Winton

The family with Banjo Patterson

 We stayed a little while at Winton while Steve was recovering from the flu. Just before we got to Winton we  looked for a bush camp to stay at. At one place we pulled up near a river,  I didn't get out of the car very quickly, but Steve got straight out of the car.  I didn't really pay attention to him, but as he returned to the car I looked up and saw him standing there dripping wet and naked. I said what on earth are you doing?  He replied that he was so hot he just had to immediately immerse himself in the creek.  That's when we realised that he was  running a significant fever.  Not a good thing to have in almost 40 degree heat.  After we took Steve to the doctor he was told to have cool showers to cool himself down.  We were perplexed as to how he could do this as the water out of the tap was naturally nice and warm as it comes straight out of the Great artesian Basin.

I wrote quite a bit about what we did as I probably realised that Steve was in no condition to be keeping up with his diary.  I will relate Evan's diary entry first because his is nice and short:

Today we're at Winton.

I wanted to go to the Waltzing Matilda Centre but mum and dad said that we would go through the route of the river gum.  It was in the desert, so there wasn't much to see.

One of the days we were at Winton, me and Harry went with dad to the library. We played games on the computer, Harry didn't want to leave because he wanted to play on the computer at the library.

It was lovely at Winton.

My diary entries:

26/4/07

Drove to Winton today.
Camped at Pelican Park in Winton. We looked at a campsite at Bladensburg National Park, but they wanted to charge $18 per night!  For only $24 per night we could camp in town with full facilities, a pool and nightly entertainment.

Tonight, country music singer Graham Roger, sang and we were also entertained by a bush poet with some very funny verses.  We ate dinner watching the entertainment. I really enjoyed it.

Steve has had a wickedly sore throat for a couple of days.  He can't swallow or even talk without great pain.  I hope that the rest of us don't catch it.  Harry ran a fever on the 21st and said that he had a sore throat. Steve may have caught it from him.  Today Sarah is complaining of a sore throat . This maybe an ongoing sickness if it manages to make its way through the entire family.

27/4/07

We are spending a quiet day around camp seeing as Steve and Sarah don't feel well.
Harry and Evan are enjoying the dirt roads around camp by driving their cars through it. They are getting quite filthy.

We went to the town library around 3 o'clock so that Steve could rest in air conditioning and so that Sarah and Evan could do some school work.
It's a very nice library. There are lots of good books that I would like to read.  There were heaps of toys for Harry to play with and videos for Steve to watch.

We thought that using public libraries where we can go to do school work during the hot part of the day is a good idea.

On the way back to camp we dropped Steve off at the doctor.  The doctor found pus on his tonsils and a 40 degree Celsius temperature. The doctor has put him on antibiotics and painkillers.

While Steve was being doctored the kids and I checked out Arno's wall.  It was a few hundred metres of a stone and concrete wall that had had all manner of junk cemented into it - lawnmowers, lots of wheels, motorbikes, typewriters, TV sets, microwaves - everything.

28/4/07

Another lazy day while Steve gets better. As the day wore on he definitely improved.

We went to Fitzmaurice - an old shop that is now set up as a museum for opals and dinosaurs.

We visited the musical fence.  It is great! It is made up of different tensioned wires that make a great musical sound by hitting it with whatever you can find - sticks, pipes etc.  There is a drum kit made out of junk, fantastic.

Here we are in the dry outback. It only rains once every 15 years and yet everyone has a nice green front lawn, and the van parks and sporting fields are all green.  There are no signs of water restrictions here, they water at anytime, day and night.

This is an interesting juxtaposition to the major capital cities in Australia where they are on strict water restrictions and have front lawns that look like dust bowls.  Even green and lush Coffs Harbour that normally has extremely high annual rainfall has permanent level 1 water restrictions, because, well, morally we just should.

So, why can the outback use so much water?
The Great Artesian Basin!!! It is a massive underground water resource.