Eyre The Forgotten Explorer

I have just finished reading the ebook, Eyre the Forgotten Explorer, that I downloaded from the local library.  Our library here in Coffs has recently started lending ebooks and what a fantastic idea it is.  So far their collection is quite small, but I am hoping that with the aid of technology that they have the capability to amass a truly enormous collection.

Only the other day I was searching for a book that I was interested in buying.  I found that I could purchase the hard copy for around $24 or the ebook for $17.  Even though the ebook version was cheaper I found that I had a real problem buying the book that way, and ended up buy a the hard copy.  My reasoning was that ebooks feel too insubstantial and like you don't really own them.  One little technological hiccough ( and let's face it they are reasonably common) and poof the book disappears.  That's $17 down the drain which is a substantial amount of money to get nothing.  I like the feel and the idea of having areal physical book on my book shelf so am prepared to pay the little extra for that.

That is not say, however, that I don't love ebooks.  I do and have amassed 1000's of them.  I bought a disk from ebay containing 1000's of classics (more than I could ever hope to read) and have been downloading or being gifted various ebooks over the course of the past two years.  I like that I can try before I buy.  If I like a book that's worthy of owning I will go out and get the hard copy.  But already my bookshelf is groaning with a large collection of dusty books and I find I need to be a bit more discerning about accumulating too many more. But like an addiction, I keep telling myself this and I just keep collecting more. Now with technology I fill up my bookshelves and my hard drives with more books than I can ever hope to read. But it's so much better to be spoilt for choice than to be bereft of reading matter.

You would think that someone with such a wealth of books and ebooks would not need to go near a library.  Not so.  I love them even more than bookshops because they are free and they have so many books.  It was while I was perusing the online catalogue of the local library, looking for a book that I was interested in, when I chose to checkout the ebook section.  More as an experiment to see how it all worked than a particular desire to read a certain book, I 'borrowed' Eyre the Forgotten Explorer.  It took a bit more mucking around and technology wrangling than I expected, but I managed to set my self up to become a regular ebook borrower.

The library runs its ebook borrowing through a third party, called wheelers.  The first step is to set up an Adobe ID.  This ID allows you to access the same ebook from up to 6 devices.  I also had to down load an app onto my tablet that could read the epub version of the books. Unfortunately the books are not available in my preferred kindle format.  So I downloaded Bluefire and synced it to my Adobe ID.  Then by logging into the ebook library using my normal library card number and password I could download ebooks to load for up to 28 days.  As it was my first time I more or less just randomly picked any book to get me started, hence, Eyre.

Given my week of feeling poorly with bad back and a cold virus, I got the book read in a very short time.  I must say that I enjoyed very much.  For a historical novel it was written very well in a very easy to read almost chatty format.  It was based on Eyre's writings, he was an extensive journaler and letter writer,  (he would probably make an enthusiastic blogger if he was alive today) and other public records.  It chronicles his life in Australia and his feats at trying to find grazing land around Adelaide, a route to central Australia and an overland route to Albany.  He had many dealings with the native aborigines and was often the first white man that they had seen, so he gives some fascinating insights to their lives and their customs.  He became quite adept at dealing with the indigenous population and was often called upon to settle disputes and maintain peace not only between whites and blacks but between warring tribes.  His explorations were superhuman in what he achieved while coming so close to death, due to lack of food and water, or altercations with some aboriginals, on a number of occasions.  In some parts of the book you are left thinking that truly, life is more amazing than fiction.  The parts I really liked the best, though, were where we got insight into the struggles caused by the complex dilemma of how the European and the indigenous population could co-exist.

With that ebook finished, I now need to go back and see what else there is to borrow.  Borrowing an ebook, just like a hard version of a library book gives you the opportunity to experience possibly a wider range of books than you would normally if you had to buy them.  In that way you can pick and choose and feel free to ditch a book if it is not to your taste.  A much better option than committing to buy before you try.

More travels around Oz

I thought it was time to post another piece of writing about our round Australia trip in 2007.  This email follows on from the last one......

27/07/07

We sent our last e-mail from Katherine library and had no intention of returning to Katherine again in this trip.  Well we are back and will explain why a little later.  First, we will describe what has been happening in the intervening period.

