Trip 44 - Part 1 - Quilpie

WORDS BY: Fina

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Don

On Monday 22 June 2009 we left Jundah at 11:30pm to head to Quilpie some 300km south of Jundah with a 100km of dirt road and the rest bitumen. After trying to help a caravanner with fuel problems, we arrived in Quilpie at about 3:30pm.

The Channel Country Caravan Park were actually trying to contact us on the mobile to see if we could get there early. As it turns out we have arrived a week early. Sue and Robbie manage the caravan park while Ian and Burnie are helping out. I used to work with Ian at Brisbane Airport Corporation some 6 years ago for 5 years. Again, it is such a small world!

At the fire tonight, Julie gave a very informative talk on Quilpie and afterwards they showed a John Williamson DVD. Tomorrow we will have a meeting with the managers of the park regarding our roles here over the next 3 months.

After having a meeting with the managers of the park, Robbie and Sue, on Tuesday morning, it was decided that our work itinerary would be as follows:

Monday, Wednesday and Friday

8am Clean camp kitchen

9am Clean cabins

11am Clean amenities

3pm Cook pancakes

4:30pm Start campfire

5pm Quilpie talk with nibblies

7pm Show DVD

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday

8am Clean camp kitchen

9am Clean cabins

11am Clean amenities

1pm Shop and prepare for stew dinners

3pm Start campfire

6pm Serve dinner

6:30pm Serve dessert

7pm - 9pm Entertain

Sunday

8am Clean camp kitchen

9am Clean cabins

11am Clean amenities

3pm Cook pancakes

So as you can see we are very busy in the caravan park and will be for the next 3 months to pick up some more travelling money for the rest of the year without having to dig into the capital. Here are some of our Quilpie highlights so far.

After doing a stock take of the existing food, Don and I went grocery shopping for our first camp oven beef stew and damper catering for 20 people. Surprisingly the dinner turned out great with people asking for seconds. The 2 hours of entertainment was also successful with a caravanner, Trevor, joining the entertainment by reciting some bush poetry.

Julie, a girl from the Information Centre, usually does the talk on Quilpie, however her husband is very ill in Roma hospital at the moment so guess who will be doing the talk on Quilpie! That’s right – me. So tomorrow, after cleaning the camp kitchen, I will be studying up on Quilpie, so at least I will know a bit of what I am talking about on Wednesday night.

On Saturday 27 June 2009, we had some visitors from our 4WD club in Brisbane pop in for some morning tea. Four cars in all - John and Alison, Joe and Princess, Rachel, boyfriend, kids and Ian and Rozelle. It was great to see some familiar faces. After staying for only an hour or so and demolishing the picklets I made, they left us to continue on their journey to Birdsville.

On the same afternoon, Gavin and Hayley with ferals and friends arrived to stay a couple of days. Again, great to catch up with old friends and spend some time with them. Unfortunately, Don was a bit slack during these 2 days so no photos were taken of the event. Sorry about that Gavin and Hayley. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday and take care. Thanks for visiting and we hope to catch up with you in Bundaberg in the future.

I ended up doing the Quilpie Bowls Club gig with Jeff, another caravanner that came into the caravan park who plays wonderful guitar. Jeff has been in the music industry for over 50 years and is the best guitarist I have ever met. No matter what song I sang he picked up on the rhythm and melody without any problems at all. He is currently travelling Australia on his own in his Winnabago (Whingabago, as some call it) and his dog, Whiskey. He was only going to stay a couple of nights but ended up staying over a week and doing 4 gigs in the caravan park and 1 at the Bowls Club with me. Thanks Jeff, I had a great time with you and hope to see you on the road again one day.

On Saturday 4 July 2009, Couchgrass, a folk Irish Scottish band came into the park to perform for one night. It was great to have a change in music and scenery and the caravanners certainly enjoyed the old songs of yesteryear. Coochgrass have been together for 27 years singing folk songs all over Australia. As things go, Jeff was actually part of this band for 10 years as a bass player.

On Thursday 9 July 2009, Don and I managed to get out of the caravan park after 3 weeks and have a look around Quilpie town. We visited the information centre where we met Cheryl Pratt, the local artist who painted the 45 metre mural beside the Information Centre. The construction of the Information Centre is in the shape of railway carriages to mark the end of the railway line in Quilpie. It is also painted in the colours of boulder opal such as blue, green, red, brown, etc to symbolise Quilpie being in the opal district. At the rear of the Information Centre is the interactive museum displaying the history of Quilpie and the Art Gallery showing works of local artists.

