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

Waltzing Matilda Centre

Just a bit more info on Ned Winter who I wrote about in my last post, just the other day I found out that Ned is the voice of the narration at the Winton Waltzing Matilda Centre, I'm sure many of you have heard it.

"Ned's Corner"

Today we had a thick frost, heavy fog but eventually a beautiful sunny day, just right for a drive so Lucille and I went with Geoff and Anne Lees, who have been here with us for several days and headed off to Cecil Plains, Millmerran, Pittsworth and back to Jondaryan, drove for many miles through the flat farming land of the Darling Downs, have not seen so much cotton before in my life, it was everywhere.

The main destination of our drive was to "Ned's Corner", this place is owned by Ned Winter and we got to know him here at Jondaryan where he has been a volunteer worker and entertainer since the early 80's, (I have repaired a couple of his whips, one a 22 foot bullock whip) his property, "Ned's Corner" is a 1700acre farm that he and his wife developed over many years into a tourist business centred around camping on the property and camp oven cooking, especially damper and stew cooking, the "cookhouse" is a large bough shed that will accommodate large bus groups and they are fed and entertained by Ned and his helpers, it is full of Australiana "stuff", photos and Ned's Poems, they have now closed the bus tours and plan to sell the property and retire next year.
Geoff asked Ned if he had any stock on the property, he thought for a moment and replied, "well you must have seen the couple hundred Roo's as you drove in", which we did, they were everywhere, "oh and we have two camels out there somewhere" he said,; the roos are here because he has built protective fences to preserve the wildlife and they have a free run of the place, the camels are here to eat the prickly pear and apparently they do an excellent job of it.
Anyway Ned cooked us a very nice damper for lunch and we washed it down with billy tea and spent a few hours listening to his stories(of which he has many), poems, singing and guitar playing, he really is a character. He is also the instigator and first organiser of the Great Australian Camp Oven Cooking Competition that is held very year at Millmerran, the first year he had three teams and a handful of spectators, last year they have over 7,000 spectators and many of them camped on and around the showgrounds for the festival.

We are all ok except for Lucille who managed to slip over while walking down a ramp from the verandah of the dining room, quite a few sore bits and and a skun arm, not happy...see photo.

Won't be long now before we head for the N.T. to catch up with Stuart and Alex, at this stage plan to leave here on the 25th July, spend a few weeks there then back here at the end of August to be here for the Jackie Howe Golden Shears festival, it is expected to be a huge event, for those that are like me and not into sheep, Jackie Howe was a famous hand shearer who held shearing records for many years and he is also famous for inventing the "Bluey" singlet, he told his mum that the sleeves of his flannel was to hot and could she cut them out, she did and the idea caught on.

The photo below is a camp oven that holds 45lbs of flour/damper mixture

We are still here

Hello everyone, thought I better report in and let you know that we are still alive and well, there has not been much to report this last few weeks, we have won the mice war which is nice but we are still leaving our traps set just in case.

The weather has been freezing the last few days, heavy frosts, sunny days but very cold Southerly winds, at least it has stopped raining. (I guess it's not cold in Hobart Pete/Kate?)

The other night a couple of stray dogs ran amock with some of the farm breeding sheep, killing a couple and seriously injuring quite a few others, the staff not happy, especially when the Council Ranger caught the dogs and advised that the owners would most likely have them back by the next day.

Will update again soon

Cheers Chris

Mice Battle Continues

Austins now three, cat one (Lucille now likes the cat!)

First Blood to us

Yesssss, one mouse to us..........just a paddock full to go!

Mice Update Score

Mice = 1 bag of biscuits, 1 bag jelly beans and a hole through my lunch bag!

         = Bonus point for the mice: while I was doing demonstrations on the School House  verandah  a mouse got in the previously chewed hole and when I opened my bag to get a drink out he leapt out, bounded off my arm and was gone in a flash.

Mice Hunters (us) =  Two traps - None caught



The Vermin Wars Begin!

Well it had to happen the mice have finally managed to break into the van, much to the disgust of Lucille, much cleaning and searching this morning followed by a trip to town to buy traps etc.
I suggested we toss in one of the farm cats to hunt 'em out but that did not go down well.

Had a great day yesterday doing whip making demo's to a group of over 100 people, they were all School of the Air students, there parents and teachers, they had a fun day and really enjoyed my demonstrations and whip cracking.

The warm weather is still with us and the sunsets have been pretty special as well, not bad having happy hour around the camp fire as we watch the sun set.

Horse Expo

Well have just finished a very busy long weekend here at Jondaryan, the property staged the working horse expo that attracted lots of people and more importantly lots of working horses.

The weather cracked up today and has rained for most of it.

