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Published: February 15th 2009
Cyber Mantis
While I drafted the blog, I had a visitor, Cyber MantisDay 99
The last thing I remember Helen saying last night is that she wanted to have a little lie in on Saturday morning, as there were no sheep to feed.
I was out of bed at 7.00am and wandered in to the kitchen, Robert and Helen were both there, and Helen had said she had woken up at 4.00am and had not been able to get back to sleep and was shattered.
We sat around a little and had tea; Robert asked if I would let the dogs off, which ones should I let off? Oh, Toby, Wally and Trixie, but leave Kimba and Tiny in their huge pen, and Jack was still on his cushion feigning it on the veranda.
Helen asked if she could use one of the Toyota’s to take some stuff to the tip, and Robert said both are ready take which one you like. I wandered over to the sheds, Toby, Wally, Trixie and Jack all ran around me like lunatics, we opened the huge hanger type doors and 3 of the 4 dogs jumped up on to the back of the one ute, whilst Trixie jumped on the other as
Jack
Being cosseted after feigning that he was feeling poorly. they were side by side.
They can’t sit still on the back of the truck when its stationery or moving and this morning they knew they had no work and it was their doggy weekend so more time to mess about.
We drove back to Helen and loaded up all the domestic waste and Garden refuse for the tip, including 4 dogs that would not move.
Whilst Helen finished clearing out in the Garden she kindly cut some flower type things to give to Caroline as I hadn’t brought her anything for Valentines Day, Helen said “Tell Caroline they are Australian Bush Roses”. (Thanks Helen )
We pulled the Patrol out of the garage and before getting the trailer we wanted to drive down to the boom irrigator and take some pictures. We saw down by one of the gates a Sulpher Crested Cockatoo, I thought he was injured as he seemed unperterbed by us driving past and he just stayed sitting by the gate. We thought we would check on our way back up, however after a few minutes he took flight.
We checked on the water in the troughs for the lambs, as
Sulpher Crested Cockatoo
This chubby little fella did not flinch when we drove past him, we thought he was injured Robert had asked, they were all full so the lambs were happy. Some of the lambs were even standing in the feeders.
We then drove down to the bottom shed where Robert had suggested we were to park the trailer when we arrived here last week, before we opened the huge doors, I said to Caroline that “sleeping Monsters” were in side, and when we pulled opened the sliding doors, the two massive John Deere tractors were there waiting to savage us.
A couple of days before I had seen a Redback nest, and told Caroline about it, I had suggested that she bring her camera as I was going to annoy it with a piece of straw (how brave am I?).
When we found her, and this is not an exaggeration she was “big” her body was larger than usual and the red on her back was accentuated, we think she was ready to “lay eggs” or do what ever Redbacks do. If she bit you, the only place you would go is hospital, for some anti venom, or anti something.
We were heading off today for Canberra for a couple of days to see
Valentines Day Massacre
This lady would ruin your day, the surrounding web had lots of dead males... Australia’s capital city, but we are returning to Woodstock on Monday for the night as Susan, Robert and Helens daughter, whom Caroline knew through Skandia, was coming home from Nairobi for 6 weeks and as we were staying with her parents thought it would be great to see her while the opportunity was there.
Setting off just after lunch, we headed towards Gundagai with Nangus disappearing in the distance, this has been the first time I have driven the patrol in a week, and 9 days since we last towed the trailer.
Canberra, (ACT) Australia’s Capital Territory is only about 2 ½ hours away and we soon started to burn up the kilometres. Swapping after the first 70 Kliks as Caroline wanted to have a drive, I have to say I really did like the 4.2 litre Land cruiser of Roberts (talk about grunt).
We swapped back before we got in to the city, as Caroline’s excellent navigational skills were needed, if it was left to me, we would be nowhere near. Driving down the main drag towards our destination. People who were walking down the street were wearing long trousers, jumpers and coats; horror ensued. What
Boom Irrigator
This machine rotates 360 degrees irrigating the land, when it gets to the fence each set of wheels has its own gate. the hell is going on? I haven’t come to Australia to be fully dressed; I always did my best in the UK to dress down.
Fortunately we had phoned ahead to book a site not far from the CBD (Central Business District) and slightly north of the Black Mountains, so had a rough Idea where we had to go, with ease we booked in and found our pitch!!
However, a minor problem, the powered sites were all concrete and tarmac, with a small amount of dirt (not grass), we had to rotate the trailer 90 degree’s to the plot to allow us to get a couple to tent pegs in which do nothing more than define the camper trailers shape and help keep it in one place when it is windy.
Still there was no surrender, we don’t want a girly Motorhome, (well Caroline does) she wants a fully kitted our Winnebago, with Microwave, TV, DVD, Sat-Phone, somewhere to plug her hair dryer in, only probably 600,000 dollars worth, but that is not the adventure we are on.
Seriously, the appeal for the Motorhome is you just pull up, plug the power supply in and the
Gate
These are the gates in the fence that the wheels push open, go through and then close immediately the wheel has gone through. waste and “hey presto” it’s all done, whereas we have to literally unpack ours (but Caroline has been fantastic about it) just getting on with what has to be done.
Equally, I know as I have done it, the Motor homers (I am generalising) think they are superior to every one else, and so much better, but “ha” you hired your Motorhome mate and are here for probably no more than 5 weeks, We own our camper, as small as it may be and we are here as long as we want!!
We are all set, our abode is up and we have somewhere to rest our weary heads, so off we go in to town to have a look around. We dive past “Csiro” research laboratories and can see this massive structure on the skyline; so we drive up the mountain road and park, in the grounds, it’s the Telstra Tower.
On entering the tower we were directed to buy a ticket, so handed over our Australian bankcard, the teller who was minus a personality said cash only. Damn we thought we might not have any cash left, Caroline dug deep and me managed to rustle
Dividing Fence
With all the gates for the Boom Irrigator up 20 bucks, making a joke about it, but the teller did not even flinch. Up in the lift and soon we were standing outside on the tower it was quite impressive, the view was excellent and it allowed us to plan our next visit to another interesting place tomorrow.
Caroline noticed that a lot of people seemed very well dressed, as if for a posh night out and couples looking very romantic and loved up, commenting that she felt very underdressed, then remembered that of course it was Valentines Day.
Next on our agenda was food, we needed the usual staples such as milk and break, as we had not mooched around our food bin for a while we didn’t know what we had left so off to the supermarket we went. We got back at about 9.40 and went straight to bed, exhausted.
Although exhausted we both laughed when we spoke of the thought that if someone nicked the bricks under our wheels took the pegs out on the tent and then cut the rope that was holding us secure the camper trailer would have rolled impressively down the slope, and only stopping when it
Boom Irrigator
Just one section of the six arrived at the laundry. We pictured ourselves sprawled in the laundry with shreds of tent and bits of twisted metal, with one wheel left spinning and as someone looks over us to ask if we were ok to wich we respond: “got any change for the washing machine?”.
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