We left Katherine with no firm plan in mind.  Just that heading west sounded like a good idea, as the night time temperatures seemed far too cold for us to venture south yet.

 

First stop was Flora River Nature Reserve where we intended to camp, but didn’t really like it there so continued further down the Victoria Hwy.  As we approached Gregory River National park the scenery became quite spectacular.  The mountain ranges are amazing.  It never ceases to amaze us just how many spectacular, and different landscapes Australia has to offer.

 

We opted to camp over night in the first section of Gregory River NP at Sullivan’s creek.  It was quite a nice camp, but a bit too close to the highway.

The next day we visited Victoria River Road House and did a few interesting walks in the area, again catching stunning views of the landscape of the East Kimberley’s.  We wanted to go on a ranger guided tour of Bullita Homestead in the second section of Gregory and perhaps checkout some 4wd tracks.  We made it as far as the turn off when upon investigating a nasty banging and clanking noise from under the car we discovered a broken bit of suspension.  Not good for tackling dirt roads, so we turned around and headed onto Timber Creek in the hope that they could fix it.

 

Not normally a place we’d stay, the wild west looking town of Timber Creek played host to us that night.  The people in the tent next to us got flooded by the park’s sprinkler, turned out they were from Grafton.  They were loaded up with beautiful home grown oranges and mandarines, but as they were heading west they gave them all to us.  Already with a large bag of fruit of our own to eat and now a whole lot more we set ourselves the task of eating all of this fruit in the three days it was going to take us to reach the border.

 

Our car got fixed the next day and we moved onto Keep River NP, still in NT but only just.  We visited  Grergory’s camp on the banks of the Victoria River where you can still see the carved incriptions dated 1855 on the boab trees around the camp. Keep River treated us to views of Bungle Bungle type sandstone formations, very impressive.  We spent a few nights there doing the walks and eating fruit, and eating fruit.  No wonder they had to pump out the pit toilets while we were there.

 

Fueled by scary stories about border checkposts with surly customs officials, sniffer dogs and fine tooth combs we tentatively made our way to the NT/WA border.  With three kids in the back of our car our back seat and carpet were a quarantine breach just waiting to be discovered.  (We were secretly hoping that they would vacuum out our car for us).  But the border crossing was a non event with barely a look at us as we sailed through with mouldy apple cores and fair sprinkling of raw nuts and seeds through the kids zone in the back seat of the car.  And no we didn’t get our car fully detailed by the WA customs service, damn.

 

We headed straight to Kununurra where we spent 3 nights.The caravan park where we stayed was over run with young backpackers and movie star extra hopefuls.  The new Baz Lurman epic Australia was due to set up filmimg  in Kununurra soon and a few were waiting around in the hope of getting discovered.  One particularly unattractive man spent a lot of time in various poses, obvioiusly trying to work out his best side.

 

We moved onto Wyndham for 4 nights and watched a most amazing sunset over Cambridge Gulf.  We ate the best fish and chips I have ever tasted (fresh Barramundi) served by a tattooed man whose face was totally and completely covered by tattooes.  He was a tourist attraction all in himself.  We visited Parry’s lagoon for some bird watching, Emma drove the Old Hall’s Creek Road in 4wd.  The road still has some of its original stone work on it.  Emma had a hoot, Steve had very white knuckles (it’s not so much fun in the passenger seat).  Next day Steve got his go at 4wding taking us for a trip down the King River Road past a massive boab that was still alive but could fit about a dozen people inside it, known as the prison tree.  We tackled the Kurunji Track which traverses through El Questro on the western side of the Cockburn range.  The Cockburn range is amazing.  We came out onto the famed Gibb River Road at the Pentecost River. 

 

The following day we re-entered El Questro and walked up Emma Gorge.  Had to go because of its name.  Although it was beautiful it was hard to justify the $15 it cost us for the pleasure when there are so many other beautiful and free gorges to explore in Australia.  On the way back to camp that night we got our third flat tyre in two days.  The local servo at Wyndham loved us.

