Time to head South

Well our time is up at Jondaryan and Lucille has been given the all clear to travel home so we have hooked up and packed up ready to head off early tomorrow morning.

They removed the plaster from Lucille's arm on Thursday and took out the 23 staples from the wound, she was a bit nervous when I told her that the staples bend right over and take a fair pull to get out! She survived but her arm very sore and was pleased to get a new cast back on to support the broken bones, will have cast off at home and x-ray again, they might have to operate again, will make that decision in a months time.

 

Of course you all know that Lucille loves to sit still and do nothing but with her right arm out of action it is not pleasing her much at all but she does make a good supervisor!

 

The staff at Jondaryan presented us with a framed photo of the Woolshed today, wished us well and told us to return again soon,  we certainly appreciated  the gesture and hopefully in the future we will return.

 

 

 

Miss Lucille

God Bless our Health System

Well it was decided that Lucille's broken bones needed plates and screws attached so surgery was scheduled for last Wednesday, we arrived at the appointed time of 7.30am and waited and waited and were sent home a bit after lunch time as her op had been cancelled and told to return Thursday morning at 6.30am which we did, at lunchtime they suggested I go home as there was delays and op would be late afternoon, Lucille rang to say they wanted to send her home via a taxi but she said " no way am I leaving here till my operation is done"! They let her stay, they had no beds but they put her up in a red cross unit across the road from the hospital.
So at day break here's Lucille in her hospital night attire walking back over the road to take up her seat in the waiting room again.......well at 9.30pm that night she finally got in and after a couple of hours surgery she was finally done!
Lucille had a lovely surprise when her best friend Jenny and her Husband David drove up from Brisbane to visit her in hospital, she was so happy to have them, thanks guys.

I was able to pick her up at lunchtime on Sunday and she was certainly pleased to see the back of that place! The hospital did try and smooth over the pains of it all by not charging for the Red Cross Unit, for waiving our Private Health Cover excess for the other night, free parking and free coffee from the cafe, bugger forgot to use those!

So now we both back at Jondaryan, I had a very busy three days at  the Jackie Howe Shearing Festival, had over 13,000 people here and it was a great success and the Tassie shearers and wool handlers did us proud by winning a lot of the events, most of them were from the Carrick area.

Lucille is coping ok, mainly due to the amount of drugs she is taking, her arm is still quite sore and she is very tired most of the time but today she showed her true colours by agreeing to play school Maam in period costume and took three classes of primary school kids who are camped here for three days, she did well but was glad to get back to her bed this afternoon.

She has a check up next Wednesday and if all ok we will hit the road and head South, if not all ok, well we will do what we need to do to get her fixed up.

Cheers for now
Chris & Lucille

Back at The Woolshed

We have now returned back to Jondaryan, a long drive back over the goat tracks and highways of Queensland and the N.T. It was a 7,000km "side" trip but it was worth it to catch up with Stuart and Alex.

Like everyone else we have seen lots of road kill on our travels but by far the worst we have seen was on the way back, a three trailer road train full of cattle had ran off the road and overturned, not sure how the driver was but sure was a lot of wasted steaks lining the roadside.

 

Apart from one night in a caravan park at Mt Isa we free camped the rest of the way home and found a couple of real good ones, one even had grass and no RED DUST.

 

We soon got back back into the groove here at the Woolshed but on Saturday night it all came unstuck when Lucille decided to try and upstage Sue and her medical problems...she was talking to horses that were outside our van and as she moved away tripped over the annexe guy rope and fell over and landed on the point of her right elbow and managed to brake both her main bones in her forearm, this was 9.30pm rang the nearest Hospital and they advised an ambulance which we got and eventually they  arrived and administered some morphine, much to the relief of Lucille as she was in extreme agony, so a long night at the hospital followed, the x rays showed one bone badly fractured and the other broken and moved so they put Lucille in the land of the nod and reset the bone and put on a temporary cast, we finally got out of there about noon on Sunday.

 

Back to see the bone Doc tomorrow to organise when they will operate as they still have to put some pins in, hopefully it will be Wednesday or Thursday. At the moment she is pretty comfortable thanks to the mix of painkillers that she is taking.

 

Sooo that makes me the cook and bottle washer, personal hygiene controller and dresser/undresser, so far we are coping ok and of course Lucille being Lucille she is already starting to do some things, her left hand writing is not real flash though.

 

Things are very busy here at Jondaryan as the Jackie Howe Festival and Golden Shears Competition is on this weekend, most of the staff reckon Lucille has gone a bit over board just to get out of working at the weekend.

