Crows, Cats and Kangaroos

The kids have been really excited to see the wild animals of Outback Australia; we just didn’t expect to see so many of them as road kill on the side of the road. Travelling along country roads, you expect to see a few animals that didn’t quite get out of the way quick enough, but we couldn’t believe how much there is in the outback.  Bronwyn told us that they counted over 700 dead animals between Sapphire and Longreach! It is mostly kangaroos, but we were surprised to see foxes, emus, dingos, feral cats and even wild pigs! And at every carcass, there are at least three crows eating dinner. That makes a lot of very fat, well fed crows in Outback Australia!

I don’t particularly like cats. I am –as they say – more of a dog person. However I like rats even less, so I was very grateful that the Apex Park was home to many Feral Cats after I had heard that there was a rat-plague in Longreach (even if the cats did scare me half to death every time they jumped out of the bin when I walked past!)

While driving along the Capricorn Hwy, Dan nearly had a heart-attack when a rock was flicked up by a passing truck and hit the windscreen. It hit right at eye level, causing Dan’s instincts to make him duck for cover! Funny to watch after we got over the fright!

It did quite a bit of damage to the windscreen so we needed to get it replaced. We loaded up the bikes on the back of the car and dropped the car off at the local windscreen repairers. We then spent the day riding around Longreach.

When we started this trip we decided to get the best insurance we could for the car and caravan. We paid a little more to get no excess on windscreen repair and replacement. It has now paid for itself!

We rode up to the Longreach School of Distance Education. Sam and Will were very excited to go there and see how the kids of Queensland do their schooling through Distance Ed.

Sam’s thoughts; “The LSODE is very different to how we do it in Vic, because it is all done talking with your teacher through microphones and over the internet. We get two booklets, one for English and one for Maths, and we do our studies in our booklets then send them in to DECV. Our teacher is our mum (called the supervisor) and she helps us whenever we need it.

We got to walk through the school and see some of the models and projects that the kids have made and sent in. Twice a year the students get to come to the school with their parents and stay for a week. While they are there they get to meet the other kids in their class and meet their teacher. They get to play heaps of games but still have to do some schoolwork.”

Longreach is famous for the QANTAS museum and the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame. We spent an afternoon at both places.

QANTAS, the world’s second oldest airline, was registered on 16 November 1920 as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service Ltd. While Winton was the official birthplace, the company and operational headquarters were moved to Longreach in February 1921.

Will’s thoughts about the QANTAS museum; “The QANTAS museum was really cool. We went to the cafe and had chips and a drink and then got to spend our pocket money in the shop. Sam brought a set of three foam aeroplanes. We went outside to the park and had races with the planes while we waited for the tour to start. My plane was a trickster, so I won!

When the tour started we got to stand under a huge plane and a man told us all about the plane. We got our photo taken inside one of the jets. It was about 45 degrees and we were standing on the metal for a long time. It was really hot! We went inside the aeroplane and sat in first class while we watched a movie about how the plane was built. Then we got to go in the cockpit and pretended to fly the plane. I was the pilot and Sam and Zaccy were the co-pilot and navigator. It was a really good day!”

Will standing in the undercarriage

The well-known black box - which is actually bright orange!

The pilot, co-pilot and navigator.

 

The Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame is a museum dedicated to Australian stockmen and Aborigines who have shown bravery and courage.

Dan stayed at the caravan to work, while I took Sam and Will to the Hall of Fame. We spent the morning wandering around the museum, looking at the old artefacts and discovering facts about early Australia. We got to see a fantastic show by a very funny man and his horse, dogs, camel and team of bullocks.

Dan and Zac joined us for lunch and we meet up with Bronwyn, Gavin and their boys. We all spent the afternoon wandering around the museum.

Watching the Bullock team in action

One of the locals saying hello to us

Lunch in the Wool Bale Cafe.

