Jamboree 2010

We  had 2 of our children go to AJ2010, Sarah was 14 and Evan was 12.  Sarah was pretty laid back and confident about being away from home for almost 2 weeks. Evan being younger was a bit more nervous.  Evan called home regularly and tried to get Sarah to as well, but she was always far too busy.  As Jamboree headed toward its close, we started to think that Sarah did not miss us at all and she was far too busy having fun to be bothered contacting her parents, then we received this long missive from her. She had been busily writing it all through jamboree. It makes a great memento of the wonderful time that she had there. This is how it went......

1a
2/1/10
Dear Mum, Dad and Harry,
its only the first day here and already we're exhausted and have had some minor adventures. We all have our bags and stretchers safely back in our tents now, off ground in case water leaks in. After hardly sleeping a wink on those rock-hard bus seats and almost dieing (sic) from heat and hunger between breakfast and lunch as we slaved away at
1b
our tents, our stretchers are like heaven. Insects are definitely out in force, especailly (sic)  those tiny black ant (sic) who we had to firmly relocate from our tents, patrol boxes and kitchen gear. It was quite an itchy challenge taking everything out of the ant-hill/shipping container, which, I might add, needs a very good water proofing! The tents, too, are letting the edge of my
2a
stretcher become damp! And other troops, one not two sites away, have nylon dome tents! We have heavy leaky patrol tents that will easily let in another insect which is much more deadly than a black ant. I haven't seen one yet, but there are warning signs on the way into Cataract. Oh and I haven't told about the gateway. You'd have to be blind to miss it, 4 identical,
2b
massive concrete arches. I have a badge showing it. The weather has been balmy with random showers, and, just five minutes ago a thunder storm. Not much different from Coffs Harbour.
6/1/10
Its our fourth day here at cataract and the 2nd day of the official Jamboree. When we got here 4 days ago our campsite looked like a paddock with NSW camps
3a
dotted around. The, the next day, the spare spaces started to fill up and now we have to walk around on the paths between camps. On the 2nd we were allowed to walk around and the badge trading began.
As you walk along the main road between sub-camps you are asked which state your (sic) from by scouts wanting contingent badges. We've got our troop badge which is one of four from all the troops from North Coast NSW.
3b
All four, plus a region badge, join together to make a set. I have all the badges in that set.  I also have all the sub-camp badges, which make an octagon when put together, with Aquarius in the middle.  All the sub-camps are named after constellations. There is Andromeda, Gemini, Orion, Taurus, Aries, Leo, Pegasus, Aquarius and Scorpius. (sic)
Its really fun putting our troop pegs on peoples clothing without them noticing.
4a
We made these pegs yesterday and used them up yesterday. It says, "you have been bitten by the NC123 bat colony" and has a cute picture of a bat on the peg too. I am writing this on the bus to Jamberoo water park, where we will stay for the day. Last night was the opening ceremony. There was fireworks and a live band. Me and five friends from my troop got to a metre from the
4b
front row, where there was no room to move. Tonight's a rock night, though I don't think I'll have any voice left to scream with.
11/1/10
Jamberoo was great. The best ride was the Taipan. It was pitch black, in a raft, down 200m curving back and forth. Today is the 11th of January and more than halfway through Jamboree. I'm still tired and still having
5a
Fun. I miss you all loads!
The day after we went to Jamberoo we did adventurous activities. Our package included BMX, Challenge Valley and Laser Skirmish. BMX- I only went round the track 3 times but stacked twice. It was hard. Challenge Valley was run by venturers and was like a big commando course with mud and water in more than half the activities. By Laser Skirmish we were so tired, but it was fun.The day after that we had Endurance 2010. It lasted all day with 17 bases. We only had to do ten, we did 11. We skipped both the skirmishes in which you get died (sic) red with water. One of my favourites was rock climbing. There was also abseiling, mega board games, a maze & first aid.
We almost missed the bus out.
The day after, we did Brownsea Island. It re-enacted some of the activities @ the first scout camp. We did animal tracking, knotting nets & Law & Promise, and Pioneering. That afternoon we went 2 Cirque du Scout. That was awesome. We painted each others faces, practised 4 types of juggling & did trampolining.
Two days ago was market Day (Visitor Day) we had the day off to try and raise lunas (Jamboree Market Day Money). Vicki came and visited our camp. We were duty patrol that day. Our troop made an Emoo Steak stand and raised over 200 lunas.
Yesterday we went to water activities in Chowder Bay. There was canoeing, kiaking (sic), swimming, snorkelling, a ferry ride and a scenic walk. Candle was at the snorkelling base. The ferry ride was fun because we could go right on top and see all round Sydney Harbour.  Today we had another lot of adventurous activities. We had Waterslides, giant swing and high Ropes. The waterslide was just like the ones @ the Big Banana and the giant swing was awesome! I was pretty good @ high ropes though it was scary.
5b
Hope u are all well
Lots of Love,
Sarah



