Well if we thought the last few nights were cold we were
sorely mistaken!! I know the beginnings of my blogs have been dominated by the
temperature but, but, but...it is all we think about for the first 2 hours of
the day!! As soon as the boys wake all they want to do is jump into bed with us
and snuggle under the doona but we can’t understand as their sleeping bags are
so much warmer than our threadbare doona!!!
We tear the ice of the top of the doona and have breakfast. It
is so cold inside the van that we are breathing steam and as the milk is poured
out of the bottle it turns icy (really I think it would have been warmer in the
fridge than out of it!!). We pack up and start off on our big days drive. We
had spent some time looking through the brochures and writing down the must see’s
on today’s drive but unfortunately they were limited to less than a handful.
 |
| The boys version of the back seat of Izzy being 'clean' |
Not long out of town we were happy to fulfill one of our last
installments of our “Are we there Yet” tour
as a mob of cattle were being driven along the side of the road. It
would have been good to share some of our cool water with them, but they were
100m of the road and we were driving 100km/hr!
 |
| The brown line in the center of the pic is a herd of cattle and three stockman |
First stop of the morning was Auguthella, a town hanging on by a thread. They have a
proud heritage based on their footy team that was nick named the Meat Ants and
anybody who has seen a meat ant nest and watched a game of junior footy would
clearly be able to see the similarity! As the boys were going to be spending
most of their waking hours in the back seat of Izzy as soon as we stop for
anything, fuel, lunch, a wee they are asked to ruuuuun...so they did over to a
very unique sculpture that stands in the middle of Meat Ant Park.
Next stop was Morven where they had a Kerosene Tin Hut that
was a remnant of the great depression. Through those tough years the town folk
of Morven had erected 6 huts like this, made from flattened kero tins, that
stood in the town’s common area. They were made available to anybody who had
fallen on hard times and I wondered if such a generous act would be made, or
funnily enough accepted, if we were to go through such an event today. The boys
also enjoyed the ‘branding board’ that was covered in the local properties
brands.
Wanting to keep moving we skipped by Mitchell and another
whistle stop towns with our next to last stop being Muckadilla. It has no
historical significance or special attraction apart for being, prior to this
trip, the western most point that the boys and De had visited. We had come to
Roma for an Easter holiday 4 or 5 years ago and did a day trip to Muckadilla
while we were there. If Longreach was the end of the experience, then
Muckadilla was the end of the trip.
We rolled into Roma, grabbed a few supplies and headed to
the show grounds in Wullumbilla. We had stayed there on our Roma trip but only
because the road was flooded so it was good to come back to it in better
cirucumstances. In 209 touring we have finally found free camping nirvana, not
far from our home. The show grounds have flush dunnies and hot showers in a new
block, powered sites, you can have a camp fire on your site and all for the
pretty price of .....nothing, yep zilch, zero, nada! I am going to feel a
little bad running the heater all night but it is going to be -2 oC tonight so
I will just have to deal with the guilt!
Tomorrow night we are staying at our friends place outside
of Toowoomba so tonight is our last supper. As such I decieded to drag out some
of Richmond’s best lamb shanks and do them in the camp oven on the fire. It was
risky as I hadn’t done a roast but felt that after 209 days on the road I
should have at least learned this much! We bounded out of the truck, grabbed
some wood and within 10 minutes had raging fire going prepping the much needed
coals.
We sat around the fire and tried to come up with an answer
to the question that we will hear a lot “what was your favourite thing”. The
boys had a list as long as your arm but then I started to remind them of other
things that were quickly added to the list. A favourite thing....impossible!
Two hours after putting the shanks on they came of their
tender bulging selves and with some decadent mash, even worse gravy and a few healthy green we
had our last campfire meal of the trip.
As De did the dishes we read the last pages of “Are we there
yet” and tears welled in my eyes as I read the last page, “Are we there yet...Yes”,
we weren’t quite there yet but our trip
of a life time as one little family was all but over. I gave the boys a big hug
and they had tears in their eyes, knowing that their holiday too had come to an
end.
No comments:
Post a Comment