Long Distance Education

We visited the Longreach School of Distance Education (formerly the Longreach School of the Air) and a very interesting morning. When we arrived school had already started for the day - the DE kids start their day at 8.00am sharp! We could see the Year 3 teacher, Ms Hewson, in her soundproof classroom and hear the kids online, some hundreds of kms away. A science lesson was in progress on the dissection of a piece of fruit and we could see each child doing a 'diagram' on the 'blackboard', which was actually a whiteboard! Each child is able to speak to the teacher individually and Ms Hewson was able to monitor the drawings of individual students per the whiteboard. The family pays $350 per year to lease the computer and all the latest, greatest, programs required, including maintenance, to home school their children. The whole technology set up was fantastic and very interesting to watch.

Apart from the technology aspect, the school looked like any other. Twenty-four teachers cover both Primary and Secondary levels. The school buildings housed: Student work proudly displayed; a well equipped library (for not only books but musical instruments, games, videos and toys), made possible by the donation of $15 by visitors to purchase a book with their name and home town engraved in it and left in the library; and 7 studios for teachers to conduct their classes over the airways. Special effort is made to keep the grass green by the installation of 4 rain water tanks because some of the children would otherwise never see grass. Can you imagine that!

There are 168 students enrolled in the school which covers an area twice the size of Victoria and Tasmania combined and most will go on to boarding school for Secondary. There are those families though who choose not to their children away from home, or simply can't afford to, so there are 11 Secondary students up to Year 10 level and only 2 who are currently undertaking Years 11 & 12. During a guided tour around the school we were shown the classrooms (2) that are used when the kids all came together for 'camps' a couple of times a year. When a particular child comes to the school for camp, the parent or nanny has to bring all of the children in the family because often dad is often busy running the property, which means accommodation is required for the whole family. The logistics for the home-schooling parent or nanny for schooling different grades of kids are mind-boggling. The organisation that goes into giving isolated kids an education must be very complex but in typical Aussie fashion there is obviously resourcefulness and ingenuity in action for what appears to be an extremely successful means to an education. The website has some great info in you're interested: http://www.longreacsde.eq.edu.au/

The Famous Hall!

Our feet may never be the same again!

Today we walked around the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre for nearly 5 and half hours, but it was well worth the effort. For those who haven't been, or don't know what the Centre is about, it is dedicated to those spectacular individuals who settled this country in the late 1800's and onward. What a great institution it is for all Australians, old and new. We have never seen such a brilliant collection of memorabilia, presentations and displays anywhere in Australia. And the sheer tenacity, single-mindedness and ingenuity of those early white settlers was humbling. Both men and women made enormous sacrifices to feeding the nation through drought, flood, famine, disease, isolation, desert storms and all the many, many other problem they faced.

The section dedicated to the original owners of this land was very informative too and didn't leave out the bits we don't want to acknowledge or know about. But it was also a very positive display of photographs and traditional artefacts.

If you ever get the chance, do it!

Sorry, no photos today. We were too busy looking, but are going back to tomorrow for a short visit to do some photographs outside the Centre.

By the way, it was 32 degrees today!!!

The weather

We left home under a grey sky and a 6 degree temperature. Our first 4 nights were very cold and the only way to keep warm, despite a heater in the van, was to hide in bed under a heap of blankets. However............ we haven't had a heater on since Nyngan! The day time temps have been 23 - 26 degrees, with nights cooling down to maybe 14. The sunshine and vividly clear blue skies have been fantastic, so much so that we've packed our winter woollies under the bed for storage until we head south again. The sunrises and sunsets haven't yet been what we'd call spectacular but we're hoping that will happen the further north we get. We're just waiting for that 'photo opportunity'!

Destination Longreach Achieved!

Well, here we are at our long awaited destination of Longreach after 1627kms. We're actually staying about 15 minutes south of Longreach in a very small town called Ilfracombe. We chose to stay here because it is not as big as the Longreach park and so felt a little more personal. We were greeted by Cathy who very ably assisted in reversing the van onto the site because there are no drive-through sites. We quickly settled in for 4 nights and headed off to a well earned drink at the pub next door only to discover how small the world really is.

You know that feeling that you've met someone before but can't quite work out where from? Well, we thought we recognised a woman from home whilst walking through the park and whilst we didn't personally know her, when we saw her at the pub we nervously asked her if she was from our town. The incredulous response was in the affirmative and we discovered that her husband Peter worked with our friend Bob in forestry for many years. Diane and Peter sat talking with us for almost an hour before our mobile phone rang with a call from Sheila, who lives in Oberon, whom they also knew. And that wasn't the only 'small world' event to happen to us on this trip. A few days back, we met a couple from Wollongong with whom we spent a couple of days. During a conversation we discovered the husband worked at a mine near Wollongong with a friend of D's from school!

