Family Fun

This week I’ve heard two heart warming stories. Friends of ours had a grown up daughter join us at our recent club muster. When our friends’ family was young they took the kids out of school for a year and travelled Australia in the caravan. The trip was so good that when this particular daughter accepted her boyfriend’s proposal it was on the proviso that they too would buy a caravan and take their planned family around Australia. The daughter and her husband now have four children and a brand new caravan with lots of bunk beds is under construction. … Continue reading Family Fun

Off the beaten track, Murray Falls Camp Ground

We were new to this going off the bitumen stuff and very tentative but the ladies at the information centre in Cardwell, Qld took our National Park fee and assured us that the road into Murray Falls was tarred and “really good”. We turned off the Bruce Highway and passed sugar cane and paw paw farms and after about 16kms the road turned to very bumpy dirt with a couple of narrow bridges, even the scenery deteriorated. We were becoming somewhat anxious, would we be able to turn around if we were on the wrong road? Then the National Parks … Continue reading Off the beaten track, Murray Falls Camp Ground

Hebel

The Hebel general store is famous for its pies but we are a little early. The old girl was built in 1897 and the wooden floors are worse than the road, where the floor has given way altogether there are large metal patches. Just to get to the counter in the rear to place your order one must walk up hill, then down and up again, one wonders if they’ve ever contemplated re stumping. We’re concerned about the shortcut road across to Nindigully but the waitress assures us that it is a bit rough and skinny but ok. Oh Good. Morning … Continue reading Hebel

To View or Not to View

We camp beside the Barwon River near Walgett around lunch time. We have a nice view of the river. Views are not for our mate though she parks back down the track with the van in a clearing and facing north. That’s north to pick up the satellite signal and clear of overhanging gum trees. After much grumbling and cursing the signal is finally located and she retreats to her van. We spend the afternoon sitting beside our van catching up on the Saturday papers, reading quietly in the sun entertained by the distant sounds of a footy tragic shouting … Continue reading To View or Not to View

A Lesson in Ovine Plurals

At Jondaryan Woolshed on the Darling Downs of Queensland we don our winter woollies and gum boots and join a bunch of Japanese school kids, teenagers, for a sheep shearing demonstration using hand shears. The poor old sheep is being shorn for the first time and doesn’t utter a single baa. Interesting to us is that all discussion by the teachers is in English and there is a bit of English instruction bandied about “one lamb, two lambs, one sheep, two sheep, no S.” Then we learn that if a sheep is shorn with wet wool the wool will self … Continue reading A Lesson in Ovine Plurals