I missed a lot of the horse demonstrations as I was busy doing whip making demos, talking to hundreds of people and selling whips etc., very tired but happy with the result.

The Hugo's are still here and have enjoyed the weekend and are now staying till Thursday, great to have their company.

Hello to everyone at home and safe travelling to others on the road, to  Athol and Doreen hope you are enjoying your new van.

The wet and cold weather here has the local field mice seeking shelter wherever they can....like in John and Kathies annexe, under the bonnet of their car, in our annexe, Lucille even found one half way up the screen door(on the outside) she actually believed me when i said that the mice would not be able to jump up the step!!!!!

One day the waste water was not draining away so Lucille went to investigate and pulled the sullage hose of for a look see and sure enough a little gray fellow jammed up it, she is becoming very nervous!

She is scared of a little mouse but looks up at the draught horse that towers over her and gives them a dressing down when they attack her washing, doesn't make much sense really.

Thats it for now catch you all soon

ps Thinking of poor Brian with his cat and dog problems and now the weather has turned nasty on him to!

A couple of pics from the expo

Hugo's Here

Cold windy day today but the afternoon was brightened by the arrival of John and Kathie Hugo, good to have old friends here to chat with and enjoy happy hour with of course!
Speaking of happy hour I have heard on th egrapevine that our Caravan Club has relaxed our rules a bit since we left....happy hour at 4.30pm!!!! Cheers I like it!

The Jondaryan Woolshed

Friends arrived today

Has been very windy here today, the worst we have had, also quite cool but it has also been a very good day as Graeme and Leslie Coogan have arrived and are staying for a few days, its good to catch up with friends from home.

We also have our friends the Stevens and Bassetts from Brisbane staying here with us for three days.

Forecast is for rain tomorrow, hope they are wrong.

Cheers for now

Just have to love the locals!

One of our towels after a draught horse used it for a handkerchief!

They also love guy ropes apparently

Freezing Here!!!

Had a couple of very cold mornings, 4 degrees and a stiff breeze, supposed to warm up again on Wednesday.

Jan and Ron moved on this morning, heading West and not sure where they will end up but they now have a GPS so wherever they go they will be able to find it!

To Tony and Sue I have an email reporting your blog post but for some reason it is not appearing on the blog, anyway Lucille says we sill stick to the coffee machine. Depending on type of whip it takes from one to three days, for me anyway! Oh and happy birthday to you both and pleased to hear the Kings Meadows Cuisine is up to your standards!

All the best to "The Coffee Club" guess this Wednesday is the last for awhile?

To all the people packed ready to travel, go and unpack all that stuff that you think you might need!

Look forward to seeing some of you soon.

Resting up

Have spent the last few days resting up, I have done some whip making demo's on the old school back verandah and Lucille caught up with our washing, nice and quiet here in the park now.

We took the Storays for a drive today to Toowoomba, had to get a few things, the girls got some bargains!! from Lincraft and Spotlight, I have an order for two red hide whips so had to buy more leather, $320 later and I had half a bullock hide, maybe have to sell a few more whips I think! Had lunch in town, back to van for afternoon tea/happy hour.

Heritage Festival

A very hectic three days involvement here with the Jondaryan Heritage Festival is now over, Loved every minute of it!

Had a great time with all the other volunteers (well over one hundred of us) Lucille spent all her time helping the camp cook Audrey feed us all, she was in the kitchen by 5.30am and not back to the van till after washing up the tea dishes, some very long days and all the cooking done on two very old wood fired ovens in a bough shed, only traditional stuff here!

My time was divided between helping run the camp oven stew stand and working in the whip plaiters demonstration shed, it was great to meet some of the other members of the whip plaiters association that I am a member off, only a couple of us in Tasmania but this area has many members and they meet on a regular basis to run workshops etc.

On Saturday night we had a BBQ followed by a bush dance in the wool shed, the place was packed to the rafters and a great night, everyone joining in with the dancing and all the kids had a great time as did the adults, in fact the whole weekend has been a wonderful family event, we can highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

On Monday Jan and Ron arrived, good to see some friends from home, today we had happy hour and tea together compliments of left over catering food that was given to Lucille.

Looking forward to a day off tomorrow, the Storays and us are going for a drive to Nobby and will have lunch at the pub there that is famous for being the pub where Steele Rudd used to frequent and write most of his material for the Dad and Dave serials and his books.

The weather has been mostly very good, sunny days and not to hot, in fact we have had a couple of frosty mornings, quite chilly, making us feel right at home!