Impressive Architecture

The day we were leaving, there was a Horse Muster in town. We packed up the van and towed it to the R M Williams muster. It was a cattle mustering competition between NSW and QLD. It was the perfect setting for our first experience at a Muster – very dry, hot and dusty.

The beautifully painted R M Williams Truck

My 3 cowboys

The juniors went first and they had to beat the clock on an obstacle course. Saddle their horse,  burst balloons with their whip, pitch a swag and climb in, get back on their horse, knock in a star-picket, ride between two logs backwards, jump on a quad bike and lead their horse across a course to the finish line. Next came the open-aged amateurs . They had to lasso and lead calf for branding. It was very impressive to watch.

The kids loved sitting on the fence and watching the action. They spent the day pretending they were cowboys and made lassos with a piece of rope.

Will and his new buddy - Jeremy

Will decided that the cowboy life was for him. He spent hours trying to talk us into getting a farm and living in the outback. He wore jeans, a wrangler shirt, and his cowboy hat, with his lasso tied to his belt. He stayed like this for the next few weeks. It was over 35 degrees most days, but he kept on his “uniform” not matter what the temperature.

The Mighty Patrol!

A beautiful sunset ofver the Thompson River

Off 4wd'ing one day and a local horse came to say hello

He was VERY friendly!

An Unhappy Birthday

As we travelled along the Capricorn Hwy the landscape got drier and the road trains got longer. We passed trains that were over 70 carriages long (yes, we counted them!) that were fully laden with coal and saw mining equipment that made our big caravan look like a small toy.

We arrived in Emerald and set up camp for the night at the Botanical Gardens. Scattered throughout Queensland, there are areas set aside for “the travelling public of Australia”. These areas are usually big open spaces with great facilities. The camp area in Emerald takes up the carpark at the Botanical Gardens next to the Nogoa River. It is, however, right under the highway and the railway tracks so can be a bit noisy. That doesn’t really bother me - I can sleep through just about anything – but it does usually mean a disturbed sleep for Dan.

The botanical Gardens are beautiful and have a really nice playground and bbq area. We spent a bit of time wandering around and watching the kids play. We even got to see a wedding held in the gardens.

We were about to unhitch the caravan and go for a drive when the Jockey Wheel fell apart in my hands. We had to leave the caravan hitched up to the car and go for a walk into town. We were hoping there would be somewhere that sold trailer parts but didn’t even know how big the town was. We were lucky and found somewhere that sold us a new jockey wheel and we even got to have a good look around town in the meantime.

There is a beautiful old railway station in the main street. It was closed when we were there so the kids had a great time pretending to be passengers buying tickets from the ticket office.

The next morning Dan woke up to three very happy children who couldn’t wait to shower him in father’s day gifts and hand-made cards.

After a breakfast of bacon and eggs we packed up and headed off.

Next stop – the Gemfields of Sapphire, Rubyvale and Anakie. We are going to try our luck at fossicking!

We arrived at Sapphire with Bronwyn and Gavin close behind. We were planning on riding our bikes to the local farmers market, but when Dan got out of the car he could hardly stand up. We think he had hurt his back when we were walking around the gardens in Emerald. Zaccy got tired so Dan and I took it in turns to carry him on our shoulders. Zac fidgets a lot when he is being carried and he is no longer a little baby. He weighs about the same as a baby elephant so it is not surprising that Dan has hurt his back!

 

After a very slow set-up, we had lunch then headed off to Pat’s Gems to do a bit of fossicking. You can purchase bucket loads of rocks and the staff show you how to clean and sort through it. We spent the afternoon cleaning and sorting and setting aside anything that looked pretty. Zac and Will soon lost interest but Sam was keen to find ‘the big one’. In the end we ended up with a big bag of ‘pretty rocks’ and a smaller bag of ‘sapphires that are not worth anything – they are too small- but will look pretty if we polish them up, and four decent sized sapphires that are “cuttable”. The biggest one (not really that big) is just beautiful and hopefully I will get it cut and set in a piece of jewellery some day.

