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Published: August 9th 2010
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Every year in a tiny outback town called Louth they have horse races the first week in August. My friend Renai and her family have been going every year, and this year I joined them. Almost 2 years ago this trip was planned, but last Monday the races were cancelled because there had been a lot of rain and the racetrack was underwater. After much humming and harring - we decided to go anyway.
It was a bit of an epic trip. First, I had to bus the 60kms to Cairns, and then fly the 2,500kms to Sydney. From there I caught the train from the airport to the city, then walked to Renai's work where her husband Ben (and baby Holly) picked us up and we drove to Ben's sister Megan's house to borrow her 4wd Rav4. From there we drove through Bathurst, Orange and Wellington about 410kms to Dubbo, which is where Renai's family live. We got there around 1am, so didn't spend too much time catching up with her mum before heading to bed. Weather wise I went from 30 degrees to minus 2 degrees in the same day!
First thing the next morning we kissed
Holly goodbye and left her with Nana, while we took to the road again to drive through Narramine, Trangie, Nyngan, Cobar and finally Louth. The last 138kms is dirt road with wild goats running all over the place, and it had been raining so parts of the road were under water. We finally arrived at the racecourse around 2pm, where Renai's dad, brother and his wife, and sister and her husband had been camping for a few days already. We pitched our tent, and unrolled our swags, then sat around the first drinking and telling stories. These guys are practiced campers and cook some amazing campfire food, and for dinner we had apricot chicken with baked potatoes rolled in foil and cooked in the embers. Food never tasted so good! After dinner we decided to walk to the pub to see what was going on down there. The more sensible of us walked down the road, but Ben, Renai and myself went bush and climbed over fences and walked across paddocks in the pitch dark with nothing to find our way but the bright lights of the pub over yonder. Apart from being thrown backwards when I walked into a
fence in the dark and Ben ripping a hole in his jeans after getting caught on barbed wire, we made itwithout being gored by a bull, bitten by a snake or falling into a creek. The milky way was so bright and there are so many stars in the outback - you forget how many there are when you're always in a town/city. So anyway, needless to say we got really drunk, they sang happy birthday to me at midnight, and we decided to be more sensible and walk home along the road. Fell into bed with my hot water bottle and slept like a baby.
I woke up around 7am and had a shower, but I was feeling pretty hungover and there was ice on the tent and the gound, so I ended up back in bed. When I got up again around 11am the little angels had baked me a birthday cake over the campfire - icing, candles and all! And boy did it taste fantastic. Ben and the boys went fishing while Renai and I took down the tent, which we even managed to get back in the tent bag - and we packed the car
and left around 2pm. Ben slept most of the way back to Dubbo (because he'd been drinking beer while fishing) and we got there around 7pm. We walked in to the wonderful smell of roast chicken and veges cooking - lovely Suze had cooked me a birthday dinner! And it was awesome!!! First thing the next morning we loaded up, baby Holly and all, and drove back into Sydney. It seemed to take hours and hours, but we finally got home around 7pm, cooked dinner, and fell into bed again. For me, the alarm woke me at 4am (yes, 4AM) and I hopped up, showered and caught a cab to the airport where I flew out of Sydney at 6am and arrived back in Cairns at 9am. I put my luggage in storage and caught a bus into the city to do a bit of shopping (I needed an iron amoung other things and you can't buy them in Port) and after a few hours shopping caught another bus back to the airport to collect my luggage and then another hour and a half drive back to Port.
And finally - I'm home! It was such an awesome trip
- lots of driving but well worth it to have such a great birthday weekend with good friends, and lots of laughs along the way.
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