Enjoying our time in Quilpie and off again :)

So last Thursday we escaped the muddy tracks out of Koondoo and made our way slowly down to Quilpie over about 4.5 hours and were warmly welcomed by Miss Teagan O'Shea. We've been visiting Quilpie to see Teagan and Sam but also in time for their birthdays. I've been playing housewife, cooking meals and baking birthday cakes over this past week but unfortunately (or fortunately because there could be worse places to be) Ben discovered that the ute was playing up before deciding not to start at all. A fair bit of running around consulting friends and family but to no avail, we put it onto a truck to Charleville to get to a diagnostic computer to get to the root of the issue. Speaking of roots, the issue had something to do with a black box not eathing properly which was an easy fix and made Ben quite frustrated (that he didn't find it).
We are now planning the next leg over... to Birdsville ;-) departing Saturday for a one night stay before heading down the Birdsville track to Marree and up to Kulgera before Alice Springs, Kings Canyon and Ayers rock (and all over in between). We hope to blog again once in Alice Springs but until then enjoy some photos from our trip so far...

Driving out to Blackall (and below)

Oscar (begat of Princess)

Sunset at Koondoo

Sunset Camp at Longreach

@ Stockman's Hall of Fame

Clouds Rolling in @ Koondoo

Dirty was an understatement on our arrival at Quilpie

Gorgeous Sunset @ Quilpie





Lots of Love xoxoxo

Slow Starter

Hi all!
We are currently in Longreach beside the river having a marvelous time cooking damper in the fire with a stew on the stove. The first day of our travels was a dash out to Blackall to meet up with Steph and Andy after the first day of the Blackall shoot. Tammy and Dave (Andy's brother and wife) were our hosts for the evening and S&A gave up their very comfy bed to us for the evening as they were having a night out in the town and would be back late.
Our Sunday was the second day of the shoot with two events and 58 shooters participating, it was a great day in the sun and it was good to watch some more experienced shooters drop only 1 or 2 clays. After the day's events we followed the dust cloud that was Steph leading us out to Koondoo, for a couple of days play/work (depends who you talk to) on the property. Ben was off with Andy on the bikes checking the traps for the feral dogs, they had a win finding two big healthy (although dead) ones before mustering some sheep. Andy also showed him up to the aboriginal boar rings, rocks laid out in perfect circles of various sizes. Steph went off to work and Tanya played housewife, cooking lunch for the boys, hanging out washing, making up the swag and rearraging the ute before cooking dinner and finishing a book.
So now we come to Today where we travelled up to Longreach to collect some much missed supplies (fishing tackle, sleeping bag and the all important axe for the fire wood). We also visited the QANTAS museum and found this lovely camp :) Tommorrow we plan on going to the Stockman's Hall of Fame before heading back down to Steph and Andy's for the State of Origin!!!
We'll head down to Quilpie to see Tegan and Westy on Friday and then onwards west sometime after.

Go Queensland!!!!!!

Excited!!! Leaving 19th May!!!

So we now have a date that we will be leaving the Gold Coast and going bush! Super excited as this will be next Saturday the 19th of May. Have lots of packing to do our first stop will be Carnarvon Gorge for a couple of days before moving further west.
Ben has been slaving away but the ute's canopy is built and the canvas covers are being done next week, all the electrical business has been sorted. John and Ben have been working together for many things so big thanks has to go out to John! Both men I spotted playing around in the dark to put the radio in place as well. Meanwhile I've had the reletively easy job of researching many different aspects of the trip, obtaining permits and finding out about different restrictions across the areas we'll be travelling through. Not so suprisingly I have or was a bit obsessed with the kitchen aspects; concocting the right list of food stuffs to take and finding the perfect stainless steel saucepan at a reasonable price (with a thicker base so everything won't burn) was a highlight that not many would understand (Linda and Mum did) and Ben just laughed off as one of my eccentric traits.

Looking forward to a week of organising and packing (and a farewell party at the end).