 

Having come this far we desperately wanted to keep going west.  But we had to bite the bullet and turn around at some stage.  So reluctantly we decided to save Broome for another trip and turned back towards the East.

 

We stopped off at Lake Argyle for a look at the massive expanse of water (many many times the size of Sydney Harbour).  It was created by damming the Ord River and still has not realised it’s full irrigation potential.  We decided against staying at the lake and made our way back over the border to Keep River NP again.  We really liked it there the first time so decided to checkout another campsite further into the park.

 

After only one night we moved onto the Bullita homestead campsite back in Gregory River.  Many of the 4wd tracks that we wanted to tackle were shut because of late unseasonal rain.  But we managed to learn a bit about the Duracks and the cattle stations in the East Kimberly region.

 

We had big plans to travel from Bullita to Top Springs down some dirt roads that were actually open.  However about 10 mins into our journey a rock ricochetted off the trailer and smashed our back window.  Not a good sound or look.  Thinking it was more prudent to go to Katherine to have it fixed rather than travel any further than necessary on dirt, we taped the window as best we could and set off for Katherine.

 

We booked into a camp called Springvale, that has a pool fed by beautiful warm springfed water.  It had a big slide into the pool that the kids can’t get enough of.  The day after setting up camp we discovered that we were camped next to some ex work collegues of Steve’s from Narooma.  So we had a great couple of nights socialising and reminicing with them.

 

As for the smashed window we discovered the true meaning of NT.  It doesn’t mean Northern Territory at all.  It means Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Tuesday, Not Thursday, Not This Week........  It took 3 days for the window to be delivered and fitted.  Eager to be on our way we packed up camp, collected the repaired car, hitched up the trailer and set off.  Less than 1 kilometre from our camp we heard that telltale sound again. Crack.  Steve and Emma looked at each other....No it couldn’t be.....  We turned around and looked....yes it was.  The window had shattered again! Bugger.

Another camp set up and another long wait for a new window.  We were getting to know Katherine really well, wondering if we would ever leave the place.

So what can you do, but sit back and relax, pour yourself another Gin and Tonic because we wont be leaving NT in a hurry, at least Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Tuesday, Not Thursday, Not This week and it even looks like Not This Month!

 

That’s Emma’s version of the story!  My knuckles weren’t white at all – just a pale shade.

 

With all this waiting around in caravan parks waiting for car things to get fixed I have invented a new hobby – spotting forestry look-a-likes.  So far I have a Peter Crowe, John Murray and two Steve Dodds.  I thought I had the jackpot when I got a Graeme Riches and an Alan Douch, but it turned out they were real.  I don’t think that counts.  Emma thinks I must be missing work but I can assure you I’m not.  In fact last night Graeme asked me what job I’d been doing and I couldn’t even remember the title of my job.  Just make sure you guys don’t forget the title of my job OK.  Money is becoming scarce at this end of the trip.

 

See ya

 

 

Wyndham

Here we were half way through July, half way through what is winter in the southern states and we were heading to the very north of Western Australia.  The weather and landscapes were perfect.  The town of Wyndham sits overlooking a dramatic coastline and has one of the world's best sunsets.

AS mentioned at the end of the last post we took the back road to Wyndham so that we could see Valentine and Middle Springs.  We had lunch at Black rock falls.

The closer that we got to Wyndham, the more amazing the country became. Incredible plateaus sitting atop the escarpments.

We set up camp at a local park and then hurriedly drove up to the lookout to watch the fantastic sunset.

That night in camp, we were disturbed by some drunks who broke out into a very loud and aggressive verbal argument.  They were attended to by the local constabulary.

On Monday, we vistied the large Aboriginal statues and watched a local aboriginal man carve into a boab seed with a pen knife.  He carved a picture of a bird, complete with textured feathers.  It was beautiful.

We learnt that boabs could be used for bush tucker. They would grind the innards of the boab seed into a powder and make damper out of it.  They would cook and grind the seeds, mix with kapock roots and make them into cakes.  They could also be mixed with water and honey to taste and then stewed like apples. The young roots were also able to be eaten.

We visited the big Croc, how could we not?  And of course had our photo take there.

