Rainbow Beach, Mudjimba to Dubbo
In December as previously stated, we left Rainbow Beach to spend Christmas with our son Michael, his wife Tanya and our three gorgeous grandchildren. It had been 2 years since we had seen them last so as you can imagine, we saw how grown up they had become.
We arri
ved there on a Saturday and both Nick and Briony were to be christened in the Catholic Church. Tomeeka our lovely 18 year old granddaughter had also come up as she was to be Godmother for the two. Tomeeka had just completed her HSC and hoped to get into Uni to undertake Nursing.
The christening was lovely with Michellie (the oldest) carrying the communion wine so she had an important part to play too.
Christmas Day dawned bright and sunny and Mike and Tanya bought the kids down to the beach before breakfast for a swim. They were allowed to open a couple of Santa presents first. We had a lovely swim at Mudjimba beach which was across the road form the Caravan Park before we headed back to Mike’s for Ham and Cheese Croissants’ for brekky! After that the presents under the Christmas tree were attacked. The kid’s favourites this year were Dora the Explorer for Briony, Spiderman for Nick and Bratz for Keelie!
Just before lunch the weather began closing in and Tanya’s dad, Bill, Mike and Walter hastened to erect a tarp over the patio area as we were planning to have lunch there. Then the rain came………….and it was the last we saw the sun in Queensland! It poured rain for the next 10 days, part of that nasty sub-tropical low that came in to much of the south east Queensland coast. One night we had 80 mls rain – like being under a waterfall! Although the weather was not kind and no more swims at the beach, we had a great time with them all. We went 10 pin bowling one day, watched the cricket, played card games with the kids, ate too much and just enjoyed their company.
On the 5th January we left Mudjimba and began heading towards Dubbo. Walter had a Pre-Admission appointment on the 15th January there that he had to keep. We made some good travelling decisions and went through the Glasshouse Mountains, down beside Somerset Dam to Toowoomba, then onto Goondiwindi. We stopped the first night just in a truck stop about 65kms out of Goondiwindi. Then headed on down through Moree to Narrabri. We decided to stay a few days here as neither of us had spent any time here. It was a fascinating place.
We visited the Cotton Centre that had a very informative display from which we lear
nt a lot. We understand now much better there use of water, the technology that has gone into plant development and the uses of cotton. We drove out to Sawn Rocks, part of the Mt Kaputar National Park. These are incredible rock formations dating back to the Vulcan era, many millions of years ago. On another day, we drove out to another part of the National Park, the site of Mt Kaputar itself. Its’ about an hours drive and you climb through steep valleys and mountains with specta
cular scenic views over the surrounding plains. You can actually drive right to Mt Kaputar with only the last 100m being steps and a boardwalk. It was much cooler up there, Narrabri being about 36 degrees and on the National Park about 27! There was lots of wildlife and birds, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Goannas, King Parrots and Black Cockatoos to name just a few.
Our third day we drove out the 23kms west of the town to visit the Australian Compa
ct Array Radio Telescope. It is actually 6 telescopes, on a rail line. Very impressive and they can also work with the Radio Telescope at Parkes and the Radio Telescope at Siding Springs in the Warrumbungles. When this happens it is the same as one telescope with a diameter of 320 Kms! Amazing..
We then ambled further down the highway to one of our favourite plac
es – The Warrumbungle National Park. We spent 3 idyllic days here surrounded by the usual wildlife. One kangaroo decided that the shade under our annex was definitely to his liking! We even had a huge goanna amble through one day.
Our destination of course though was Dubbo to have Walter’s errant left hip fixed. He has really suffered in terrible chronic pain over the last 8 months. The date of the 13th February was given to him for the operation so whilst he was waiting he decided to have his eyes checked out too as he found his vision was getting blurry. He though he needed a new script! Wrong!!! They found he had a large cataract on his right eye so another operation had to be organised.
Well he has now had the “full grease and oil change” and has recovered from both ops really well. Whilst he was undergoing all this I decided that I could get a bit of casual work for the 5 weeks of hanging around and I was employed by Fletcher International Exports. This is a lamb ab
attoir where 95% of its end product goes overseas. I was working in the Cold Boning room and it entailed packing meat, and after they gave and trained me on knives, preparing it for packaging. It wasn’t rocket science but I enjoyed it. The fellow employees were many like us travelling Australia and picking up work as they go along for a couple of months. They were such a happy lot and the company has another plant over in Albany in WA and we will most likely try for work again there too when we get that side of Australia.