Since Don and I had a bit of time up our sleeves, we treated ourselves to lunch at the local cafe, Fresh on Brolga. We ordered fish and chops with someone serving us for a change. It was quite a treat.

On Friday night 10 July 2009 Jeff and I decided to have an acoutic jam session in the camp kitchen. We were joined by a number of caravanners singing as well and a great night was had by all.

We met Jennifer, a beautiful single lady travelling Australia on her own. Since Jeff and Jennifer are both single and both travelling Australia, I played a bit of cupid's arrow and finally got Jeff and Jennifer together for a coffee at our place. The next day they met up for lunch and coffee and I am sure they will remain good friends, if not more, in the future.

On Sunday 12 July 2009, while I was busy making and serving people pancakes, Jennifer took Don out to Baldy Top Lookout. Just 5kms out of town, you get a 360 degree view of the surrounding area of Quilpie. Truly magnificant by the photos and I suppose one day I will get there.

On the same day the Hema Map boys turned up in the caravan park. We chatted about their travels and ours and they gave us a huge laminated map of Australia to keep under our bed. Thanks boys and we hope that the rest of your travels remain worry free even though you are driving a Toyoto Landcruiser!

In the afternoon Don went out with a local, Bill, to his cattle property to distribute cow lick blocks throughout his property. The cows obviously love it according to the photos. Salt lick blocks play an important role as simple and cost-effective mineral supplements for cattle. The animal uses the lick block by instinct, according to its needs.

On Sunday 19 July 2009, Noel Stallard, the president of the Australian Bush Poet Association came in to the caravan park to recite some bush poetry. Noel Stallard is Gympie born and bred. After 35 years of teaching he now takes the Bush Poetry to schools in city and country areas throughout the east coast of Australia. He is a writer and performer of bush poetry and he has a strong belief that if we want to know who we are and where we are going then we need to know who we were and where we came from; thus the importance of our Australian heritage poetry. Noel is in demand for writing and performance workshops, festival and function performances and judge of written and performance competitions. He is currently accredited with the Queensland Education Department to present his poems to Primary School children. The most entertaining poet I have ever seen, he uses simple gestures and costumes to involve the audience in the bush poetry. Noel will be appearing in the caravan park during the tourist session on various occassions. Thanks Noel for your support.

We were also visited by James, Patsyanne and their granddaughter, Rena, from the 4WD club. They are heading on a six week holiday Northern Territory, etc. Thanks for coming to visit us guys. It was great to see you and meet your granddaughter.

More stories to follow in the weeks ahead.

Don't forget to check out "more photos" on the right hand side of this website.

Until next time, take care ...

Trip 43 - Jundah

WORDS BY: Fina

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Don

On Friday 19 June 2009 I did a free gig at the Jundah Hotel. Crowd was great with singing and dancing and I managed to pick up $190 from 3 raffles. Not bad for a free gig!

The next day Jundah held a cricket match between the Jundah, Windorah and Stonehenge boys. The cricket started at noon with the drinking starting before that. Monique put a good word in for me for a gig to the organiser of the cricket match, Doreen, and I managed to score a paid gig at the Sports Ground from 6pm to 10pm.

A great night really with a singing competition held between the 3 towns of 3 rounds of 3 songs. I picked the 9 songs and each town picked their singers. Jundah won the cricket match and also won the singing competition. Congratulations to all.

Don't forget to check out more photos on the right hand side of this website.

Till next time, take care ...

Trip 42 - Jundah Opal Fields

WORDS BY: Fina

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Don

On Wednesday 10 June 2009 we left Jundah to head down the road 40km to the Jundah Opal Fields. After meeting the owner of the opal lease, John, the other day, he was kind enough to invite us to camp on his claim to do a bit of opal fossicking. Of course, Don couldn’t say no to that offer!

The first afternoon here Don of course went fossicking while I finished setting up camp. The second day I spent lining the cargo area windows of the Patrol with reflection silver lining to try and keep the Engel fridge a bit cooler (hence the suction caps). Oh by the way, after cleaning out the fridge and giving it a bit of a rest, it now works perfectly. Didn’t do anything except attach it to 240V and clean it out which is great news – we now have our drink fridge back.