Dairy Entry...."Went along Perry's Lagoon Road past Telegraph Hill (where an old World War One era telegraph station once stood) and onto Perry's Lagoon.  loads of Birds there.
I was driving.
We then continued on along Perry's Lagoon Road to the old Hall's Creek Road.  It was constructed in the 1850's for the Hall's Creek gold rush.  There are still lots of stone work intact today showing where the original old track ran.  I drove the 4WD track - it was loads of fun.  
We then popped out at the Great Northern Road Highway and went to the Grotto. 
Had lunch then climbed down inside the Grotto.  It was lovely cool and peaceful."

Kununurra

Crossing the border from the Northern Territory we set our clocks back by one and a half hours.  This meant that our lovely twilight evenings that had been perfect for camping, now were going to end early -we would be cooking and eating the evening meal in the dark.

View from above Kununurra Camp

I personally really like daylight saving as I am more a night person than a morning person.  So I found the lack of evening light disappointing.  It was one of the reasons I loved Northern Territory.

There were strict quarantine laws at the border to Western Australia.  No raw nuts, seeds, plants, fruit or vegetables.  We had finished all of our fresh food, but we decided to stash a packet of alfalfa seeds on the Northern Territory side of the border with the intention to retrieve them on the way back.

We were also slightly concerned that we were going to be embarrassed at the border by the fact that the back seat was littered with the half masticated detritus from the children's car snacks.  There was plenty of seeds, nuts, sultanas, banana skins and  apple cores kicking around on the seats and  in the foot zone, and we secretly hoped that customs would give the car car a jolly good detail for us.

Luckily, we didn't get called out for the appalling state of our car, so subsequently didn't get the free car detail either.  We were waved through the check point with a minimum of fuss.  Perhaps it was hoped that the children's treatment of the mushed up food mass decontaminated the potential of any introduced pests. Or maybe they willfully turned a blind eye, placing us into the too hard basket.

Having Jettisoned all of our fresh food, first stop was Coles in Kununurra to stock up.  We booked into the Kununurra Caravan park where we caught up on washing our clothes and removing the campsite grime from ourselves with lovely hot showers.
The landscape around the town was stunning with more of the lost city style of rock formations.

The town of Kununarra itself was quite pleasant and felt fairly new.  It had been built relatively recently to service the Ord River scheme.

However, even more famously, at the time that we were visiting Kununurra, the town was preparing for an influx of film crew for the block buster movie Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.  There was an air of distinct excitement in the town as it was possibly the most exciting thing to happen to the town in a long time.  Budding future movie stars were seen preening themselves as they dreamed of being recognised as the next biggest talent in being a movie extra. They waited in intense anticipation, sunning themselves to create the perfect movie tan and practising their best facial angles, convinced that they were about to be discovered at any moment.
Kununurra was not a stranger to celebrities.
They have a celebrity tree park. Yes, it's true.
The trees have been planted by various celebrities, perhaps Nicole Kidman will be the next big name to grace the park.

On our second day in Kununurra, 14 July, we went to the Agricultural show. It was pretty cheap to get in, $10 for adults and $3 for kids. The show wasn't very big, but we had a ball.  There was musical entertainment, pavilions of livestock and produce, typical show rides and the best bit - novelty races.  The watermelon races (watermelons for shoes) were hilarious.
In the evening we bought our dinner from various stalls and headed into the bar, a fenced off area where we could enjoy a drink and still see the stage.
For dessert we bought some auctioned off cupcakes from the produce pavilion. What a cool idea, auctioning off all of the fresh exhibits. You could bid on cakes, fruits and vegetables.
We met and talked to some entrepreneurial Mirriwong people who sell some interesting art work,  They carve designs into the outer casing of boab seeds.  They look quite good and for $5 we bought one.  The kids also attempted to create their own on some boab seeds that we had found a long the way.

On Sunday, before heading north to Wyndham, we walked up behind our camp ground and climbed the Mini Bungle Bungles. For a short walk, it afforded fabulous views.

Next, on the back road to Wyndham.....

Katherine NT

Katherine sits on something of a crossroads, so anytime spent in the Northern Territory inevitably means that you will visit Katherine more than once.  We certainly did.  Travel arrangements and circumstances found us decending on Katherine numerous times during our travels in the Northern Territory.