Jondaryan Heritage Festival

Start of the Grand Parade

 Didn't like the stew

Couple of my whipmaker peers at the festival

The kids had a great time

Some of our sale items - above and below

Main Entrance to Jondaryan Wool Shed

Camp oven stew

Had a couple of showers today but they did not last very long and the sun was soon out again, I soon got a sweat up digging a couple of post holes!!! The things we do on holidays. They are looking after us well here though at Jondaryan Woolshed, morning teas of scones and damper, hot lunches all provided, lucky we are doing lots of walking to work all this food off!

Two of Lucille's quilts and a couple of my belts were sold from the shop today, it's good to be not spending money and actually making some for a change.
Did some whip repairs as well today and more whips coming tomorrow so all looking well at the moment.

Cheers for now Chris and Lucille

Long Drive

Big drive today, hooked up the van and travelled about 100 metres from the caravan park to the creek paddock, still have power and water and a  much better view, some of the neighbours are a bit cheeky though, I left the car door open and a draught horse decided to have a look inside and give my steering wheel a good licking!

Put most of mine and Lucille' goods in the shop today, hopefully we will sell a bit of gear.

Did some volunteering this morning setting up power boxes and power outlets for all the campers that will be arriving here over the coming days, it is a long weekend here and the Woolshed is having its annual Heritage festival over the three days.

The view from our annexe

 "Friends"



Some Pics

Caravan Park @ Jondaryan Woolshed

Queen Mary Falls

           Our Brisbane "Park" note Landlord landscaping our site!

Now I can use ALL the lanes!

It's Been Raining!

Not a lot to report over the last few days, we have just been enjoying our time here with our friends, we went for a drive one day to have a look at a caravan park and some waterfalls, it rained for all of the day, did over 400k’s over some very narrow and winding roads to have our picnic lunch huddled under a small shelter trying to keep warm and out of the rain. The rain got the better of us and we moved to a small café for coffee and sweets.

The falls are called the Queen Mary Falls and are not far north east of Warwick, we followed the GPS and it took us up the Great Divide via the back roads, we returned to Brisbane via Cunningham’s Gap which was a bit longer but a lot easier drive.

Today, Monday 30^th we have packed up and left Brisbane and travelled to the Jondaryan Woolshed, had a good  run up here, nice and sunny again after all the rain, even the climb up the “hill” to Toowoomba seemed easy today, a lot of trucks were slugging it out though.

All things mechanical are going ok with the car and van, the only failure has been the van door handle light cover disintegrated, new one only $7.50 so an easy fix.

Thursday 26th April

Well we had a very cool night, woke up quite cold but only took a couple of hours for the sun to warm up again, actually we had a beautiful day with a maximum temperature of 24 degrees.

Today Lucille and I visited our friends the Rowes, Dot and Barry live in a retirement village at Bethania, we spent most of the day with them and we all had a great lunch at the bowls club bistro, not only great food but also  very cheap as the prices are subsidised by the village owners.

Drove home in peak hour traffic that was a bit chaotic but we got there safely.
Yesterday I gave the car a bit of a birthday, changed the engine oil and gave it the once over, will get stuck into cleaning the van tomorrow.

Cool in Bris-Vegas

Bit chilly here in the suburbs this morning.....only 22 degrees! Oh I did notice that Launceston is only 13 degrees so I guess it's not to bad here.

Wellington Point - Brisbane

Have not done much since arriving in Brisbane, spending time with our friends, helping them set up their new caravan, eating and drinking to much of course, but life is good.

The weather has been around the 28-30 degree mark since we got here, lovely temperature when on holidays, not sure I would like to be working in it though, I washed the car one day and I ended up wetter than the car, but I was wet from sweat!

How do you like the justification Maree? Some time the font size is changing when  post for some reason, have to work on that one.

Glen Innes to Brisbane

Today, Friday the 20th Lucille and I departed Three Waters at Glen Innes, on the road by 7.00am travelling through thick fog that made for slow going, fortunately it lifted after about half an hour and it was a clear sunny day to Brisbane apart from one brief shower.

Near Ipswich we decided to wash some of the mud off the caravan so found a car wash on the GPS and headed for it, I took one wrong turn and ended up in a narrow back street, found our way out and back on the right road and the GPS directed us to the spot where the car wash should  be, alas it was not there and we were in the middle of the Ipswich CBD so programmed in our friends address and headed for there, on the way we did find a car wash at Logan so was able to wash the van but had lots of “fun” getting in and out of the tight wash bays, a few three point turns and a bit of curb mounting was required.

Anyway we were soon at Wellington Point and set up in yard of our friends place, nice to see them again.

Pictures from Three Waters Property Glen Innes

Some Happy Snaps

The Glengarry Hilton

 War Memorial The Sheepyard - Near Lightning Ridge

Omigo's Castle - Lightning ridge

Flood Waters near Lightning Ridge

Gwydir Hwy

Three Waters High Country Holiday Property - Glen Innes