.......What an amazing letter that gave us so much detail about what she did at Jamboree. Three years later, at the beginning of this year, Evan got to Go to his second Jamboree, AJ2013.  From being one of the youngest last time, this time he was one of the oldest.  Gone was the nervous boy.  How many phone calls did we receive from him this time?
None.
How many letters home?
None

Not a single word, even though he knew he was going to have a baby brother or sister enter the world very soon, possibly even while he was away.
I am told it's a good sign if you don't hear from them, they are obviously having too great of a time.
From conversations with him when he got back, he did indeed have a ball, but with no written record I fear the details of his big adventure may become obscured by time.

Next it will be Harry's turn in 2016 to experience his first Jamboree, AJ2016.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfMKe-QwNNw

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.

Edith Falls

After collecting our mail from Katherine post office and doing a spot of shopping, we drove onto Edith Falls and set up camp on a beautiful green grassy lawn. The camper trailers and motorhomes were restricted to the gravel car park area.  But as we had a tent we were able to park our car close by and set our tent up on the grass. Very lovely.
It was so hot that we went for a swim in our clothes at about 5.50pm after we had finished setting up camp.

The following day we walked to the top of the falls and explored the rocks.  We had a swim.  Then after lunch we had another swim in the bottom pool.
That night the kids all got together with shovels and the like for a cane toad muster.  Many of the kids were from Darwin, so were used to this sort of thing.  They roamed the camping area looking for loitering cane toads and bopped them on the head.  Our kids found the sanctioned gratuitous violence against a living creature quite fun, though they were somewhat more conservative in their approach compared to the other kids.

Evan's diary entry is as follows:

Edith Falls

First at Edith Falls we looked at the lower swimming hole, but it was just so beautiful we couldn't stop ourselves, so we went in with our clothes on.
Edith Falls was a good place to swim.

Lost Cities

We only spent the one night at Borroloola before we packed up camp and headed to Cape Crawford.  We stopped along the way at a nature reserve to go on a walk and have a look at these fabled lost cities.  They were huge sandstone formations that looked very impressive.  They totally dwarfed us as we walked through them.  They were formed by sediment build up and compaction when the area was a sea many millions of years ago.

We fuelled up the car at Cape Crawford, Heartbreak Hotel.  Another roadhouse that was the stuff of legend, but still there was no alcohol to be had here either.

We got back on the Savannah Way and bounced our way through Limmen National Park (proposed) to Butterfly Springs.  It has a lovely waterfall, but loads and loads of mosquitoes.  It's a freeby, though, so we decided to camp 2 nights here.

Sunday saw us celebrate mothers' day with masses of mosquitoes that were, quite frankly, driving us crazy.  Such a shame for such a beautiful spot.  The car got a flat tyre here too.  We are quite aways from civilisation and being able to get it fixed quite yet.

We visited the Southern Lost City, another amazing place. We tried to get into the western Lost City but the road was too rough.  We needed to have started earlier in the day to make it all the way as the going was so slow.

Evan's Diary Entry:

Lost City

Today we're at the lost city.

When we were at the lost city I went ahead and got a big idea for my story as well as lots of little ideas for my story.

When I finished the bush walk I waited about 2 minutes before mum came back.

Then we waited 10 more minutes before Sarah came back.

The another 5 minutes for dad and Harry.

The southern lost city was quiet and it was very lost too.