We left Dubbo on Friday and headed to Lochinvar to meet up with our very dear friends, Fran and Kevin and Rebecca. They have a gorgeous house and property at Lochinvar and we can park the van in the front yard.
On Saturday I travelled with Fran to Raymond Terrace to watch her with Riding for the Disabled (RDA
). Fran is sitting for her coaches exam in another 8 weeks and had the 
opportunity to attend and assist with placing wheelchair bound kids onto the horses. It was so rewarding to see these kids faces. Instead of looking up at people from their wheelchair they are looking down from the horse and interacting with these lovely animals. Some had Cerebral Palsy, one other girl about 14 years of age had been a bright and happy normal little girl and at 10 years old had had a stroke. We don’t have anything to complain about have we?
We had a great dinner out with them on Saturday night at one of the Lower Hunter vineyards called Mojo’s. Most beautiful food and fabulous presentation. We are now house sitting for them for a couple of days, feeding the dogs, Ruby and Tessa, checking the horses, Rags and Malibu, feeding and cajoling the chooks to lay eggs! Kev and Fran have gone to spend a few days at Mudgee Homestead, the most beautiful B & B where we
were married. We are looking after Becky, getting her on the bus in the mornings to go to work as well. Kev & Fran don’t really get much of a chance to be able to take any days off so this is an opportunity for them and for us to spend a bit of time in a real house. They have 12 acres with a lovely dam at the end of it, there are so many birds too. W e are spending our time in the pool or reading, a real tough life.
From here we leave Friday to go to Medowie and stay with Howard and Lyn and attend the Rotary District conference in Newcastle. It will be great to catch up with many friends before leaving for the Southern Highlands. We will be staying in Mittagong Caravan Park for 2 weeks. A chance to catch up with my Mum in Bowral before Kim and Mary Jane meet us on the second week. After they have a look around the area we will be travelling the “wallaby’ with them to Albury/Wodonga and follow the mighty Murray River all the way into South Australia. From there we will either go across the Nullarbor or north up the Centre!
In December as previously stated, we left Rainbow Beach to spend Christmas with our son Michael, his wife Tanya and our three gorgeous grandchildren. It had been 2 years since we had seen them last so as you can imagine, we saw how grown up they had become.
We arri
ved there on a Saturday and both Nick and Briony were to be christened in the Catholic Church. Tomeeka our lovely 18 year old granddaughter had also come up as she was to be Godmother for the two. Tomeeka had just completed her HSC and hoped to get into Uni to undertake Nursing.The christening was lovely with Michellie (the oldest) carrying the communion wine so she had an important part to play too.
Christmas Day dawned bright and sunny and Mike and Tanya bought the kids down to the beach before breakfast for a swim. They were allowed to open a couple of Santa presents first. We had a lovely swim at Mudjimba beach which was across the road form the Caravan Park before we headed back to Mike’s for Ham and Cheese Croissants’ for brekky! After that the presents under the Christmas tree were attacked. The kid’s favourites this year were Dora the Explorer for Briony, Spiderman for Nick and Bratz for Keelie!
Just before lunch the weather began closing in and Tanya’s dad, Bill, Mike and Walter hastened to erect a tarp over the patio area as we were planning to have lunch there. Then the rain came………….and it was the last we saw the sun in Queensland! It poured rain for the next 10 days, part of that nasty sub-tropical low that came in to much of the south east Queensland coast. One night we had 80 mls rain – like being under a waterfall! Although the weather was not kind and no more swims at the beach, we had a great time with them all. We went 10 pin bowling one day, watched the cricket, played card games with the kids, ate too much and just enjoyed their company.
On the 5th January we left Mudjimba and began heading towards Dubbo. Walter had a Pre-Admission appointment on the 15th January there that he had to keep. We made some good travelling decisions and went through the Glasshouse Mountains, down beside Somerset Dam to Toowoomba, then onto Goondiwindi. We stopped the first night just in a truck stop about 65kms out of Goondiwindi. Then headed on down through Moree to Narrabri. We decided to stay a few days here as neither of us had spent any time here. It was a fascinating place.
