Calliope River rest area, Land of the poor buggers!

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Calliope River rest area, is the third of our winter haunts in the Gladstone region. A well laid out rest area, perched above the Calliope River, with great river and bush views. Once again its just amazing the amount of people in all sorts of mobile homes going up and down the east coast of Oz. Every afternoon the wagon trains would rock up, in all shapes and sizes, our little billy' freedom machine, was not disgraced among the many bigger billys'. We met some 'time travelers' from W.A in a Coaster bus who have been on the road for 7 years and won't be going home to W.A, because its too far to back track, so there in some sort of time space dimension that is completely warped. It would be like Neil Armstrong after finally reaching the moon after 4 days and 186,000 miles later, deciding not to come home and setting up shop on the lunar satellite because its too far back to our blue/green space rock we call home. "ah ya big sissy, just turn the key and go west young man". I get the feeling when we head north next year, we will probably find them still caught in their weird space/time loop in central Queensland, poor buggers!.

Just nearby the rest area, we came across a mysterious bush city, housing hundreds of itinerant workers for the massive booming construction industry around Gladstone. A fully self sufficient satellite city parked in bushland. Every day busloads of FIFO's would disembark for their 3 weeks on, 1 week off shift, Whats a FIFO?, you may ask, well that's the new employment strategy by big business, Fly In Fly Out workers. Just amazing it seemed like another Neil, Neil Page (Steve Martins' character) in Planes, buses and automobiles, to watch the daily comings and goings of these other poor buggers, caught in some other sort of weird time loop, it looked a lot like my childhood ant farm project, watching all the little ants/workers going about their daily lives, except these were flying people ants. poor buggers

One afternoon, we realised just how fickle life can be, sad, sad, sad!!, if you remember our blog in the bushcamp at Tin Can Bay last year, with the little mouse getting interned in my driver side door of the Freedom Machine. Well another little mouse has had an unfortunate exit from this world, because of me, let me explain. We were camped by some long grass high on the Caliope river bank, I was straining the long pasta for the evening meal, one long strand of pasta inadvertently hit terra firma, now we all know the rules about food that kisses the dirt, it stays in the dirt. As we were dining late arvo elfresco, at the 'Long Grass' restaurant, we noticed some movement in said long grass, a little timid field mouse thought he had hit the jackpot with this 12 cm strand of freshly cooked pasta, we were marveling at how the little mouse was trying to drag this pasta strand back into the safety of the long grass, when 'WHOOSH" swooping magpie picks up mouse and pasta and flies off to nearby tree for evening meal, I feel so terrible and responsible for the demise of dermouse. 'Poor Bugger'

So I suppose, the moral of this story is, "when you roam, far from home, don't bite off more than you can chew, or a poor bugger will become of you.

Our winter journ'e has reached its northern zenith, and its almost time to turn the Freedom Machine around and make our way south for our summer camp at hometown Coraki.

So fare you all well and hope that the long time sun will shine upon us all brightly, love Morningbird and Littleflower.

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Photos

Camp at Calliope River
parked at the 'Long Grass' restaurant