Mt Isa

Well what can you say about Mt Isa?  What a disappointment for us.  Our family trip had been humming along beautifully up to this point. Then we pulled into the much fabled Mt Isa and found very little to recommend it.  It was busy, smelly, expensive, and as we were to later find out, a hot bed of crime.

I'll relate Evan's diary entry first as it quite succinctly sums up the place:

At Mount Isa we went to Sunset Top Tourist Park.  It was expensive.

We went to the library and found lots of crochet books to photocopy. But when we left we had our mobile phone stolen.  We also had Sarah's MP3 player, $91 and some other things stolen.

We left Mt Isa quickly.


My diary for Mt Isa:

3/5/07
We packed up camp and arrived in Mt Isa. We are not overly impressed with the town.  The Information Centre ladies took one look at me and announced that absolutely no way can we bush camp in Mt Isa, we must stay at a caravan park.

We booked in at Sunset Caravan Park.  It has a pool which is good, because it is quite hot.  Once again tent campers are shoved down the back on dodgy ground with no tap and the furtherest away from the camp kitchen and pool.  Ironically it is the campers who are the ones who use the camp kitchen facilities, but they are always the ones sited the furtherest away.  Well, at least we had shade for most of the day.

We went shopping for Steve's birthday....

4/5/07

Steve's 41st Birthday

We had bacon and eggs for brekkie and cooked a cake for Steve in the camp kitchen gas oven.  Well tried to anyway, but managed to burn it instead.

The park has an air conditioned room with a TV.  We watched Eragon, Evan bought the DVD yesterday.  Both Sarah and Evan have been reading Eragon as we have been travelling.

We collected the mail and then went to the library. Just as it was starting to sound like a ho hum day, reading mail, writing emails, photocopying some crochet books; drama unfolded when we discovered that Sarah's little handbag had been stolen!  Sarah had recently had a birthday and she was loaded up with birthday money from her newly opened mail.  She had $91 and an MP3 player in her bag that was stolen.  We searched the library to no avail.

Later that afternoon, I discovered that my mobile phone was missing.  We realised that this too must have been stolen while were at the library.  We tried calling it but it was out of credit.  The buggers had used up all $30 of credit on it.

We reported the thefts to the police but they held very little hope that we would ever find our goods again.  I'm pretty sure that once we walked out of the door they filed our complaint under B for bin.

We decided that Mt Isa was not the place for us so we decided to pack up and move on fairly quickly once we had replenished our camping supplies.

It seems that we were so underwhelmed with Mt Isa that we don't even seem to have any photos of our time there.  Maybe it's a good thing, because if we had have gotten our camera out it too might have been stolen.

On Sunday the 6th we packed up and left Mt Isa for Riversleigh fossils.  We had a short walk through some fossils, there was not much to see really.  It showcased giant crocodiles and thunderbirds that lived around 20 million years ago - the period of mega fauna after the dinosaurs had died out.

We continued on our journey and will continue in the next blog about what happened when we got to Adele's Grove at Lawn Hill.

Jericho

Back to the travel diary......

Our next stop on our trip was Jericho. I actually  wrote quite a bit over the days that we stayed there.  I must have been starting to get into this diary writing thing.  Evan has a diary entry for Jericho too.

The first night that we stayed at Jericho we camped at the showgrounds.  It was okay, but not that nice.  The caretaker of the showgrounds suggested that we try camping at the river Jordan.  Yes that's right, Jericho is situated on the river Jordan.

Dawn at the River Jordan, Jericho Qld

Don't you love Aussie humour?  I'm not sure which one was named first, but it just follows that if you have a town and a river they would be matched in that way.

We did enjoy our night at the showgrounds, the caretaker had a horse called Tru Blue that he let Sarah ride.  She loved it.

The following day, we checked out another river as a possible camping spot while we were visiting Barlcaldine.  We didn't like it as much as Redbank on the river Jordan, so we returned to Jericho for the night.  Barcaldine was the birth place of the Australian Labor Party and we visited the tree of knowledge.  The tree is now quite dead, from an alleged poisoning so I'm not so sure what that says about knowledge or the Australian Labor Party.

On April 20 it was Sarah's birthday and I wrote this in my diary:

We are writing a fictional account about our travels. We are on a quest and each place that we visit on our actual journey forms part of the fictional journey.
For example, yesterday we visited Barcaldine. It is the home of the tree of knowledge, named because the shearers had a meeting under the tree in the 1800's and set off the shearer's strike.  It was the catalyst for the formation of the Labor party.