After leaving Mary River Roadhouse we travelled onto Katherine and were confronted with no vacancy signs everywhere.  Our plans of staying at low level crossing camping ground were foiled as there were no sites available. After searching around a bit we found Mercure Four Seasons and scored a powered site with ensuite for $29 per night.  It was awfully luxurious to have our own ensuite.

Our time in Katherine was mostly spent catching up with the mundane things like school work, washing and shopping.  The children enjoyed having a network of paved roads around the camping ground to ride on with their scooters.

On the night of the 5 July, we met Steve's parents, Pat and Eric at Kumbidgee Tea Rooms on Gorge Road, Katehrine. Here we enjoyed a buffet dinner.  It offered picturesque outdoor dining over looking a duck pond.  The atmosphere was very relaxed and and great for families with kids. At only $14 per adult and $7 per child for all you could eat it was great value.  It was also BYO.

Low level crossing

On the 6 July, Steve's parents left Katherine and we farewelled them after a lunch at low level. We had a swim at the hotsprings, they were warm, but not hot.  It was a bit cool getting out.

Katherine  Hot Springs

After the parents left we investigated the library and discovered that it had a lot of children's books on CD......Oh so little time to really enjoy the offerings.

We ended up spending an extra night, which meant we could rip some CD's send a group email, and get some more shopping and school work done.  I made the diary observation that the promise of minities works wonders to get the kids doing their school work-amazing.

Flora River reserve

On the 8th we packed up camp and moved onto Flora River Reserve, where we had an explore and ate lunch. We decided that we didn't like it enough to camp there, so moved onto Gregory NP (east).  Here we set up camp for the night at Sullivan's Creek Campsite.  It was not far off the road, but still was quite a nice spot.

Kakadu

rock art Ubir

Ah Kakadu, you either love it or hate it.
Depending on the severity of the preceding wet season many areas can be off limits, which leads disappointed visitors to name the park "Kaka-don't".  I can certainly see how frustrating it can be to travel long distances to a genuine wilderness area in a once in a life time journey and find yourself prevented from fully enjoying the experience.

We, however, fell firmly into the Kakadu (do) camp.  We loved our time there and found that we could explore heaps and yet still leave some to come back to some other time in the future.  There were plenty of free camps to take advantage of, and many, many interesting walks (some ranger led) to enjoy.  It is the sort of experience that demands you get out of your car and explore.  This maybe why some people drive in and then drive out believing that there is not much to do or see there.

Ubir

We approached Kakadu from the northern end as we were coming from Darwin.  First stop for us was a wetlands walk at Malabanjbanjdju. We camped here for a few nights while we had a look around the northern part of Kakadu.  We dropped in on the Bowali waters visitors centre.

Ubir Rock

On the 27 June we stopped at Ubir Rock and explored the area.  The views were absolutely magnificent. There was a lot of rock art there, and it was all in amazing condition. Anna the ranger gave us very interesting insights into the rock and the aboriginal art that we were looking at.

view from Ubir

Gumlom

On the 28th we packed up camp and dropped into Jabiru to shop for supplies.  Jabiru is the commercial centre of Kakadu, where you find normal town amenities like a supermarket, petrol station, and town library. Then on our way south we visited the cultural centre.  There was a lot to look at there. Our destination for camp was Gumlom, in the southern part of Kakadu.  There we met Steve's parents, Pat and Eric, and two of their bushwalking friends Mary and Ray.

Koolpin Gorge

While staying at Gumlom we were very lucky to be able to access a special permit only area called Koolpin Gorge.

Koolpin

View down Koolpin Gorge

 Ray had a key, so we accessed the walk up the gorge and enjoyed the most magnificent views.  It was a very beautiful place and we had it to ourselves for a day, spectacular.

Rock pools at the top of waterfall walk

Back to reality and the rest of the tourists, over the next few days we enjoyed the regular sites with the rest of the crowds. The waterfall walk at Goomlom revealed gorgeous rock pools at the top of a steep, rocky climb.
Steve, Evan and I walked to the south Alligator river via Murril swamp.
Local Aboriginal rangers ran hands on information sessions, showing basket weaving and damper making.  It was a lovely experience, sitting back in the sunshine, trying our hand at local handicraft.