The third day while Don went fossicking again, I managed to attached some fly mesh to the front grill in front of the radiator of the Patrol. This will hopefully prevent the radiator from filling up with grass seeds and insects.

On Saturday and Sunday Don was really sick – high fever with hot and cold sweats, vomiting and generally feeling yuk! Hopefully he will get better soon. So while he was sick I did more maintenance on the truck such as replacing the right hand side parker light and reattaching the tyre sensors. If you read the Pebbly Beach story you will remember how the tyre sensors became stuck to the wheel valves because of the salt water creek we were crossing. Well this time, I sprayed Innox on the valves and in the sensor to prevent this from happening again however I doubt we will be crossing salt water creeks for a long time yet.

Today is Monday 15 June 2009 and it’s my birthday today – OK so I’m 46 and on the wrong side of 50. Still I don’t feel my age and hope I never will. Maybe it’s this life style that is keeping me feeling young or maybe it’s Don. You know the saying goes “You are only as old as you feel or the person you’re feeling”. Therefore, I am really only feeling 35. Thanks Don.

Speaking of which, the poor bugger is still sick and hasn’t even realised it’s my birthday today. He is really drained and has constant dioherra so he is definitely excused for forgetting my birthday. I finally got him on some proper drugs so hopefully he will be better soon.

Therefore, he hasn’t done any fossicking for 3 days so I imagine when he is better, he will be out there on the fields once again. So while he is sleeping I am hanging around camp, contending with the flies, cold and wind, keeping the fire stoked and generally relaxing and enjoying the isolation hoping that I don’t catch what he has otherwise I will be out of action too. What better way to spend a birthday!

We haven’t seen another soul for 5 days now – that’s how isolated we are and definitely loving it. We will probably stay here till the end of the week to give Don a chance to get better and to do more opal fossicking.

Then we are onto Eromanga and Quilpie where two couples from Brisbane and one couple from Bundaberg will be dropping in for a visit separately on their way through to somewhere. It will be good to catch up with old friends again.

By lunch time Don was not improving even with the drugs, so we decided a trip to the local Jundah hospital was due. After examination and tests it was diagnosed that he had a urinary track infection so with a needle later to stop the nausea and antibiotics for the infection he should feel heaps better in no time.

We stopped in at the pub to visit Monique and decided that a free gig night on Friday night is in order. By 4pm we were back at camp and Don was eating toast and salmon. You know when Don is sick when he hasn’t eaten for 3 days but now a few hours after visiting the hospital he is munching down toast like there is no tomorrow. I say he will be out fossicking again tomorrow.

That same night I burnt my hand on a piece of wood sticking out of the fire. At first nothing would take the burning sensation away apart from a frozen water bottle then I discovered Nurofen Gel. It numbed the burnt area enough so that I could sleep without pain. I certainly didn’t want to make another trip to the hospital especially on my birthday.

On Tuesday Don woke up with a headache so more Panadol and back to bed for him. Again I pottered around camp catching up with bits and pieces of maintenance and reading. My burnt hand is a lot better this morning with hardly any pain.

On Tuesday 16 June 2009 as Don was feeling reasonably better, in the afternoon we decided to take a drive out to the opal matrix area about 2km from camp. Even though the flies were very friendly, between us we manage to pick up some relatively colourful matrix opal. Now all Don has to do is go through the rocks we have collected over the last week and do some culling.

Tonight was the first night in about 4 days that Don actually felt like dinner so I made up one of Roothy’s recipes from 4WD Action – Spring Pie. Basically cottage pie with a couple of additions. Anyway it turned out that good that Don even asked for seconds. Obviously he is feeling a heap better since his appetite is definitely back. Although still drained he went to sleep straight after dinner for a couple of hours while I stayed up watching the 5 million stars and keeping the fire stoked. I even managed to see a couple of shooting stars. The stars are so brilliant out here that it feels like you could just reach out and touch them with the Milky Way so vibrant. I just wish I knew more about the constellations to pick them out. Maybe that’s something I should research once I have internet connection again.

Wednesday morning and we decided to leave Jundah Opal Fields tomorrow as we are running out of drinking water and more importantly, cigarettes.

Don’t forget to check out “more photos” in the right hand column.

Tell next time, take care ...

Trip 41 - Jundah

WORDS BY: Fina

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Don

Tuesday morning came and still the black clouds were lingering so I made a compromise with Don for half a days fossicking with Daryl while I pack the camper as much as possible. Don is to be back by lunch time so we can leave Opalton and head towards Jundah.