Ok, enough coincidences. We've brought the blog up-to-date. We've tried to add some photos but only succeeded in the blog entitled 'Colour Day'. Will have another crack at adding more photos tomorrow. It's 10 to 11 and we both need some beauty sleep!

We're off to explore Ilfracombe and Longreach tomorrow. Will fill you in on that when time allows.

T. & D.

Making Comments

Ok, I've had numerous emails telling me that you weren't able to make a Comment without using a profile. I think I've fixed that now so hopefully you'll be able to add comments without further hindrance! Feel free to add a Comment please......... and at least I'll know that it works!

Evening Star Tourist Park @ Thurlby Station

Now, here's the way to do farm stays - Brilliant! The park was set out sensibly for caravans with drive-through sites; the facilities environmentally sustainable; the owners friendly and very welcoming; the camp fire was raging and the showers hot; the bush path was lovely; the horses wandering around the place where well behaved and the company around the bbq's was welcomed. This sort of accommodation could catch on!

Ah Queensland - Beautiful one day - Closed the next!

We arrived in Cunnamulla on Saturday afternoon at 1.35 to find the town streets deserted of locals and about 40 caravans parked near the Visitor Information Centre. The 'Cunnamulla Fella' was crouching serenely in the towns park, the two supermarkets were closed, the smaller shops were closed, the bakery and the newsagent were closing, the pub was deserted and the Visitor's Centre was in the process of throwing out all the tourist so it too could close. The Grey Nomads were all confused until it was realised that it was Saturday and the shops close in (South West anyway) Queensland at 12.30pm sharp on Saturday, with only the supermarkets re-opening on Sunday for 3 hours! We were hoping to replenish a few essentials like bread, milk, lettuce and perhaps a few other things but alas no-one in Cunnamulla saw the benefits the influx 80 people could bring to their economically struggling community. Needless to say, we had our lunch and headed off to Charleville without making a monetary contribution to Cunnamulla.

Carcass Slalom

The amount of road-kill out here is depressing. Today we counted 76 carcasses along a 20kms stretch of the Matilda Highway, and those were the ones we could actually see. Heavens knows what number of bodies lay in the bushes. Quite sad.

Eye of the Eagle

We were bowling along at our usual 90kms p/h on Sunday when a wedge-tail eagle suddenly launched itself out of the grass on the passenger side and faltered just above the bonnet of the car. In what seemed like minutes but was in fact split seconds, we both held our collective breaths and hoped like hell that this beautiful specimen would get the wind beneath his wings and escape our windscreen. All of a sudden he soared skywards but not before dazzling us with an undercarriage of intricate feather patterns of brown, black, gold, white and cream, a 2- metre wingspan and drumsticks big enough to feed a small country for a day. We swear he eye-balled us before soaring up and over the top of the van. It made our day!

Nardoo Station

Thought we'd try our hand at farm stay-kind of accommodation and weren't disappointed. We arrived at Nardoo Station, 38kms north of Cunnamulla, to find a roaring camp fire complete with bbq's, camp kitchen, bathroom facilities, 2 artesian spas and 50 other Grey Nomands. Nardoo is a working cattle station of 110,000 acres. The farmer's wife started the park some years ago as a means of income during a particularly awful drought when most stock had to be sold. The venture was apparently very successful and carried the farm through the difficult times, so much so, that the park grew with the demand, and other farms caught on and this sort of venture is to be found throughout the Queensland Outback. Probably elsewhere too but we've yet to experience that.

We were met at the gate by 'Pete' who showed us where to park our van, pointing out the 'green power' extension cord for electricity. The only thing we could see that was 'green' about the orange extension cord was that it was hanging in a green bush! We quickly set up camp before changing into swimsuits for a dip in the artesian spas. The spas are actually 2 x water tanks about a metre deep with fresh artesian water constantly drained in and out at a temperature between 35 - 40 degrees. There was a water tank cut in half vertically with spray jets arranged in the inside of the tank which guest were expected to wash off the 'desert dirt' before entering the spa. Great for some but when you're only 5' nothing, and the jets are arranged at intervals meant to reach the knees, mid-drift and necks of folk 5' 6" or more, it was a bit of shock to have the water blurring one's vision! However, the hot water was simply wonderful for tired, old bones!

That night we sat around the camp fire with about 30 other travellers exchanging yarns and tall tales before retiring contented and relaxed.

Ford's Bridge - Population 4!