The original tree still stands, but is now dead.
In our story, our quest takes us to 'Banky' to discover the secrets hidden by the tree of knowledge.  Only we are too late because our enemies have beaten us to the tree and killed it. Its knowledge  will forever remained locked and never be revealed to us.  We are forced back to Jericho for a second night to plan where our quest should continue from here.

We all started writing our own versions of this story.  I am yet to find any of them, but I know that they are (ironically) hidden in the house somewhere.  I would like to sit down one day and write the actual fictional adventure.  I just need to find my original writings, wherever they maybe.

I remember celebrating Sarah's birthday with a campfire cooked dinner.  Part way through the meal the local constabulary came down to see what we were up to.  They were happy that we were a family and meant no harm.  I think some wild parties have been held in that location from time to time.  We also enjoyed yabbying (this time for blue clawed ones) in the river and did quite well catching a few.

The next day in Jericho, we went to the drive in theatre, the smallest drive in theatre ever, I think.  We saw Flicker and A Night at the Museum.

On Sunday, we packed up camp and planned on traveling to Longreach.  We had heard about a campsite on the Thompson River that allowed you up to 4 nights free camping.  We stopped at Barcaldine on the way for shopping and a historic walk.  Unfortunately we decided that we didn't like the Thompson River campsite.  There were too many motorhomes, (remember we were tent camping) too much gravel and not enough shade.  We didn't like the Longreach campgrounds either. There was no grass, no shade, and was really expensive.  We back tracked to Ilfracombe caravan park.
Ilfracombe will be the subject of the next blog.

Evan wrote about Jericho by the river Jordan -drive in theatre:

Tonight we went to the drive in theatre and watched Flicka and night at the museum.

Flicka was about a girl who wanted a wild black horse. And her dad wouldn't let her have the horse. But every night she sneaked out at night and trained her, and named her Flicka.  She lost Flicka and the movie showed how she got her back.

And .... night at the museum was about a man getting a new job which was night guard at the museum.  At night all the animals and statues came to life because of the tablet. One night something went wrong and he saved the animals and statues.

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. 

Bunya Mountains

Yesterday, I started to blog about our 2007 trip around Australia. Since then Sarah has reclaimed her travel diary, declaring that she will be the one to publish her writing.  That leaves me with just my own diary entries, my memories and Evan's diary.  At this point he shows little inclination to start blogging himself even though he is a fabulous writer.
After spending a full day in the Border Ranges we packed up camp and travelled to the Bunya Mountains via Toowoomba.  South East Queensland was in the grip of a severe drought and this fact was evident as we travelled through the countryside to Toowoomba.  Toowoomba was dangerously close to running out of water and were investigating the possibly of reclaiming sewage as a source of water.  Ironically, a few years into the future in 2011 this arid valley was to be the scene of devastating floods that would roar down towards Brisbane and inundate huge areas of that city.

See to the right how dry the valley is

As we approached the NSW/Queensland border we travelled up Lions Road and saw the spiral loop railway. It is an amazing construction that enables the rail line to spiral up a steep slope that would normally be too much of a gradient for a train to mount.

We loved the Bunya Mountains and, in particular, the Bunya nuts.  They were huge and delicious, like great big pine nuts.  We tried them prepared in a couple of ways, boiled like potatoes and roasted with melted butter, yum.

The trees themselves are magnificent, as are the hoop pines. The forests are tall, dark and peaceful, and lend themselves to exploration and long walks.

 We did a few walks while we were there as well as visiting the main tourist area where we fed the King Parrots.

Evan wrote in his diary about the Bunya Mountains:

25.3.07
On Sunday we went to Paradise Parking.  We went on some walks like the Paradise Falls walk.

On one of the walks we got to walk under a big fig.
On the big falls lookout walk we saw a green snake that wouldn't move so we decided to go to Dandabar for lunch. I had calamari and chips and lift for a drink.

Then we had to take the long walk back.

Read some of Sarah's account here.
I am slowly adding our Australia trip to you tube.  Here is the one for our Bunya Mountains stint.