The drive to Jundah was all red clay dirt road with the rain threatening us the whole way. We were very lucky arriving in Jundah at about 6:30pm before the rain hit otherwise we could have been stranded out in the red dirt country for days. As usual the driving while the sun was setting was absolutely magnificant. This is the reason we travel the dirt roads rather than the highways. You don't get scenery like this on the black tar.

After setting up camp properly on Wednesday morning at the back of the Jundah Hotel, Don and I took a walk around Jundah, all half hour of it. Jundah boasts one pub, one general store, information centre, post office and police station. Jundah, with a population of approximately 90 people, is situated on the banks of the Thomson River. It is the only place in Australia where two rivers, Thomson and Baroo Rivers, form a creek, the Copper’s Creek.

Monique, the publican of the Jundah Hotel, is a great person with a fantastic personality. She has made Don and I feel very welcomed. The gig on Friday night was OK with about 25 people present, a couple of singers and some dancing every now and then.

Monique also arranged for us to meet Bill out at the property called Hayfield. Bill will then take us to an opal mining lease where Don will be able to fossick for the day. As Jundah had completely run out of smokes, I took the 80kms drive out to Windorah to pick up smokes and some supplies while Don and Bill fossicked in the fields. Later that afternoon, we met up with John, the owner of the opal lease, who told us where we could find some good coloured opal.

Windorah is located 35 km downstream from where the Thomson and Barcoo Rivers join to form the multi-channelled Cooper's Creek, Windorah is known as "The Heart of the Channel Country" and offers a welcome and interesting stop off for travellers to Birdsville, Bedourie, Longreach and points West. While the Shire covers an area of 60,901 km², the town has a population of 60 people, with a further 40 living at surrounding stations. The large solar panels greet the tourist as you drive into town. The solar farm consists of 5 mirrored dishes 13.7 metres across, each supported on a concrete base and steel mast structure with a total height of 14.5 metres. The facility is capable of powering the entire town during sunshine hours - a first for Australia.

Saturday night we babysat a 2 week old pig. I named him Bacon however his real name is Socks. He is so cute, so I thought, until he woke up at midnight, 2am, 4am and 6am for feeds and poo-ed and pee-ed all over the camper floor. Anyway, still cute and Don has absolutely fallen in love with it even though he keeps telling the pig that he loves eating pork. At one stage during the night he wouldn't settle down until I actually put him beside me in the bed under the bed covers and finally went to sleep. Who would have thought that I would ever have a pig in my bed!

Since we are receiving a free powered site at the back of the hotel, Don and I helped Monique lay some turf on Sunday in the caravan park at the back of the pub that she will be opening soon. The arms were definitely not used to picking up rolls of turf off the pallets and laying them around the place however it was great fun and it felt good to be able to help out.

Monique, together with her husband Shane, also own a cattle property approximately 40kms out of Jundah called Swan Vale. Two local boys, Tommy and Robbie, allowed us to follow them out there one day to deliver the lunches for the musterers. The rain last week certainly caused a lot of mud and puddles along the dirt track and the Patrol has never looked so dirty before. Instead of a white Patrol it now is a brown and white camouflage colour with inches of thick red clay stuck everywhere.

On Tuesday 9 June 2009, Don and I decided to head into Longreach to fill up gas bottles and catch up on some supplies. Longreach, with a population of 3,500, is at the heart of the Queensland Outback. It is home to the famous Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame which we didn’t end up visiting because I had already been there years ago, it is very expensive, we had already visited the Matilda Centre in Winton and Don wasn’t really interested anyway.

We managed to buy a few things on the list including unusual things such as suction caps for the reflective covering for the cargo area windows and stainless steel screws for the kitchen stove.

On our way back from Longreach we stopped in to a small town called Stonehenge. With a population of just 30, the name Stonehenge does not come from standing stones, rather the remains of a stone fortress built for the bullock drivers when they stayed overnight. The main industries around Stonehenge are sheep and cattle grazing.

After a drink at the Stonehenge pub and a chat to some of the locals, we headed back to Jundah stopping in at the Native Well located 32 kilometres north of Jundah just off the road to Longreach, was once a valuable water source for Indigenous people.

Monique is also a qualified hair dresser, so the pommy bar girls and myself took advantage and all had our hair tinted and cut.

Don't forget to check out "more photos" on the right hand side of this website.

Till next time, take care ...