A town with a population of 4, and a pub! Of course we had to take a look. We travelled the 60km dirt road with Peter and Annette, a couple from Wollongong whom we met back in Nyngan and who appeared again at the same caravan park in Bourke. The Warrego Hotel at Ford's Bridge is said to be the only mud brick hotel still standing/operating in NSW. We arrived, parked adjacent to the 'beer garden' complete with 4 dogs, 3 pigs, 4 chooks and 3 horses, all adorning the back yard of the pub. This was typically rural. We entered the pub to be met by 2 of the 4 people inhabiting the 'town'. The publicans were a husband and wife team who happened to stroll into the pub in October 2009 and decided to buy it. They took over in February this year and genuinely seemed to love the place despite the isolation. Enter inhabitant No. 3 - their 12-year-old daughter. This girl had come from a school of 800 students in Queensland to a Distance Education class of 5 via the Bourke School of the Air. She seemed shell-shocked and was very hesitant about talking of her experiences with Distance Education! Inhabitant No. 4 was an older daughter who was off somewhere riding horses. The publicans then stated that the population wasn't 4 but 6 as there were 2 people who lived in the caravan park next door. Try as we did, we couldn't see anything that even remotely resembled a caravan park - only an overgrown paddock with a couple of extremely old, and what looked to be deserted, caravans. But apparently, that's where inhabitants 5 & 6 lived. So the population was actually 6! We were told that Friday nights were a bit on the quiet side but on Saturday nights the place really pumped with the bar near to brimming with some locals who would travelled 135kms to join in the fun at their 'local'. We girls had a lemon squash, the guys a beer, a few laughs and left in awe of people who had the capacity, unlike us, to be perfectly happy living in remote, sparsely populated communities of 6. In fact, they loved it!

Back O' Bourke

Had a very interesting visit to the Back O' Bourke Exhibition Centre. Two videos particularly impressed for their quality of production. The first was a very good introduction to the Centre, and the second was a depiction of being on a paddle wheeler complete with the top deck to view the film, giving the impression that we were actually sailing down the Darling River - Brilliant! The Centre was very informative and one really got a feel for the 'real' NSW Outback. The characters who've passed through, or stayed in permanantly, Bourke, are so varied we wondered how on earth they ended up in such a place. Take Sheik Abdul Waheed, who later become known as Abdul Wade. Mr Wade was apparently a wealthy camel importer with a penchant for English suits and white camels. He liked to make a grand entrance into town on a pure white camel with locals at his beck and call to help him get off the camel, run his errands and pour his bath! Abdul was very unpopular with the local bullock teams and drovers because of his claims that camels could outdo horses and bullocks because of their ability to withstand the heat and go without water for days. It all came to a head when a cowboy accepted the challenge to race his horse against Wade's camel for 100 miles. Well, Abdul won arriving in comfortable time whilst the cowboy's horse collapsed and died 3 miles from the finish line, and the cowboy himself being carried over the line by his mates. After a restful night Wade then did the return journey comfortably the next day.

The township of Bourke was almost deserted and we heard that if it weren't for the tourist trade the town would die. This despite a healthy cattle and sheep trade in the area, as well as numerous crops grown for the Australian and international markets. It left us wondering if the Woolworth's buying policies had a bigger impact upon rural economies than Woollies would like us all to know!

Playing Catch-Up

Sorry, the blog has been sadly lacking because we've not had computer access for a few days. It seems that despite the Optus claim that it has the same coverage as Telstra, in truth it simply doesn't happen. We have a Dodo mobile modem which uses Optus as the carrier and it doesn't work in the Outback. I will bring the blog up-to-date as soon as I can. Cheers T.

Colour Day!

Well, what a colourful day! The photos don't do it justice but here are a few to tempt you. Yesterday we officially passed into 'Outback NSW' and today we were delighted to experience the incredible colours that came with the change in both vegetation and the different colours in the soils as we travelled from Nyngan to Bourke. Cypress pine, coolabah trees, blue gum and river red gum trees only added to the stunningly beautiful red, orange and yellow soils. Scrubby vegetation, which we took to be biddy and salt bush, in colours ranging from deep green, light green, blue, purple and red was interspersed between the bigger trees, all against a backdrop of blue, blue skies. Beautiful! My camera got a real workout. Now I just have to work out how to add some of the photos on the blog!

We drove through towns with interesting names like Canonba, Girilambone and Coolabah. The tourist brochure stated that Girilambone means 'Place of Falling Stars' because a meteorite was said to have struck a hill near the town (when?) and that there was a general store still running since the days of the Cobb and Co coach, unfortunately we blinked and missed it!

There were signs along the road that warned of camels, emus and kangaroos but the kangas were the only ones to show themselves. Probably a good thing too - we didn't fancy any surprises in camels and emus fleeing across the road in front us!!

Tonight we are in 'The Kidman Camp', 7 kms from Bourke. The place is like an oasis, complete with palm trees, 2 swimming pools and the Darling River nearby. We met up this afternoon with a couple we met in Nyngan last night so had 'Happy Hour' with them before dinner tonight. There is so much to see in and around Bourke that we're staying for 2 nights. This afternoon we took a paddle boat ride down the Darling River, tomorrow we're off to experience "The Back O' Bourke Exhibition Centre" before taking a "Back O' Bourke" bus tour tomorrow afternoon.

