear we bought in town).

Good night

🦄🥞💐Day 4 By Adelaide. Condamine to Emerald!💐🥞🦄

This morning we woke up at Condamine caravan park. For breakfast we had either chops🥩or eggs🍳on toast. We quickly packed up and then hit the road🚘. When we got to Miles we stopped at a petrol⛽️ station because dad needed to fill up. After paying and going to the toilet 🚽 we were soon ready to go again. Bill, Tilly and I are in dads car and we are listening to an audiobook, WW1 idiots version so we can understand because when it wasn’t THE idiots version we couldn’t understand a thing🤨.

We just stopped at a coffee ☕️ shop so dad and Jess could get a coffee ☕️. On the way to the coffee shop we stopped at a gift 🎁 shop to see if there were any magnetic 🧲 games for the car trip. We didn’t find any games but we found some stickers to collect. On the sticker there was a tree 🌲 and we didn’t know what was so good about the tree 🌳 so we asked the lady at the checkout. She said that the founder of Taroom marked the year and his name on that tree 🌲. I THINK IT WAS 1884, and I think his name was Leichhardt.

After a long drive we are stopping at Dawson river to wait for mum and go for a fish 🐠  but as soon as we parked we saw a sign 🪧 that said no fishing 🎣. So we just looked at the river and then kept going. Before we got into the car we got a snack from the horse float to keep us going.

What I didn’t know was that Mum, Paddy,Emily and Jess went to Isla gorge!

After driving for another long time we stopped at another petrol ⛽️ station and fuelled up and went inside to get takeaway lunch 🍱. I got chips 🍟 and an apple blackcurrant drink🥤. We are ready to hit the road again.

In the car 🚘 we see kangaroos 🦘 cows🐄/brahman’s and horses 🐎.

After a little nap 😴 I wake up and find myself still in the car and the only thing that is different is that my legs 🦵 are now more sore than they were before. Wahoo!🥳

We just got pulled over by the cops 👮‍♂️ and the bloke that we had was very nice 😊 so dad told him to pull Jess over and say that she looks the kind of person that goes on drugs so she’ll get scared 😳 and it worked. She got so nervous.

While we are driving we saw heaps of big cylinder minions on the side of the road. We were too slow to take a photo.

After around about an hour we reached Emerald were we found a show ground to stay at because the caravan parks were to  busy and crowded.

For tea we are having pizzas 🍕 from a place called Pizza Hut in Emerald. On our way there we saw trees with fairy 🧚‍♀️ lights 💡and Emerald hall with fancy and pretty fairy 🧚‍♀️ lights 💡. Here are some photos of the trees 🌲 that we saw.

We finally got our pizzas 🍕 after looking for the place.

We are now back at camp 🏕 having showers 🚿 and getting ready to go to bed 🛌.

SO……

GOODNIGHT SLEEP TIGHT DON’T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE!

Day 3 Moree -Condamine By Emmy🤩

When we woke up this morning we put our stuff in the car that we were going in and we were all playing outside except for Paddy because, he was still asleep, which was weird because he is usually the first one to wake up.

While Mum and Dad were getting the border passes ready, Paddy slowly started to wake up from his bed that he slept in by himself. After the border permits were ready we all went outside and played with the Mckibbin’s basketball ring and we used Adelaide’s netball.

We did an emu parade and started our 6 hour trip to Miles. On the way down their 4km driveway we spotted mum’s tyre marks from when she got bogged.

On the way to Moree (where we were getting breaky) we saw our first lot of emu’s which Mum had warned us that they were coming from the other car, and we saw a blue tree in Moree which I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of.

I quickly took a photo of the 3 emu’s that I got as we drove past…

We found a place for breaky and it was Macas, again. While Mum was still trying to figure out the passes for when we get to QLD the rest of us ordered our food. After we ate we hoped back in our cars. Mum, Tilly, Bill, Adelaide, and Paddy went in Mum’s car and in Donk (Dad’s car) was Jess, Dad and I. As we keep on driving Dad wanted to call in on an old friend he is a rodeo legend called Col MacTaggart. He wasn’t home so Dad left a note on his gate.

What felt like a year of driving had only been two hours but we have finally made it to Queensland and after all the stress we didn’t even need to use the permits.

Dad managed to quickly get a photo of the sign…

We kept driving until we realised that donk only had a quarter of a tank of fuel left. Dad risked it and kept driving to the fuel station which wasn’t that far away but when you are running out it feels a lot longer. Pretty much empty we bunny hopped to the fuel station/roadhouse and we only just scraped in. We used 101 litres in a 100 litre tank so we didn’t have much left. Mum’s car met us at the roadhouse place and we all had lunch together. I got a new sticker of the roadhouse to add to my collection at home. 

We soon drove for a little bit longer until we arrived  at the Condamine pub. We stopped at this pub because it had lots of brandings of when Dad did his Campfires against Cancer ride and Dad wanted to see it again. We were going to stay at the caravan park at Miles but we decided to stay at the Condamine caravan park. When we got to the caravan park, which is across the road from the pub, Dad played his guitar and we played with the netball. 

Jess and I then walked down to the BP while the other kids went fishing.

Here are some photos of the pub…..

This is Dad redoing a photo of where he and Colin Mitchell stood nearly 20 years ago. Someone made a painting of the photo.

Col Mactaggart just rang Dad and he said he was proud of Dad and proud to know him. I think Dad is pretty happy about that.

We all then had a shower and went to the pub for tea.

We sat around the fire and slowly went to bed.

GOODNIGHT!🤪😴

West Wylong to Moree - by Bill

This morning we woke up on the side of the road, listening to all the trucks and cars go past. Us kids froze all night because we had no power for the heater. Paddy and Addy liked tooting for the trucks too.
While we were getting ready leave Adelaide found a rock under the shelter at the rest stop and it had a painting on it. It is meant to be a collection thing that someone decided to start and you can either re hide it or keep it.


A couple hours after we left, Tilly, Dad and I found a cockatoo on the side of the road. We thought he must have got hit by a car. We caught him then took a photo and threw him back. He fell down a hole covered in grass but he should be right.

We called into a saddlery that Dad always wanted to go to in Forbes, it was alright but we didn’t get anything so we kept driving.

Jess has started driving again today after ten weeks or something because of her knee so now she can keep getting her hours up.

Tonight we got to Moree and we are staying on a friends farm. Dad hasn’t seen his friend for eighteen years since the campfires ride so we are staying here tonight. On the way up their four kilometre drive way Mum and Dad both got bogged but we were lucky enough to get out in four wheel drive.

Chantelle and James made us tea which was very nice and we had a chat for a bit now we are getting ready for bed.

Bill.

Test

Last day at home. Leaving tomorrow if all goes to plan!