Sandy Billabong

Rock Art Nouralange

On the first of July we packed up camp from Gumlom and headed to Sandy Billabong.  On the way we stopped at Cooinda for lunch.  The campsite at Sandy Billabong was beautiful, tucked right next to the billabong.  The moon rising over the billabong was serene. But as the night wore on the tranquility and quietness turned a little sinister as I lay in our tent trying to sleep. Knowing our proximity to the billabong (eek crocodiles) and the parks reputation for dingoes, every noise outside had me imagining the most horrible and grizzly deaths I would endure as the thin nylon of my tent was going to offer no protection against the sharp fangs of these marauding predators.  Ah to wake up alive the next day, what a blessing.

 Nouralange Rock

Nouralange Rock

On the 2nd of July we visited Nouralange Rock and had lunch at Anbangbang Billabong. Our lunch consisted of vege sausages barbequed over paperbark.

Rock art Nouralange

Rock rt Nouralange

 The rock art at Nouralange was not quite as extensive as Ubir. But we climbed the lookout and discovered some very interesting rock art that was a bit off the beaten track.  It was really interesting and looked like it told a story.  The style was a bit different to the art work we had seen before, so it would have been wonderful to have an interpreter to tell us of its significance.  The view from the top of Nouralange Rock was great as you can see in the photo.

View from Nouralange

Lookout

Diary Entry 2/7/07
Even those who really love Kakadu still find the mozzies a problem. For us they haven't been too bad - The cold nights have substantially reduced the mozzie numbers. That's a good thing as it means we can enjoy being outside without being annoyed by buzzing, biting critters.

Jim Jim Falls

Jim Jim falls

Jim Jim Falls

Jim Jim Falls were not easy to get to, but were certainly worth it once we did.  It involved a rocky scramble to the falls base.  The falls were very tall and very impressive.  It was also nice and cool down in the ravine.  From the end of the track, another rocky scramble takes you across to a sandy beach where you can have a swim in a plunge pool.  Here, the water is freezing!

Diary Entry 3/7/07
We have had so long in Kakadu, but it doesn't feel like we have been here that long at all.  We have really enjoyed everything we have done - the fantastic scenery, amazing rock art and interesting walks.  There is still so much we could do too, but we will have to save it for another day and another trip.  I would definitely like to come back again, this is a GREAT PLACE!!!!

Our Campsite at Sandy Billabong started to get a bit busy and popular, so we decided that it was time to pack up camp and move on.  The kids had a ball playing at the billabong, running and jumping down the sandhill.  We wet our feet in the cool running creek, and Evan managed to lose his thongs, as they floated out into the main river.  Steve had to try and fish them out.  I was expecting a crocodile to come a long and snap them before Steve could capture them.  There was no such
excitement, however.
On our way back past our old camp site at Sandy Billabong, we saw a dingo prowling around looking for food scraps.  We had had our rubbish bag plundered a few days ago and weren't sure it it was by birds or a dingo.  Looks like it may have been a dingo.  I am just glad that they are too shy to try and plunder while we are there.
On our way out of Kakadu, we stopped at Cooinda for fuel.  Then we sadly left Kakadu proper and stopped at Mary River Roadhouse for a lunch of hot chip sandwiches. After lunch it was onward to Katherine and the next leg of our fantastic family adventure.

Red Claw

We reluctantly moved on from Mackay and started what really marked the beginning of our grand adventure, heading west into central Queensland, the gateway to the outback.  This was the bit that I had been looking forward to, heading towards unchartered territory.  As it turned out, you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere unchartered in Australia, indeed, anywhere even particularly far from civilisation.  I didn't know that then, though.  This was still yet to be discovered on the eve of our exciting adventure.

Again, my diary entries are fairly ho hum.  I noted that we had lunch at Nebo on 14 April. I described it as a small historic town. I wrote that we had passed mining shanty towns along the Peak Downs highway.  I certainly remember seeing fully laden coal trains thundering toward the coast to fill all of those waiting tankers that we noticed lurking off the coast at Mackay and Rockhampton.  I do remember remarking at the time that it was like we (Australia) were desperately digging up our coal and exporting it to China as fast as we possibly could.