 

Anyway more updates will follow in due course

More Happy Snaps

Kalkaringi!!!!

G'day everyone, hope you are all well, we have been here at Kalkaringi now for a week and its been great to catch up with Stuart and his girlfriend Alex, the weather is nice, high 20's to low 30's most days but cool overnight which makes sleeping much better, not that sleeping is easy mind you with most nights mobs of dogs roaming the streets and fighting and barking non stop for hours and their owners don't seem to notice and every house has at least 3 or 4 dogs plus cats, they are a real menace but look out if you harm any of them, then it's "payback" time!

Did I tell you the weather is nice (although the wind is blowing hard most days) and it's good to be spending time with the kids, oh and the rivers and fishing holes are just beautiful, we have had picnics on the river banks and did lots of fishing but so far no luck.

On our way here we mostly free camped along the way but did have a few days stop over at Mt Isa and Katherine where we met up with Stuart and Alex, they had been in Melbourne for a week with sixteen school kids and a few other teachers and flew back to Darwin then drove their school bus down to Katherine, had a night there and then home to Kalkaringi last Monday with us following along, the roads pretty good, turned south off the Victoria Highway onto the Buntine, dual lane till we got to Top Springs, didn't see any springs but there was a roadhouse/pub and diesel for $2.20!
The next 170k's was single lane and pretty ordinary but the scenery was very good and in places we could see for miles, light scrub and grass everywhere, this is cattle country at it best.

We did not expect to much of Kalkaringi and we were not dissappointed, lots of dust, lots of rubbish everywhere, lots of unkept houses and as mentioned earlier, dogs on the roads, there is one shop that sells basis supplies and fuel, $2.30 here, a Health Centre, School, Arts Centre, Police Station, Council Chambers and Depot, Solar operated Power Station, Airport for light arcraft (a one way ticket to Katherine is $2,000.00) and a "Club" that opens nightly at 5.00pm, dress code is shorts, shirt and thongs, you have to sign in and you must have at least $20 in your pocket, we went last Friday, it was quite busy as it was "pay" day, no children are allowed in so they play outside the fence and keep yelling to mum to by them some tucker which if they are successful is duly tossed over the fence to them, the battle for food for kids here is a real problem especially in school holidays, on school days they are fed if they attend classes, a pretty good insentive to go.

Apart from dogs there is also mobs of wild donkeys and horses wandering all over the place, Lucille heard a disturbance one night and as Lucille does went to investigate and several brumbies wandering around our van so they were duly evicted to the street.

A few k's North of Kalkaringi is another community called Daguragu, we went for one drive there, won't bother going back

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas big brunch and hot evening meal of pork, ham vegies and all the trimmings followed by plum pudding and various other deserts, we had a great day.

So back to the highlights of the place, catching up with our family, Christmas Celebrations and our river bank picnics.

"On the road again" and ain't it a rough one!

We finally pulled up stumps and left Jondaryan Woolshed on Wednesday morning, it was a little sad to be leaving but also exciting to be travelling again especially as we are now heading for the N.T. to visit with Stuart, our youngest son and his girlfriend Alex, will be great to catch up with them...and hopefully the Barra are biting in the Victoria River!

The staff at Jondaryan made a public presentation of flowers to Lucille at morning tea time on Tuesday, she was a little chuffed! and Lucille being Lucille had also bought flowers for them! A women's thing I reckon, anyway was great to be appreciated and to be asked back again in the future, time will tell.

Wednesday we drove to Morven where we camped at the local Recreation Ground, very nice with good showers and toilets for a $5 donation for the night, about 30 vans camped there and you may stay a maximum of one week.

Today we travelled from Morven through Augathella, Tambo, Blackall, Barcaldine, Longreach and finally bedded down for the night at a roadside camp at Morella, about 60k's N.W. of Longreach, only about four vans here tonight.

Weather has been good the last two days as we have finally got some warmer temperatures, around 28degree mark.
All going well but know wonder the Queensland Govt. is going broke as every road we travel on is damaged from the floods and are laying in a state of disrepair or they are being worked on and in some cases the old roads abandoned and new ones being made.

As you might have gathered we are not doing a lot of touristy things on this leg of our journey, a bit of a bolt to the Territory.

Any way laptop nearly out of battery and no power here so thats it fior now
Cheers Chris

Ps To Harry and Cal, great to have a chat the other night, hope to talk again soon