Last night's country music was fab. A guy in his mid-40's sang for almost 2 hours before we all started to freeze and had to give up. Sorry Louise, no boot scootin! But I have to admit, the music was great.

By the way, if you ever get the opportunity to visit Nyngan, do it! The history surrounding the place is fascinating, especially the flood of 1990. Nyngan was first visited by Major Thomas Mitchell in 1835 and it was 50 years before the railway came but the town started growing almost immediately and is now important for it's mining and pastoral activities in wool, wheat and cattle. In the Nyngan Museum there was a video of the flood and it was simply unbelievable what that town's residents tried to do to stop their town from being inundated with the massive flood waters pouring down the Bogan River. Sadly, the town was flooded and the entire population was airlifted to Dubbo. A very interesting place to visit which we can highly recommend.

Ok, that's it for today.

(Not so at its') Peak Hill & Nyngan

We finally managed to leave home yesterday for a pleasant, although cold day trip to Peak Hill and spent our first night at the local caravan park. D. is very relaxed, the van is behaving exactly as it should and I'm thoroughly enjoying the freedom of the road again. No operator error disasters with the van except D. had a fit early this morning because the fridge wasn't working on gas before discovering he hadn't actually turned the gas on at the bottle! Hopefully we sorted out most of the getting-used-to-the-modern van quirks on our maiden voyage in June!!!

The Peak Hill Caravan Park was a great little park but, believe me, there's not much happening in the Peak Hill township. Kind of sad really as it was obviously once a thriving township. Still, we found the town folk still hanging-in there friendly and very welcoming. We were greeted on arrival at the caravan park with fresh, hot scones with jam and cream, and managers who had spent the past 9 years traveling around Australia supporting themselves by doing temp management jobs at caravan parks and motels. The used to live in Coffs Harbour but decided after 20 years that it was getting too busy for them so opted to spend some time traveling around in their van before finding somewhere quieter to settle - obviously they haven't found their Camelot yet.

Left this morning for Nyngan and were thoroughly surprised on arrival. This place is a thriving, community-minded small town. The Nyngan Riverside Caravan Park is beside the Bogan River with gorgeous shade trees, green, green grass, warmer weather and lots of bird life. We even considered staying 2 nights but want to push on to Bourke tomorrow and hope to reach Longreach by the middle of next week.

Well, that's it for now. We're off to a music night in the caravan park. Oh my gosh - country music and Grey Nomads! What next?

On the road, again...........

Didn't managed to get 'on the road again' today but we're off first thing tomorrow morning. Still have plans to head to Peak Hill having already checked out the caravan park online. D. reckons the van 'looks' heavier than it did when we did the maiden voyage! But as there is still some spare cupboard space I'm not convinced we haven't forgotten something important. Still, it's now or never. And, oh yes, the fishing rods have been packed this time.

Will update the blog (hopefully) each day but if not, when we can.

Hope to hear from you along the way.

T.

2 more sleeps.......

Well, here we are, 2 days from departure - the van is packed of non-perishable food and all the other essentials(!). We still have spare cupboards so are beginning to wonder what we've missed. Will undertake a shopping trip tomorrow to acquire fresh foods and a couple of other bits and pieces we need but other than that, we're ready to roll. At least, we think we are! Bring it on - whatever we leave behind can't have been that important. Or can it!!!

Welcome to the Blog of T. & D.

We hope to bring you interesting bits of news as we experience life in a caravan around Oz. We have already taken our van, now known as ‘The Matilda’, on her maiden voyage to Echuca, Mildura and Wentworth, and home via Hay, West Wyalong, Crowther and Blayney. We spent two weeks ‘in the wilds of the Normad’ having a great time. In fact, we had a blast!

Our first ‘real’ foray into the world of the ‘Grey Nomad’ will commence on or about the July 20th for 6 weeks as we head off to Bourke via Peak Hill, visit the ‘Cunnamulla Fella’ in (obviously!) Cunnamulla, and on to Charleville. Longreach is next with a visit to the ‘Hall of Fame’ and the ‘Qantas Museum’ and then to visit the dinosaurs of Winton. If we survive all that, we then hope to head east to Rockhampton via Emerald, continue down the coast to Yamba, stopping to visit friends and relatives at various points along the way at Bundaberg, Noosa Heads, Buderim, Bribie Island, the Gold Coast (Arundel) and Pottsville. We plan to spend a few days in Yamba before heading west to try the hot springs at Moree and home via Gunnedah.

We would love to hear from you so please feel free to post your comments or questions on the Blog.