Beyond The Blue

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DAY 383


At the beginning of our trip we did say that we would share our bad days with you, not just the good, travelling can have its bad days and we have been exceptionally lucky not to have incurred too many problems, however today actually works out to be a sad day for us.

I woke at 4.00 am this morning, and being a morning person it is the best time for me when my thoughts are crystal clear, I played the whole puzzle out, stacking the dominoes in the right order in my mind to get the outcome that was best for everyone. It is not just me that bears the ramifications of my actions, others are affected, Caroline is my main concern, and then of course Helen!

I dive into my book whilst in bed and give it an hour, soon it is time to get up and I wander in to the Kitchen and sit with Helen. I apologise to her and explain what went on and look to her for her input, soon Caroline joins us at the breakfast bar and we all discuss the situation.

Helen has said she would be quite happy for us to remain at Woodstock as she has things that need doing, but I just don’t think we can without me making a significant contribution to the farm, Helen asks me if we would like to move in to one of the vacant houses on the property, which would be nice but at this point in time I don’t think it is practical or fair.

Sadly, the only thing left to do is to leave, which is a very tough thing to do and a tough decision to make.

Caroline is terribly upset and so am I, but we are not stupid kids anymore and we have to step out again on our own, it was a plan to stay with Helen and Robert until January at Woodstock and have Christmas with them.

I again apologise to Helen for letting her down, but Helen says that she feels she has let us down, it is not a good place to be for any of us, but we must all get through this and move on. The wheat harvest, which has been the critical factor in all of this, will finish today or tomorrow, so I have at least been able to help through the most critical part.

I do a few small practical things for Helen then go and get a shower and a shave and get ready to face the day. When I get back in the bedroom, Caroline is well on with packing her case, and getting her gear together.

Apart from helping out on the farm, which I loved, we had so many things that I wanted to do over Christmas, like fit a snorkel to the Patrol and replace the suspension bushes on the trailer, and re site the spare wheel, but still these jobs can wait. Caroline also had a couple of projects that she was doing for Helen, and is disappointed as she will not be able to complete them.

I do my case, then I hitch the trailer to the Patrol and pull it to the front of the homestead, it’s a scorching hot day, everything needs taking out of the trailer and repacking, although we have got our own system sorted nicely, when we arrived we hit the ground running, well I did and we just grabbed our things then I went off for my tractor induction, organised by Jason, then I was off running, driving until 10.00pm that evening and it has been like that everyday, so as you can imagine, the trailer needed a good sort out.

With this done, we packed the car, chucked all our gear in, one of the last jobs to do was go say farewell to the dogs, we both walked over, I held Caroline’s hand to walk across the paddock she was very upset, then so was I, the dogs all got excited to see us, the line of dogs from left to right, goes Wally, Toby, Jack and Trixie, Caroline goes from right to left and I go from left to right, making sure they all get a good fuss.

Wally looks at me, hopefully that I might let him off his chain, or give him some food, what simple expectations they have, how wonderful it would be to be a dog, without the complexities of human life.

With all the dogs suitably fussed, we give Helen a kiss and a hug, we are just about to climb in to the Patrol when Josh turns up in one of the cruisers, I said that I was just about to ring him then come and find him to say goodbye, heavens we have worked hard but we have all had such a good laugh.

We shake hands and he gives Caroline a hug, I think Josh took a bit of a shine to Caroline which I thought was nice, still its hard not to take a shine to Caroline, as she is lovely.

We climb into the patrol, the last stop is to see Jason before we head out of Nangus, Helen tells me which paddock he is in, so after another kiss and a hug we thank Helen for all of her kindness and tell her to pass on our best regards to Robert and hit the road and go and find Jason in the header.

He is easy to spot, we just look in the right direction and look for a huge plume of dust, we pull in to the field and he comes towards us, with the huge beast just 5 meters away he brings it to a stop, and shuts her down, and dismounts this beast like Hannibal getting down from a great Elephant.

He comes over to us, with his big smiley face, I thank him for all of his help, he is such a capable bloke, if it hadn’t been for Jason then I wouldn’t of had a clue as to what I was suppose to be doing.

Jason thanks me for my hard work, he acknowledges that I was dropped in from a height and got going without any drama’s, he said I was more than capable which pleased me, one thing he said was if I had been working with the chaser bin today then this paddock would already be finished.

We set off down Woodstock Lane and at the T-junction turned right for Wagga Wagga. It is our intention to stay in Wagga at the Big 4 for a couple of days to work out a plan. I vaguely remember where it is as fortunately when I have been out and about with Helen we have been past it a few times, I just need to remember which end of the town it sits.

It is a very hot day, it is lunchtime the trailer is set up, we are next to the camp kitchen so we don’t bother getting out any of our cooking equipment, we open all the flaps to let some air through, the tent has been folded down for over a week now so the fresh air will do it some good.

I have some things to do in town so we head in for a look around and to get some much needed lunch as neither of us had breakfast. I went to Big W to take back the t-shirts that I bought Andy the other day, I got the wrong size, but they took them back with no dramas.

We have a drive round, but we are not to enthused to do anything else this afternoon, Andy is tired so we head back to camp for a rest.

We both suddenly feel very lost, all of this time we have had plans, no matter if they have been short term, long term or even if we have amended plans at the last minute, there has always been a plan and now we have no plan, so things need working out.

Although we both wanted to stay at Woodstock and help Helen, it would really not be fair if we were not making a significant contribution to help get things done and I cannot help wondering if the decision we made was a bit too drastic and perhaps should have been thought about, we should have had a day out to rest and work it out before making a sudden decision.

I let Susan know on Skype, she still wants us to come for Christmas, but Andy and I feel that we should just let things settle down and see where we go from here. Whatever happens I am keen on getting into Canberra to see Susan and James and we will just take things from there.

We sit in the camp kitchen in the relatively cool air that the rotary fans above us create, we update the blog and do some reading, but at some point the camp kitchen gets busy, there are some nice people that want to chat, but neither of us feel that chatty, which is unusual for us as we always have so much to say for ourselves.

When the camp kitchen got too crowded we decided to decamp somewhere else, so down the road we found ourselves sitting in the familiar place with the golden arches nursing a cup of skinny latte each. It is nice and quiet in there and we watch people come and go.

Darkness is starting to fall, so we head back to camp, we are not very hungry so just choose to have an easy tea of pasta in a packet (usually reserved for when we are away from civilisation and running out of food!), the camp kitchen is much quieter now.

When we put the light on though so that we could see to cook, the bugs came in from all sides and were dropping on the tables so as soon as we finished cooking we turned the lights out so that we could eat without the bugs dropping in our food, the last time it was this bad was in Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks in the Northern Territory.

We chat to a couple of people and then head to bed.

Although we are both tired, sleep is not going to come easy tonight.

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Photos

Woodstock
The familiar sign we sadly say goodbye to