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Ready to Roll
Kimba the gorgeous farm doggy says goodbye to us!Day 1662/1
Hi all,
Since giving up the flat in Canberra 18th May, we have been at the farm “looking after” Helen who had a nasty accident with one of the Landcruisers and came out of it much worse off, (Well if you do try an act like a “sleeping policeman”) the Landcruiser will run over you.
So with moving out of Canberra it was perfect timing to go to the farm and add a couple of pairs of hands in helping out.
I accept we are useless on the farm, so our outlook is very simple, do anything for Helen we could to ease her work load so she could rest up and recuperate.
They are pretty simple jobs, drive in to Wagga and collect a pallet load of chemicals,
feed the dogs and the chooks daily, wash the doggy Hilton out, collect wood, make the fire, cook, all this is easy fun stuff that we can make a contribution to.
In return, we have a fantastic bed, with an “electric blanket” I hasten to add, access to the dogs and a free reign to enjoy the farm, it’s wonderful and
Tiger Moth
In the Town Narrandera we are very thankful to have the opportunity and freedom to be at Woodstock.
In between doing all this stuff we have been preparing our things as we are off again on another adventure up the middle of Australia and when we get to Alice Springs and have done those things like Ayres Rock (Uluru) and Kings Canyon then we will decide where we are going to go from there.
So today 31
st May we finally, had all our ducks in a row and were suitably prepared to leave the farm for our next leg, heading North-ish with a little bit of West thrown in.
I had a dreadful nights sleep, I woke at 2.00am and don’t think I went back to sleep until around 4.30 checking everything off in my mind, making sure everything was done, and done properly.
I heard the rain throughout the night and was happy as the farmers need rain, so when I got up about 7.30 I went to the rain gauge and checked it to see how much had fallen in the night and to my amazement only 1.5mm had been collected.
Caroline’s coffee was taken in to
her and she soon made an appearance in the kitchen, we had a lot to do and our target time to leave was 10.00am. It was raining hard outside, so in between showers we dashed out to the truck and put things in.
We hitched Gypsy up to the Cruiser in anticipation of getting away but the rain would just not let us leave, by the time we did get away at was 1.15pm and 9.5mm of rain had fallen on the farm so we were happy.
Helen and Robert, were at the homestead to see us off along with Kimba, Wally, Trixie, Hoover, and Smokey who had all been out working with Robert doing sheepy stuff in the morning and he came back to the house to change as he was soaked to the skin.
We hugged and kissed and shook hands, then tickled bellies and rubbed snouts, (Not Helen or Roberts) but all the dogs in attendance and we jumped in to the truck and headed off down the lane to the main road, turning left towards Junee.
Our destination, if we could make it was a town called Hay in New South Wales,
Save our Koala's
How could you not some 300k’s away, but as it gets dark at 5.00pm, we would just have to see if we would make it, as travelling in the dark is very hazardous with Roo’s and Cattle around, if you hit one, it is coming straight through the windscreen.
We have decided to modify our blog entries a little, and It is our intention to give you some statistical data this time when we travel, hopefully to make it interesting so if you see the day we are on at the top of the page which is 1662 we have added the /1 so show you it is day 1 of the next part of this major adventure.
We have also decided to call Woodstock our Odometer baseline of 0000 so all mileage will be worked out from there, and each blog should give the following information.
1. The Blog Day-1662/1
2. Total distance from Woodstock-297K's
3. Days Journey Distance 297 K's
4. Point to point route. Nangus to Hay
5. Place we stayed at for the night. Sandy Point
6. Camps reference of the site. 524 (NSW)
7. Cost if applicable. $000.00
8. Brief on the overnight stay, did it have Telstra Access etc. Good Telstra Access, Nice Toilets, Flushable, ground soft, fine weather only, rained like there was no tomorrow.
9. Wildlife- Emus (6) Kangaroo's (2)
With all the rain we had in the morning, the afternoon drive was really nice and the weather was quite cheerful and warm.
We stopped in a small town called Narrandera as I had seen a Tiger Moth Biplane in a building so we parked up and had a look, the area of Narrandera had an old Empire air training school from the 2
nd world war and this plane was to commemorate such an activity.
The little museum was fantastic and full of fascinating facts and artefacts from the era. The other interesting thing about this area is that there are still Koala’s in the wild and unfortunately it is also a high risk area for traffic accidents with the Koala’s trying to cross the road. When a Koala is injured it is taken to the reserve once it has been treated. and is given to carer who nurses it back to health, Unfortunately it is getting late in the day and we don’t really have the time to stop and look so we move on.
Back on the Sturt Highway, we find ourselves driving past numerous large paddocks that belong to some of the stations along here, at times the road is long and perfectly straight. In some of the paddocks we see Emu, one of the paddocks had 5 Emu’s. Also for the first time in a while we saw a couple of kangaroo’s bounding across the plain.
In the distance we see the rain clouds, it took a long time for us to get there and when we did the downpour was so heavy we were planning on pulling off the road to let it pass.
Spotting some old caravans and a horse box on the side of the road, as we got nearer we realised it looked like travelling stock. There were several horses, dogs, two caravans and the people I am sure where sheltering from the rain, but perfectly corralled was a large herd of cattle, we were fascinated where they were driving the cattle to and from what place they had come from
We arrived in Hay at about 5.30 and looked for a camp spot that Caroline had identified in our camp site’s book a place called Sandy Point, Caroline had looked it up on her I-pad and we were soon pulling in and disconnecting Gypsy, so we could go in to town and get Fish and Chips, (well it was Friday night) and as it was already dark, we just thought it would be easier than putting an evening meal together.
We got back to Gypsy with our evening meal and folded the bed back so we could sit inside and have our dinner, we had a couple of beers and sat chatting about our forth coming adventure and what lay ahead.
I had started to write the Blog up for the first day and had most of it in the bag before we settled in to bed after a very full and busy day.
At some point in the night we heard the rain start.
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Helen Sheridan
non-member comment
Making Hay
Thanks for the excellent nursing I am sure it has speeded up my recovery no end. Just don't either of you do the same thing - beware of rolling vehicles.Enjoy your time on the road - hasn't stopped raining here since about 4 this morning. Will look forward to reading all about your adventures - love to you both