On the night of the 14th we camped at Teresa Creek Dam. The only things I noted in my diary about this location was that there was mobile phone reception behind our tent, a spot light and that there were many drunk campers, loud music and revelry.  I can't now remember why I put a reference in about a spot light, but I do remember the bit about the only mobile phone reception being behind our tent.  This was not definitely to our advantage, as it wasn't us who used the opportunity to catch up on mobile phone calls, but every man, woman and child in the place. As is always the case with mobile phone conversations, they are never quiet as it seems necessary to yell down the phone.  We found ourselves privy to many private conversations over the course of the night, I wish that I had written some them down!  I am guessing by the revelry and loud music, we decided that even at $5 a night it wasn't worth hanging around, so we continued onto Lake Maraboon to stay at Fairbairn Dam.

We stayed at Fairbairn Dam for three nights and tried out a bit of fishing and hunting for redclaw.  Both Evan and I made diary entries about this.  Redclaw is a kind of yabby and is delicious.  people come from far and wide to trap redclaw, after tasting it we could see why.

Steve and Evan caught a Red Claw today. They put Alan's Opera House trap in Fairbairn Dam last night and retrieved it this morning.

Steve got abused last night by an old codger who thought he needed a lesson in campsite etiquette. Fancy driving through the campsite at 7.30pm!  Steve seems to have a way of upsetting people. 

Evan's Entry:

One day dad and Harry went down to look at good places to catch big red claw.

Late at night me and dad put in the red claw trap

In the morning we took the red claw trap out and there was a red claw.

The next night the whole family came. Dad threw the red claw trap about twenty yards.

In the morning me and dad went down and pulled out the red claw trap. 

And instead of one red claw there were..............................................................................

three red claw. 

2007 Travel diary: Day 1

 Pre-trip

I have found some of our diary entries from our 2007 Australian trip.  I have already posted two letters here and here that I wrote from Darwin which give a snap shot from the middle of the trip.  I home schooled the kids while we were travelling and a part of our lessons was to encourage them to write about their experiences.  I remember that at times it felt like trying to get blood out of a stone.  Steve wrote extensively, going through a couple of books.  I believe he intends to write his notes up onto his blog at some stage.  I was a slow starter, probably because I was riding the kids trying to get them to write.  About the time that I picked up writing, they seemed to ease off.  I thought that I'd share some of our (Evan, Sarah and my) writings here.

Okay firstly my entry for 21/3/07...boring!!!lol.
pack clothes
medical supplies
kitchen goods - curry pwd, mixed herbs, salt, pepper, vegemite, peanut butter, tea, coffee. Whisk, metal bowl, silicon bowl.
Leave for trip
Harry - Preschool/ homework
Sarah - maths book pages
Evan - maths book pages
Lunch @ KFC $36.00
Casino - shopping -woollies, petrol
Set up camp Border Ranges.

Thrilling, huh?

Evan hasn't got an entry for this day, but Sarah wrote quite a bit:

Day 1 Wednesday 21st March 21/3/07

Dear Diary

Day 1 and we're off. FINALLY. It took us ages and ages to pack and get everything ready. Mum had to vacuum all the rooms then mop the hard floors as well.  It was 1:15 by the time we were on the road and then we went and got lunch at KFC. It was well into the afternoon before we got to Casino.

I finished 2 pages in my maths book on the way here and I watched most of EMMA on our portable DVD player.

I helped to put up the tent and set up camp.

Next to us is a couple from Texas. You can tell they are from America because of their accents. They are very nice and talk to us. They said goodbye when they left this morning.

Last night I had a good sleep except that I didn't get to read so it was hard to get to sleep. I had to get up a few times and go to the dark stinky pit toilet.

We had bacon and eggs for breakfast, but I didn't eat much because I don't eat much at breakfast.

I hope this will be fun

The Borders N.P. NSW

The trip begins. New hairdos

Caption on the back of the photo reads: 1st Official Campsite Border Ranges NP

Here is our first video for the trip.