Chatting to one of the locals

Zac had more fun playing in the dirt!

The following morning was Dan’s 36^th birthday. It was supposed to be a nice relaxing day followed by another go at fossicking in the afternoon. However it didn’t turn out that way... not at all!

Dan woke up and could hardly move. His back had completely seized up during the night and he was in a lot of pain. After a back rub and some TLC he was able to sit down relatively comfortably and do some work.

While Dan was taking a break from work, we had a few of the locals pay us a visit. The boys hadn’t seen birds this close and friendly before and we spent a long time chatting to them and feeding them.

Bronwyn and Gavin were moving on so we said goodbye to them and the boys and I started baking a birthday cake for Dan. Suddenly Dan has sworn and rushed outside. I followed close behind only to discover that our campsite had filled up with septic waste! The septic tank from the public toilets had overflowed and was running down the hill straight through our campsite! We locked the kids inside and started a much panicked clean-up. Poor Dan was cleaning up someone else’s crap, with a sore back, on his birthday!  It got worse! While we were outside cleaning up, the birthday cake was in the oven burning.

a stream of waste flowing down the hill

the septic tank bubbling over

I spoke to a few of the local residents and was shocked to hear that the septic waste overflows on a regular basis and the council refuses to do anything about it. I got straight on the phone to the Health Inspector and gave him a piece of my mind.

As we had no means of cleaning and disinfecting our floor mat and a few of the kids toys, (and I was gagging at the thought of trying to clean them) we decided to leave a lot of our stuff there. I told the council that they had to come and collect it and I expected re-imbursement for our ruined belongings. I will let you know how that goes...

So instead of a nice relaxing day, we had to do a rush pack-up job (Dan with a bad back) and move camps. The smell was so bad at the Sapphire campground that we decided to move on and try to get to Jericho.

On the way Zaccy started showing signs of not being well. He very quickly declined and we needed to get him to a doctor. We made it to Jericho to find that the doctor only visits the medical centre on a Friday. As it was Monday we had to either drive back to Emerald or on to Barcaldine. We got to the Barcaldine Hospital at about 4pm and were there until after 8 o’clock that night. Zaccy was going to be fine but he needed antibiotics for an infection. 

It was a VERY long drive with our sick little boy.

We left the hospital and headed for the showgrounds where we were going to stay, only to find it closed to campers for the week! Could our day get any worse?

It was too late to cook and we really wanted to try to celebrate Dan’s birthday, so we headed to the pub for dinner. Guess what? The kitchen was closed!!!  However the really nice woman who runs the kitchen took pity on us, and after hearing about our day, she ever so kindly re-opened the kitchen and made us some delicious pizzas! After a couple of beers and the wonderful pizzas in our bellies, we were able to laugh at the disaster of a day we had had.

After dinner we crossed the road to the famous ‘tree of knowledge’. The Tree of Knowledge was a Eucalyptus Papuana (Ghost Gum) that stood out the front of the railway station, until its death in 2006. During the 1891 National Shearers’ strike, the Tree was silent witness to the momentous struggle between Shearers’ and Pastoralists’ over wages and working conditions. These and subsequent events played an integral part in the formation of the establishment of the Australian Labour Party and the formation of the Pastoralist Union.

After the day we had had, it was a beautiful surprise to see the Tree of Knowledge floodlit in Emerald green light. It had a very magical feel about it and was really very special. The floor is made of glass and you can see the tangled tree roots underground. It is a spectacular scene and we were really glad to have had the chance to see it at night.

We went back the following day to get some photos and even though it was still pretty, it didn’t look anywhere near as spectacular as it looked the previous night.

The monument doesn't look as spectacular during the day

We found a rest stop nearby, and pulled in there for the night. We realised that we hadn’t even sung Happy Birthday to Dan so we all sung it in the car on the way home.

It certainly was a birthday that Dan will never forget!



it's really starting to feel like we are in the Outback now!