We visited the Cotton Centre that had a very informative display from which we lear
nt a lot. We understand now much better there use of water, the technology that has gone into plant development and the uses of cotton. We drove out to Sawn Rocks, part of the Mt Kaputar National Park. These are incredible rock formations dating back to the Vulcan era, many millions of years ago. On another day, we drove out to another part of the National Park, the site of Mt Kaputar itself. Its’ about an hours drive and you climb through steep valleys and mountains with specta
cular scenic views over the surrounding plains. You can actually drive right to Mt Kaputar with only the last 100m being steps and a boardwalk. It was much cooler up there, Narrabri being about 36 degrees and on the National Park about 27! There was lots of wildlife and birds, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Goannas, King Parrots and Black Cockatoos to name just a few.Our third day we drove out the 23kms west of the town to visit the Australian Compa
ct Array Radio Telescope. It is actually 6 telescopes, on a rail line. Very impressive and they can also work with the Radio Telescope at Parkes and the Radio Telescope at Siding Springs in the Warrumbungles. When this happens it is the same as one telescope with a diameter of 320 Kms! Amazing..We then ambled further down the highway to one of our favourite plac
es – The Warrumbungle National Park. We spent 3 idyllic days here surrounded by the usual wildlife. One kangaroo decided that the shade under our annex was definitely to his liking! We even had a huge goanna amble through one day.Our destination of course though was Dubbo to have Walter’s errant left hip fixed. He has really suffered in terrible chronic pain over the last 8 months. The date of the 13th February was given to him for the operation so whilst he was waiting he decided to have his eyes checked out too as he found his vision was getting blurry. He though he needed a new script! Wrong!!! They found he had a large cataract on his right eye so another operation had to be organised.
Well he has now had the “full grease and oil change” and has recovered from both ops really well. Whilst he was undergoing all this I decided that I could get a bit of casual work for the 5 weeks of hanging around and I was employed by Fletcher International Exports. This is a lamb ab
attoir where 95% of its end product goes overseas. I was working in the Cold Boning room and it entailed packing meat, and after they gave and trained me on knives, preparing it for packaging. It wasn’t rocket science but I enjoyed it. The fellow employees were many like us travelling Australia and picking up work as they go along for a couple of months. They were such a happy lot and the company has another plant over in Albany in WA and we will most likely try for work again there too when we get that side of Australia.We left Dubbo on Friday and headed to Lochinvar to meet up with our very dear friends, Fran and Kevin and Rebecca. They have a gorgeous house and property at Lochinvar and we can park the van in the front yard.
On Saturday I travelled with Fran to Raymond Terrace to watch her with Riding for the Disabled (RDA
). Fran is sitting for her coaches exam in another 8 weeks and had the 
opportunity to attend and assist with placing wheelchair bound kids onto the horses. It was so rewarding to see these kids faces. Instead of looking up at people from their wheelchair they are looking down from the horse and interacting with these lovely animals. Some had Cerebral Palsy, one other girl about 14 years of age had been a bright and happy normal little girl and at 10 years old had had a stroke. We don’t have anything to complain about have we?We had a great dinner out with them on Saturday night at one of the Lower Hunter vineyards called Mojo’s. Most beautiful food and fabulous presentation. We are now house sitting for them for a couple of days, feeding the dogs, Ruby and Tessa, checking the horses, Rags and Malibu, feeding and cajoling the chooks to lay eggs! Kev and Fran have gone to spend a few days at Mudgee Homestead, the most beautiful B & B where we
were married. We are looking after Becky, getting her on the bus in the mornings to go to work as well. Kev & Fran don’t really get much of a chance to be able to take any days off so this is an opportunity for them and for us to spend a bit of time in a real house. They have 12 acres with a lovely dam at the end of it, there are so many birds too. W e are spending our time in the pool or reading, a real tough life.From here we leave Friday to go to Medowie and stay with Howard and Lyn and attend the Rotary District conference in Newcastle. It will be great to catch up with many friends before leaving for the Southern Highlands. We will be staying in Mittagong Caravan Park for 2 weeks. A chance to catch up with my Mum in Bowral before Kim and Mary Jane meet us on the second week. After they have a look around the area we will be travelling the “wallaby’ with them to Albury/Wodonga and follow the mighty Murray River all the way into South Australia. From there we will either go across the Nullarbor or north up the Centre!
From the Merry Travellers
